Grace/Righteousness

Grace/Righteousness

Righteousness, what is it? Right standing with God.

There are two types of righteousness:

1.     Works righteousness – a type of right standing that depends on doing good or doing the right thing, that we think makes us right with God.

But there is a big problem with this type of righteousness.

Rom 3:12  They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; There is none that doeth good, no, not, so much as one:

Most people think it’s alright if I just don’t do the real bad things. They think that they are ok, but this is not what God’s Word says. Some people think that in the end my good stuff will out weigh my bad stuff, but this too is wrong.

Most people are familiar with the Ten Commandments. But actually God gave Moses 613 commandments.

Jas 2:10 For whoever shall keep all the Law, but stumbles in one, he has become guilty of all.

If you just broke one law, you were guilty of all of the law. Man talk about ruff. And the penalties were bad if you broke the law. You had to get your righteousness from the law, but if you kept every law.

2.     Faith righteousness – is when you depend on and believe that your right standing with God is because of what Jesus did for you at the cross.

2Co 5:21 God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that God's righteousness would be produced in us.

Jesus suffered the penalty we should have, yet he never broke the law. The Holy Spirit was then sent into us to do in our lives what we cannot do on our own. Our right standing with God came by believing, not be our good works.

If you are someone who doesn’t trust and believe in Jesus and what He did for you, the only thing left for you is to stand before God based on your performance and works. Believe me when I tell you this, you don’t want to have to do that.

Tit 3:5 not by works in righteousness which we had done, but according to His mercy, He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

In other words if you could be right with God by your performance, Jesus would have never had to come to this earth. And if you still could, He died in vain.

It’s not what a person does or doesn’t do that makes them righteous, rather what they fail to believe.

Rom 5:12 Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death resulted from sin, therefore everyone dies, because everyone has sinned.

We were made sinners at birth with a sin nature because of Adam.  There are some false teachings about grace right now so I want you to listen very carefully with what I’m about to say. Before trusting in Christ we did some good things but it didn’t cause us to have a righteous nature. Because of Adam the sin nature, the death sentenced was passed onto all of humanity. And our ability had nothing to do with it. You were born into it.

Rom 5:17 For if, through one man, death ruled because of that man's offense, how much more will those who receive such overflowing grace and the gift of righteousness rule in life because of one man, Jesus the Messiah!

Adam got us all into a big mess, and because of what Adam did, sin was passed onto all people. But yet Jesus came, paid the price much more than those that received the abundance of grace. We must receive righteousness for it to affect our lives and eternal destination. A natural birth guarantees us a sin nature; a spirit birth guarantees us a righteous nature. This will probably upset some religious people, but with your righteous nature you’re failures can’t make you unrighteous.

Rom 3:22 God’s righteousness through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah—for all who believe. For there is no distinction among people.

Right standing with God has been paid for, but the whole world is not in right standing with God. Nothing influences your life until you believe it. And we have to believe what Jesus did for us.

Rom 10:10 For one believes with his heart and is justified, and declares with his mouth and is saved.

Isaiah 53 describes what took place on our behalf.

Isaiah 54 describes the new covenant as a result of the exchange that took place on the cross.

Isa 54:7 “For a brief moment I abandoned you; but I'll gather you with great compassion.

Isa 54:8 I hid my face from you for a moment in a surge of anger, but I will have compassion on you with my everlasting gracious love," says the LORD your Redeemer.

Isa 54:9  "For this is like the waters of Noah to me, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again spread over the earth; so have I sworn that I won't be angry with you again and that I won't rebuke you.

Isa 54:10 for the mountains may collapse and the hills may reel, but my gracious love will not depart from you, neither will my covenant of peace totter," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

What a wonderful statement from God about us!!!!

When believed how does faith righteousness help us?

1.     It secures our eternity.

2.     It changes our nature.

3.     It changes how we feel about ourselves.

Understanding that righteousness comes by believing makes me feel different, makes me think that if I’m loved by God that much, man I feel pretty good about myself. Our identity must come from God. Not stuff, people, money or etc.

Eph 2:10  For we are God's masterpiece, created in the Messiah Jesus to perform good actions that God prepared long ago to be our way of life.

We do good works because of who we are in Christ.

Any teaching that you hear out there that promotes that sin is ok and it doesn’t have destructive forces or vices is heresy.

Heresy – when you take the truth and you expand it to the place where it is no longer true.

I hope that everyone will read the following book by Dr. Jim Richards. You can find it at www.impactminitries.com. Book title: The Gospel of Peace. This book can change your life. It can change what you think and feel about yourself and God.