Apologetics Conference 2016: What Is Imputation? (John Kauer)

Imputation as Christ’s Work Credited to the Believer

I considered it a great privilege to address you this morning. I'll be doing it as an evangelist though, not as an apologist. I have learned so much over the last couple of days about these subjects, really been blessed.

I've also been blessed by just meeting you and getting to know some more Christians. There are not a lot of Christians where I live. We have, we're number one in Prozac use. Excuse me. We're also number one in the least reached county in the United States.

So we got that going for us too. So it's 0 .5 evangelical. The Southern Baptist Convention's pretty concerned about that, so they put us on the map and said we're gonna plant some churches in your county.

Well, this is exciting, I wanna get on board. So that's what I do a lot is help churches plant churches. We wanna plant churches through evangelism. So I thought that's a good model too. Not just open up the door, have a better band, and then take from all the other churches.

That's not helping anybody. So that's mainly what we do. We also, I noticed on your board, you send out short-term mission trips. So maybe you'd consider short-term mission trip to Utah and speak with Mormons.

You could stay at my house. We have a basement, that's what we do. My mom also has a house nearby. She opens up her basement. And we feed you and house you and train you on Mormonism, mainly just in the areas of salvation, how to share your faith with an LDS.

And then we send you out and you just bump into them as you go, since they're everywhere. We're gonna be talking about imputation. What is it? This is my first PowerPoint presentation. So let's see how this goes.

Yep, they saved me for last. What is it and why is it essential to the gospel message? What is it? I think Spurgeon had it easier. Okay, imputation. A definition is to credit something to someone's account.

That's exactly what it means. This is just looking it up. Credit something that you don't have to somebody's account. If I was gonna use an illustration, it'd be like a credit card. You roll into Wawa and you need some gas and you can drop one of these little cards, right?

You don't have to use cash. What are they doing? Well, they're considering you as if you had cash. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But you can even buy a motorized vehicle. You can buy a car with these credit cards.

They consider you to have thousands of dollars even. You may or you may not. That's what imputation is about. It's considering you as if you had something that you didn't. Well, what is credited to your account?

It's not money. It's Christ's work. We talk about the imputation. We say imputation of Christ's righteousness. You are considered as if you had the law-keeping record that Christ has. It's pretty good news, isn't it?

Now, this is done when you believe. When you are born again, when you're regenerated, when you have faith, however you want to explain that and express that, this is when you're considered as good as Jesus, that you have all of his works.

This isn't always been the case. Well, it's always been the case for Christianity. Let me say that. It's never the case for those who are not Christian. This is a Christian-only belief. Most religions will tell you that you're continually working and building credit to your account, and you won't be justified until the end.

There'll be a judgment at the end, and we'll see. A we'll see program. Christianity is not that at all. The Jews were trying to do this. Paul wrote to them in Romans and explained this. I bet this really made a lot of Jews hot when they heard Paul say these words.

I want you to turn in your Bible, if you would, please. I'm only gonna ask you three times to turn in your Bible, well, maybe four, I don't know. We're gonna be turning in our Bible today, so please pull it out.

I'll just wait until you get there because I want you to see it. Romans 9, 30 verses 33. Romans 9, verse 30 to 33. His ending argument in that chapter. What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith?

But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Well, why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. Just as it is written, behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

And he who believes in him will not be disappointed. You must first start with faith. You must first start entrusting all of Christ's work for you then you can get to work. You see how that works? We do work, but it is perhaps for a reward, maybe for a crown, and then we just lay it all down at Jesus' feet in the end.

So we do have works in Christian religion, but if they're not done first, if you don't first come to faith, then your works are really selfish. Your works are for you to get out of jail, to get out of hell, to make yourself a God, whatever the goal is.

Then they would be more for you instead of for God and his glory. Why is it essential to the gospel message? Well, to be brief, it's essential because God requires works. He requires works in order to consider you worthy of a blessing and to be in heaven in his holy presence.

So does everybody catch that? Yeah, I said you need good works to be saved. So I often, that's a good conversation to start with Mormons, because they're not gonna be used to that. They're gonna be used to evangelicals that say faith versus works and have this battle.

So I just cut them off and say, I'm the kind of Christian that believes that I'm saved by works. Let it sit there for a couple of seconds. Make sure they heard you. Oh, they're just not mine. They're Christ's.

They're Christ's works. Never heard of it, unless they've talked to me before. They've never heard of it, and you'll blow their mind. And then you get to work from there on how holy Christ is and how good he is and how he merited, how we can get all of his blessing.

Bacchic 113, your eyes are too pure to approve evil. You cannot look on wickedness with favor. God is holy, and you must also be considered holy to be in his presence. What I'm doing is I'm attempting to prove that we need good works to be blessed.

Deuteronomy 27, the whole chapter says, he starts off in verse one, keep all the commandments. If you don't, then there's this list of cursings. He punishes the wicked. He's not gonna let them go unpunished.

He's a just judge in that respect. Next chapter, Deuteronomy 28, he says, again, starts off, do all the commandments. This is a nicer chapter to read. Then you get all the blessings. Blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing.

Based on commandment keeping, because if you're obedient, he is a rewarder. Jesus preached a sermon, better than any sermon that we've ever heard, and Matthew 548, he concludes this little section and says, therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

He plainly states the standard. We don't have to run from that standard. We say, since God is holy, I must be holy. You're not. Doesn't bother us, does it? Because we're in Christ. If you're not in Christ, you're looking to lower the standard, a little less than perfect.

You're looking at somebody else and say, well, I'm a little bit better than this guy, so that's not the standard. It's perfection. James 2 .10, for whoever keeps the law, yet stumbles in one point, he's become guilty of all.

Is that not another definition of perfection? They don't lower the standard. They keep it high, they keep it perfect, so that we will run to the perfect one. Well, how about a chart? Let's chart it out.

That's the box on your notes, your page. Left it blank so you can fill it in. Zero is neutral. That means you have no good works and you have no penalty. So at the bottom, the worst center that you could ever think of.

He belongs on the chart somewhere there. And all of us, some of us are better centers than others. We fall into that category between zero and negative, even when we were born. And some of the righteousness would be, who has infinite positive righteousness?

Jesus, yeah. Number one answer in Sunday school? Jesus. That is the standard, to have the righteousness of Jesus. Like I said, some of us are better centers than others, but no matter what, we need God.

We need God to be merciful and forgive us of our sins. We have done things that we shouldn't have done. We've failed to do things we should have. God forgives a person of the penalty due to him for sinning.

That brings him up to neutral. It's called expiation, to expiate, or to take away that penalty. All right? This is where I hear a lot of evangelist pastors that come out, people sharing the gospel with Mormons, or even Jehovah's Witnesses, even, I don't know, doesn't really fit for a Muslim.

Fits mostly to Christian cults, because Muslims not trusting in Jesus to even do this. But anybody that's, the LDS person in you had this in common. And so when you talk to them about forgiveness of sins, and you're saying, you need to trust Jesus for forgiveness of sins, they're shaking their head, going, okay, I do.

All right, and then you get a little bit frustrated. You're like, no, you're not supposed to say you do. You're supposed to say you don't. They're saying we do, and they're all looking around, going, what do I do?

I'll take them to the Bible, and I'll show them that they don't. If you want to do the faith versus works type argument, and you can, I would suggest doing Romans 11, 6, instead of the Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.

Because of Romans 11, 6, they cancel each other out. So he says, if it's by works, it's not by faith. It's by faith, and it's not by works. And you can get them to mathematically kind of cancel each other out, and you may have a little bit better communication with them.

I skip it all together, and I just give it to them, and say, yeah, you believe that too. But where would that leave you? Oh, by the way, in theology, that's called the passive obedience of Christ. That's all the suffering.

That's the things that were done to him. He allowed things to be done to him. He allowed himself to be mocked, and betrayed, and beaten. Smashed some crowns onto his foot. That's the stuff that we deserve.

We deserve that punishment, but he took it. Even crucifixion, et cetera. So that's his passive obedience. Things allowed to him. Allowed to suffer. Been reading 1 Peter lately. It talks a lot about suffering.

It's that passive obedience. There's passive obedience for us, too. When trials and things come, and we're persecuted for doing good, we suffer through it. We endure it. That's a passive obedience. We have that in common.

We fill up the sufferings of Christ. Well, he also lived 33 perfect years of obedience in our place, as well. So, do you ever wonder why Herod wasn't able to find Jesus in Bethlehem? If he was at his Herodium, it's not too far away.

You can go there today. You're standing in the Herodium. It looks like a building built to observe stars. A big circle, and east and west, and you can see up there the stars. Anyway, from their vantage point, he can see Bethlehem.

It's just right over there. It says, send all the guards out and kill all the baby boys. Why didn't that plan work? Why wouldn't it work, you know? I say, because he needed to fulfill the law for his people.

And so, I think it could work for expiation of sins. They could've taken a baby, put him on the cross, put all the sins on him, killed him. I think, theoretically, it could've worked. Of course, we have problems with prophecy and things like that, but just, that could've worked.

But what would've left us, I think it would be, just at neutral, he'd be able to take away our sins, but he hadn't done any good works yet. And so, he lives 33 years to obey the law completely, perfectly, in the place of his people.

So, he is the second Adam. Adam failed in doing it. Imputation, crediting the work to you, bringing you to that perfect standard. That's why we don't have to lower the standard. We're taking all of Christ's work, applying it to ourselves, being credited with that.

That's the act of obedience. So, every time he prayed, it was perfect. It was for the right thing, for the right motive, according to God's will. He even woke up at three o 'clock in the morning, took a hike, went and prayed, came back to the town, and said, guys, we're packing up, we're leaving.

Remember that? I always find that amazing. I'm an organized accountant type of person. So, I would've been right there with the disciples, woke up early. We've got the blind, B, you're in the front of the line, we're gonna do some healings today.

We got lame, L, leper, L-E, you're after the lame. I know this wouldn't be in Greek, but, you know, all organized, and Jesus says, I came down from praying, I woke up. We're kinda wondering where you were anyway, but we've got it set up.

He says, no, we're not doing healings today. We're going down the road. I have some people I need to preach to. You did all this work. So, even the good things he did, he could've done other good things.

So, the good, good things that he did, you know exactly what to do. You get my point? You know exactly what to do, when to do it. He's following God's will perfectly. None of us do that, not even on our best days.

I would've been just like the disciples. I'd have been asleep. You're waking me up. Why won't you pray with me? I think the best verse, if you're just gonna have one verse, you wanna open your Bible to that one verse and share the gospel with somebody, definitely 2 Corinthians 521 says it all, just in the one verse package.

Go ahead and turn there, 2 Corinthians 521. It has both the imputation of righteousness and the expiation of sin, right in one verse. 2 Corinthians 521. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

He made him who knew no sin. Well, definitely that qualifies him to be a sin bearer since he doesn't have any sin to take care of for himself. But what does that also say? If he knew no sin, then he must've kept all the, again, so I guess it's sandwiched here.

So he becomes sin in our place, on our behalf. That's the expiation. And then it brings it back again, the purpose clause, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Well, is the righteousness of God just the absence of any error?

It's more than that. He's never done anything wrong. All of his decisions are right, all of the time. That's the standard, to be in his place, to be in fellowship with him. All right, let's find Isaiah 61 .10.

Oh, I did want to comment, a little side note. The in him passages, those are really fun. If you want to do a nice little Bible study, or if somebody asks you, can you do a devotion, go ahead and do the in hims.

If you find it, you will find it in him that you were, and this is the union of Christ, would be the technical topic, but you were united in Christ before the foundations of the world. Huh? You were united with him in his life, in his death, in his resurrection.

And some now, we are seated here, but we're seated in heaven, too, in him. Lot of good stuff right there. A lot of protection, a lot of security, a lot of assurance. You know, basically, whatever the world has to throw to you, well, come on, I'm ready for it, I'm in him, right?

That's a safe place. Isaiah 61, please turn there, too.

Isaiah 61, verse 10.

You see, the righteousness that is imputed to us, credited to our account, is a foreign righteousness. It means it doesn't belong to us, but it belongs to Christ. We wear it. Isaiah 61, 10. I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.

He has wrapped me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. You see, that's an external righteousness. We wear Christ.

Now, if you have just a plain Bible, no study notes, then you can have Isaiah 61 and Isaiah 64 open at the same time. Again, this would be a fun little evangelism place to go. You can go to 2 Corinthians 5 .21, you can go to the Old Testament.

Maybe this would be good for Jewish people. So you're at 61 .10, that's the good news, right? Look over at 64 .6, okay? So if you have an ESV study Bible, then you have to turn 20 pages to get there, so.

But I don't recommend you take your ESV study Bible. First of all, they're way expensive, they're way heavy. So unless you're just working out, you're on the football team. So get yourself a little Bible like this would be good for the street, you know?

And also, you can hand it to the person, and they can read it. I think that's very powerful when you ask somebody to read the Word of God, and they get to read it for themselves. So you're handing them a little Bible, you got it opened up for them, it's really simple.

So think of that other person as you're presenting. But here's the bad news. Look, Isaiah 64 .6, oh boy, I'm getting points docked off. Here we go, that's okay. Jesus already preached the best sermon ever, you know?

And I get that credited to my account, I'm okay. You're so generous of an audience. Thanks so much for encouraging me. Okay, Isaiah 64 .6, for all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment, and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind take us away.

That's the bad news. So if you want to add something, what are you going to be adding? Like dirty underwear, right? Who gets married in dirty underwear? Or, I don't know, nobody does. But I like to tell folks that I'm witnessing too, is you have to come to God naked.

You can't wear those funky rainbow socks with the toes, remember those? I'm 40, so I see some gray hairs. You remember those, we got them for Christmas, we all like to run around with the funky rainbow socks.

Can you imagine that underneath your wedding garment? Like your wedding dress? Check out my socks, ridiculous. No, you come naked, that's okay, right? You don't mind coming to God naked, because he's going to give you his robe of righteousness.

It's very difficult for somebody in a workspace religion to think, I have to give up everything, I got to come naked, can I just bring a little bit, a little something? No, you can't. So, while we're speaking to a Latter-day Saint, I could use their own articles of faith.

This is their doctrinal statement. It's pretty short, check out article three here. It's on the atonement of Christ. We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind can be saved, may be saved.

Not too bad, right? See, with a cult, you have to read all the way through, you have to continue reading, and read carefully. This is what the rest of it says. By obedience to the laws and the ordinances of the gospel.

So the atonement they need. So don't say that you don't believe that Christ died on the cross or something like that. They need that, they believe in that. But the means in which they are going to get the benefits is by obeying laws and ordinances of the gospel.

Well, what are those? I just listed a couple, put them on the chart here. We have faith, baptism, laying on of hands to receive the Holy Ghost, and temple work. All of these have one thing in common. You need a priest for baptism, you need a priest to lay hands on you, you need a priest in temple work.

They need a man. They need a man to get right with God instead of just going to Jesus alone. That's not to say they're not trusting in Jesus for anything. They are trusting Christ in for something. Do you notice that they fall short?

They would have a lot more works than that just for the interest of the slide, but they're expecting to get a little bit of grace to top them off in the end. So, many Mormons, especially those who are in BYU where I'm at, the professors like to write books and preach sermons and even have Christians and debate, and they say, we can't be saved apart from grace.

We're expecting grace, that God be gracious to us. How gracious? Just a little bit, or a lot if they're lazy, but a little bit. I like to say, I worked at Baskin-Robbins for three years, when I was in high school, and we just topped it off with whipped cream.

That's what I think. The bananas, that's your part. Ice cream, your part. Topping, your part. Then Christ is just going to come after that and just top it off with a whipped cream. So, they're expecting that little top off at the end.

Where is their hope? Yeah, they're really hoping that they're going to be able to accomplish everything they're supposed to do, and then they're hoping that Christ will top off the end. Okay, does that help?

Because I find a lot of people telling Mormons they don't believe this stuff, and if you know exactly how to say it and what they believe, you're really going to be quoting from their own book, the 2nd Nephi 25 -23.

This is a really popular scripture. By the time they're 10, they'll have it memorized. So, write a little note on there if you want to use it, basically. For we know that it's by grace that we are saved.

I told you they believed in grace. Read again, keep reading. That's what you expected, right? After all we can do. So, another thing I like to ask an LDS person is, wouldn't it be good if you could be saved before all you could do?

You know, just throw that out there. Would that be good? That'd be good news, wouldn't it? Okay, that would be great news. That means that you would be trusting in 100 of Christ's work. Takes you from the neutral, imputes all of his work to you, then you're considered as good as Jesus.

Okay? What if Christ's work can be applied to your account? Love to ask that question. Would that be good news? And again, I blew their mind twice in one place. Just blowing their mind. They're like, I never thought of that.

Never done, you know. And go ahead and walk them through some of those scriptures that I put on the page for you. Let them see that it is possible. You know, Romans four. Abraham believed that it was credited to him as righteousness.

And then he demonstrates it's not by works that you would do that, because that would be a wage. So be prepared to walk them through some verses on imputation. But you must come empty-handed. Here's where I like to make sure, when I'm talking about the substitutionary atonement of Christ and the work is the life that he did on our behalf, I want to make sure that they understand the quality and quantity of Christ's work.

I want to build him up. I want to make him look really good, right? And so I'll talk about the praying, like I had said, that he prayed better than we ever. He preached the best sermon. When he memorized scripture, he memorized all of it.

You know, huge. All of Pentateuch, you know. He beat us in everything. And then, and as far as the quantity of work goes, I know Andrew asked last night, did anybody raise anybody from the dead? I was sitting in the front.

I didn't see anybody. Did anybody raise their hands? So I assumed anybody did, but. How about spit on some mud, put it on a blind man's eyes, and say, if you go wash, you'll see. Anybody done that? And so the quantity of work exceeds ours.

The quality of work exceeds ours. Why wouldn't you just trust in his work alone? They will always agree that Christ has never broken a commandment. They'll always agree in that. So you just have to get them to think of, well, what if he could give that to you?

But are you willing to come empty-handed? Here's the tough one. It's a tough sell when I give a call to the gospel. It's expensive. This is what it's gonna cost them. Are you consider all your temple work a waste of time?

Because it is, isn't it? How about laying on the hands or see the Holy Ghost? Do you consider yourself right now to not even have the Holy Ghost? How about your baptism? You understand if you come to Christ and you ask him for everything, you're gonna need to be baptized again because your baptism was for you.

This baptism is to tell everybody that you have been, you died and you rose again just like Christ in newness of life. You're gonna have to get another baptism. You're ready to throw yours away? Wow, they really identify with that, by the way.

They wear that one proudly. Your faith. Well, your faith has been in you. Your hope has been in that you will do enough. You didn't even have the right faith. Not to mention that you're not even worshiping the right God, but see the point?

Pull, I wanna pull that all that down. Pull all of that structure down so that we can rebuild. Are you willing to throw it all away? Turn to Philippians chapter three. We'll finish right here. Getting pretty heavy in the evangelism conversation right now and telling them to throw everything away, especially if they're an older gentleman.

They've given thousands of dollars. They've given all this time. They've been a bishop, a mission president. They receive a lot of recognition with their friends, all their golfing buddies, their family.

It costs someone who's in a cult a lot when they leave. It costs them a lot. Be sensitive to that. So, if you can lighten up, you can say, hey, I'd like to share one more verse before we leave. Paul was willing to give everything up.

He considered everything poo. There it was. So, if you can say poo, it just makes, you know, lighten it up. He considered everything poo. So, he was born with the right people. He was very, well, I'll just read it.

Let's just read it. Finally, we're at Philippians three, verse one and nine. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same thing again, I'm no trouble to me, and it's a safeguard to you.

Beware of the dogs. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the false circumcision. For we are the true circumcision, who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. Here's the list. Circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to the righteousness, which is in the law, found blameless.

Here's the contrast. But whatever things were gained to me, those things I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in the view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

Sorry, I failed to mention why I put all of these scriptures on your paper for you if you wanna make some notes quickly. The Romans passage and the, yeah, the Romans passage there, that's somebody who is kind of a thinker, so I would use that particular passage, the Romans 4 passage, as a thinker.

Philippians 3, if you're working with somebody that's very proud, see, within the conversation, you need to be listening to them and find out what they are trusting in. So if they're very proud that their last name's Romney, or they're very proud that they can trace their lineage back to Smith or something, this might resonate with them.

Have they been on a mission trip before for two years? This may be something that this verse may really speak to them. You wanna use the right verse at the right time and have the Holy Spirit to do that.

Matthew 22, Isaiah, those are more illustrations. That's your wedding banquet. That's the fellow that came in with his dirty overalls. He wanted to go to the banquet. Everybody else said, no, I'll take it all off.

I'll put on the clothes that you give me. So they're all at the banquet, and the Lord of the banquet comes up to him and says, who let you in here? Get out of here. You are going to outer darkness. It even uses their terms.

Kind of nice, kind of convenient. You think, wow, that's kind of harsh. He just, he wouldn't wear the right clothes. He goes to outer darkness? Yeah, yeah, it's called obedience. You needed to put the wedding garment on.

That's an illustration. So if the person is not, you know, words are really, I don't know, if you needed to talk illustration, and they're like, oh, I love illustrations. Boom, use one. You've got it, okay?

So Isaiah makes a picture of Christ, and in there it talks about making people righteous, crediting them righteousness, okay? So Galatians, again, fun stuff there. That's why I gave you multiple verses.

Psalm 118 is a psalm of ascent. That's what a Jew would memorize and quote it when he's going from the gate down at the pool at the bottom of the hill. He's traveling all the way up to the hill, and he gets to the mikveh.

He takes off his dirty clothes, goes down one side of the stairs, cleanses himself in the water. He comes out the other side of the stairs, supposedly clean, puts on clean clothes, runs up through the double gate.

They're not gonna let you in there with your old, cheap, stinky clothes, right? You needed to have washed. You needed to have prepared yourself before you're allowed to go on the Temple Mount. Same thing, Psalm 18 talks about the gate of righteousness.

So they talk about the dung gate. Guess what comes out of the dung gate? Fish gate, guess what goes in the fish gate? Sheep gate, they all have names. Righteous gate. You gotta be righteous to go into that gate.

I think Jesus is standing there, and he's saying, he's declaring, I consider him righteous, come on in. I consider her righteous, come on in. I consider you righteous, come on in. Why? Because you've been cleansed, you put on some clean clothes, you put on his garment of righteousness, now you're allowed to come right in.

So explain that, express that as an illustration. Let them see that, invite into that. Exalt Christ and his works, and then just make that transition to, you can be considered today to be as good as Christ Jesus.

Oh, I did fail to put one more point. Let's see, I still have 16 minutes. I won't take them, but this is, if you hadn't noticed, this is an outer garment. It's very important, so I didn't say you were righteous.

I didn't say you were as good as Jesus. It's outer, it's what you wear. So it's not an infusion, it's not an impartation. We're not Roman Catholic. This righteousness that we're trusting in is something that we wear, it's on the outside.

So make sure that you're using your words carefully. Again, you could use this concept too, Roman Catholic. You're not eating Jesus every week, and then becoming more inside as good as he is. No, you're wearing it.

Don't eat the clothes, just wear the clothes, okay? You're wearing it, you never take it off, it's imputed to you, you're always good. You're not losing a little, you're not gaining a little, you're always there.

Now, in sanctification, I understand. There is plenty for us to do and get busy to doing and gaining in righteousness, but I always think of, if I had a trampoline, and I place it on the tallest building there is, I'm jumping up and down, so I'm getting even taller than the tallest building I could.

I'm getting closer and closer to Jesus, right? But remember, he's like way, way out there. So you're never gonna get there, yeah? I'm not discouraging you from doing good works. We're doing good works all the time.

But remember, the standard is perfection. We're never gonna get there. So even this doctrine can help us in our sanctification and in our walk. If you're at a church that says you have to be there every time the doors open, and you have to be wearing a dress if you're a lady, and you have to be wearing a tie if you're a man, and you gotta be reading a certain scripture, and you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, and it's beating you down, find another church, right?

This is the gospel. If you find a church that'll be preaching to you that you have all of Christ's righteousness, now you're free to mess up. I'm free to come up here and mess this up. I don't want to.

Been praying all week, I wouldn't. But I'm free to do that. So it frees you up to get out there and share the gospel and fumble around. I've done it. I've done it. I've said that Christ rose from the dead.

No, Christ, yeah, Christ rose from the dead, and then he died for the salvation of sins, and they all looked at me, and I was, well, wait a minute, did I say something wrong? Yeah, I got him in the wrong order.

That's all right, hey, I'll fix it. You can mess up. It's okay. It's all right, you don't want to. You pray for holiness, you strive for holiness, you fight for holiness. It's always a fight, but I tell you, if you're in a place where they're telling you you're going to arrive at Christ's likeness before you depart from this world, run.

It's not the gospel. I'm putting you under the law. Don't let them do that.