Faith in the Risen Christ — Alan Martin

Prayer for Righteousness Through the Spirit

Let us pray. Father, You can breathe upon our understanding. You can strengthen us with power through Your Spirit in our inner man so that Your Son can dwell in us by faith. And we acknowledge that it's that dwelling, Your Son dwelling in us, that that's where we become Your righteousness in Him.

We long to see the display of Your righteousness in our lives, in our thoughts. We long to see Your righteousness in our relationships with our wife and our husbands. We long to see Your righteousness in the relationship with us as parents and our children.

We long to see Your righteousness in our children. We long to see Your righteousness in the fellowship of Your saints. We long for You to have a testimony of what You accomplished in Christ. We long to have a finished faith so that Your wisdom and Your understanding, Your righteousness, Your goodness, Your power can be consistently displayed in an evident way.

We acknowledge, Father, we don't have to tell You that we're weak, but I thank You that You said that's where Your grace is made perfect. Your strength is made perfect and You have given us a sufficient grace.

You said that where sin abounded, and we can all acknowledge, Father, everyone here will acknowledge that sin has abounded, but You said where sin abounded, grace would abound even more. And You said that in the same way that we were like Adam, sinners by nature, because of one man's disobedience, You said in the very same way through the obedience of Your Son, we would become righteous by nature.

And You've told us that we're to be renewed in knowledge in the image that You created us to be. We're to bear Your image. And we know it's Your will that here in this area in Fredericktown, in Perryville, in Patton, in Jackson, in Marble Hill, in Cape, in Farmington, in Park Hills, in Buffalo, in Kentucky, it's Your will that Your manifest righteousness be evident.

That in these earthen vessels, the excellency of the power You have given us in Your Spirit would be what's evident. That's what's evident. That's the treasure You've given us. And Father, those things in our lives, unbelief, dullness of hearing, undisciplined, sluggishness, neglect, the things that would hinder and quench and grieve the work of Your Spirit, the things that would resist You working in us both the will and to do of Your good pleasure, in Your mercy, through the meekness and lowliness of Your Son, but the power of Your Spirit, touch those areas, Lord, and help all of us see those areas where we have hindered, we have resisted Your chastening and Your guidance.

Thank You for Your gentleness. Really, Your gentleness is what's made us great. You stoop down to make us great. And I'm just grateful, and I want to thank You for such a great salvation. I want to thank You that everything necessary for life and godliness has been provided.

We lack nothing. More than we need, You've already provided us in Your Son. But we're slow to learn. And we are like Your disciples, foolish. We need You, and we're so thankful that You have given Your Holy Spirit to come alongside us like those two disciples on the road to Emmaus and open the Scriptures to us.

Cause our hearts to burn within us. Show us all things about Yourself. Open our eyes to where we realize You are alive and we can walk with You. You've not left us as orphans, but You Yourself have come to us.

You dwell in us. Give us, Father. Forgive us for living as if You were way up there when You said You have brought Your righteousness near. Your grace is more than sufficient and Your righteousness is near.

And the ministry of Your Spirit makes it all ours. Would You do this morning in us? Remind us, remind us, Father, through Your Spirit of all the things You have spoken unto us. Bring glory to the Lord Jesus by taking from what is His and making it known unto us.

All that is Yours, Father, all that is Yours You desire for us to know it. To know it, to have it in this life. So that we, this people, this little assembly, this small group in this small place would be for the praise of Your glorious grace.

And we don't ask this name to make a name for ourselves, Father. Our name is just like Jacob. That's what it is. We are carnal in and of ourselves and we confess before You there is nothing good in and of ourselves.

But You've overcome that. You've overcome it. You've given us a new heart and a new spirit. You've written Your laws upon our hearts. You move us to walk in Your commandments. You circumcise the old heart of flesh.

We are new creatures in Christ Jesus. But Father, what are these truths if they're not reality? Save us. Save us, Father, from being hearers only. Save us from agreeing with our lips, but disagreeing with our feet.

Bring us into the blessing of those who do Your commandments. Those who live by Your Spirit. Teach us how to keep in step with them this morning, even, Father, for Your goodness. We know that there is no life in words of men.

The Spirit, Your Spirit, is who makes a life. The flesh profiteth nothing. The flesh of me, Alan Martin, profiteth nothing. This mind profiteth nothing to these saints here. If you don't speak, if your Spirit does not impart grace, if you don't draw men, if you don't reveal yourself, our efforts are in vain.

But, Father, build Yourself a house. Bring Yourself glory. Cause Your name to be honored. Cause Your Word to be trembled at. Cause the truth to pull down the vain imaginations we have built to excuse our spiritual poverty.

Righteousness of Faith in Romans 10

Bring us to that place where we can humble ourselves and draw near unto You so You can fill us with Your grace. And exalt us, not for our sake, but for Your sake, as He sings in Jesus' name. Amen. In Romans chapter 10, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law. The man who does these things shall live by them. But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way. Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven?

That is, to bring Christ down from above. Or who will descend into the abyss? That is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? What does the righteousness of faith say? The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.

That is, the Word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and then I want you to notice the next statement, and believe in your heart what? You know, a lot of preaching makes this, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins.

Have you noticed that that is the bulk of a lot of preaching? But that's not what this says. And it's very critical to understand why. That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is... What does is mean?

Present. Present tense. Jesus is Lord, and that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. I wonder how many people will go to hell who believe that Jesus died for their sins. But do not believe that He is Lord, and that He has been risen from the dead, because as great, as great as His death was, there's something greater.

That's what Paul said. Flip back to Romans chapter 5. There's something far greater than His death. There's something even far greater than the fact that we have been justified by His death. We forget too easily that forgiveness and atonement for the sins of ignorance was present in the first covenant.

Psalms 103. Don't turn there. I'm just going to quote it. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless the Lord, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not none of His benefits.

What's the first benefit mentioned? Who forgives all my sins. That was in the first covenant. There's something greater than forgiveness of sins in the second covenant. And Paul mentions it here in Romans.

Justification and New Life in Christ

If you look in Romans 5, let's start with verse 6. For when we were still without strength... Can you notice something there? There's a tense in there I want us to get. It's past tense. John, you were without strength.

I don't want to hear people... People shouldn't be saying, I am without strength. Do you have Christ in you? You can say, you are without personal strength. But the Scripture says in Christ, let the weak say, you were without strength.

Christ died. In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. You were ungodly. God forbid that we are ungodly. We were without strength. We were ungodly when Christ died for us. For scarcely, verse 7, a righteous man will one die.

Yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Now, that's the way I choose to say it. I do not go around describing myself as a present sinner.

Paul is not arrogant. And he's saying, and this is plural, whoever he was talking about, they were sinners, and he's not calling them that anymore. I like to agree with him. They were sinners. They're not still sinners evidently, or he wouldn't have said they were.

While you were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by His blood. Justified. Justified is the Greek verb of the form righteous, the noun righteous. And it does mean that you are pardoned, you are forgiven.

It is as if you had never sinned. But it is more than just a judicial pardon. It is an impartation of power to do what's right. You have been made righteous. Your nature has been changed. A new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, a new propensity to do what's right.

You've been justified. You've been righteous. It's a new life. If you are in Christ, you are a new creature. Old things are passed away. Most things have become new. Well, then stop living like most things.

Every one of you that said, oh, live that way. By faith, that everything in your life has been made new. He goes on to say, much more than having been justified by His blood, shall we be saved from wrath.

How are we saved from wrath? Again? Through Him. Him is a personal pronoun referring to Jesus. You are not saved through a faith in the cross. You're going to be saved from God's wrath by the Person of Jesus.

How is the Person of Jesus going to save us from God's wrath? Him living inside of us is going to cause us to do what He does by nature, right things, good things, obedient things, so that God's wrath is going to come on the sons of disobedience.

So in Him, we become the sons of obedience. Therefore, we will not suffer God's wrath because Christ is in us. God is in us doing His will and His good pleasure. He's at work in us to do His will and His good pleasure.

And when Christ dwells in us, in Him, we're saved from wrath because we no longer do the things. It says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all manner of ungodliness and wickedness.

And when Christ dwells in you, you don't walk in ungodliness and unwickedness. So you don't have the wrath of God. You have a relationship with the Father. And in love, you obey Him as sons. And you serve Him in the way of the Spirit.

And it's from one degree of glory to another. It's not the old written code that brought condemnation and made us more conscious of sin. It is the new and living way of the Spirit and it makes us more conscious of Him.

And we see Him. And we see in His face the glory of God. And when we behold it, when we look steadfastly into it, what happens? We are transformed into the same image. The same image. We begin to be renewed in knowledge in the image of our Creator.

He's called us. He's predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son. And He goes on to say, I'll read verse 10 again. Romans 5 .10, "...for if when we were enemies...". Actually, I don't think I read it yet.

Let me read verse 9 and 10 together. "...much more than having been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled...".

This is an interesting statement. You've already been reconciled, but what's going to happen? We shall be saved how? Do you realize that even though you've been reconciled to God, you still need to be saved?

"...they shall call His name Jesus.". Because Jesus will do something. Jesus means something. Yeshua means what? Savior, Deliverer. And what does the Deliverer deliver us from? Sin. He shall save, He shall deliver His people away from their sins.

You see? Do some of us? I still need to be saved. I want to be saved. I want to be being saved. I do not want a single sin in my life. And you know who else would agree with that? My wife doesn't want it there either.

She doesn't mind at all that I pursue being perfect. My children really don't mind if I pursue being perfect in Christ. If I come to the place whereby His grace, I never am unkind again. I don't think she'll mind.

I don't think she even minds that being my goal. Because you know what I need for that? See, for that, I need more than a doctrine. To be perfect and to walk blameless and to be freed from sin's power, I need a greater power than sin.

The Resurrection and the Firstfruits of New Life

I need Christ who is the wisdom of God and who is the power of God dwelling in me by His Spirit. We celebrate the resurrection, do we? Easter Sunday. We celebrate the resurrection. Well, according to that which was, Passover has been.

Passover lamb was slain. Feast of unleavened bread is begun. And three days into the feast of unleavened bread, there comes another feast. Familiar with what that is? The feast of firstfruits. Where the Jews were told to take some of the early grain and before they begin to use it, they were to go before the temple and they were to take some of that grain and they were to produce a wave offering before the Lord.

And on the first day of the week, which is the feast of firstfruits comes, our Lord was the firstfruit that rise from the dead. The firstfruit means there's more fruit to come. And He intended for us to be fruits of the resurrection.

That's the fruit He intended us to walk in. The fruit of those who've been raised out of the dead unto life. That's what we're supposed to celebrate. And look, right here in Romans 6. With me. Would someone mind getting me a drink of water?

Dying to Sin and Walking in Newness of Life

Let's start with verse... Let's just read the chapter. Romans 6 at the first of the chapter. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? I like what the Greek says,. And may it never come to be.

May this not become. Now, can we please agree on something? That when you continue to live in sin and you thank God for His forgiveness, you think you're magnifying the grace of God? I'm sorry, that's not magnifying the grace of God.

The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. And to live soberly, righteously, and godly. And when we live soberly, righteously, and godly, we are magnifying the grace of God. Because only the grace of God can make that possible.

The blood of bulls and goats could remind you of sin. The blood of bulls and goats were sufficient to forgive you for sins you committed in ignorance. But it takes the grace of God to make you righteous.

And purify your conscience from dead works. So that you can serve the living God. Verse 2, I'll read verse 1 again. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not.

How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? And it's interesting. Notice that sin is here in the singular. Sin is represented here as the power who ruled us. We can't live in the power who ruled us any longer.

We died. Verse 3,. Or do you not know that as many as of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father...".

Now, the key I'm going to back up. When it says, just as, I want you to say, I am. We sing a song. That's what he's saying. Just as He was, I am. That's the point of just as. Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united together with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin.

Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. You want to celebrate the resurrection? This is the celebration of the resurrection.

Death no longer has dominion over Him. Death no longer has dominion over Him. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies.

Where are we not to let it reign? What's a mortal body? The one that you have now. Death no longer has mastery over Him. Death has no dominion over Christ. In the same way, sin has no dominion over you.

That's the teaching. This is the understanding of the Apostle Paul. What do we do when the truth tells us we're free and our experience tells us we're slaves? Thank you. You repent. Your experience does not change the Scripture.

Sin shall not reign in this mortal body. We'll be tempted. We will suffer being tempted. We are weak in our natural selves. We are subject to weakness like the rest of creation. As long as we live in the tent of this body, we groan and we'll suffer because of temptation.

But how was our Lord made perfect? Through the things He suffered. And He suffered being tempted. So we will be made perfect, we will mature, we will be made complete in the same way He was. We will suffer and we will find grace because our Father has promised not to ever allow us to be tempted above what we're able to bear, but in every single temptation He provides a way of escape that we may bear up under it.

So, can I just say this? Freely, without any shame, potentially, you or I never have to sin again. That's genuine freedom. You have been set free. If sin is no longer your master, you have permission to say, no sir.

You can tell sin when He seeks dominion, when He wants back in, when He wants control again, you can look at Him and say, no, I serve a risen Savior. I have been bought with blood. I serve Jesus Christ and I'm free.

This is the life. This is the life. This is the celebration of the resurrection. When you and I so live in the grace that our Father has given us in Christ, living under this grace, we are no longer under sin.

And the resurrection of Christ is glorified in us daily. This is what Paul prayed for, the Ephesians, that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened in order that they would know what is the hope of their calling, the riches of the glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the all-surpassing power or the incredibly great power usward in Christ.

That power which is like the mighty working of God when He raised Christ from the dead. The resurrection power of God in Christ is usward to give us victory over sin. Christ Himself, through His Holy Spirit, His presence, His abiding presence, that's what John says, the person who has been born of Him cannot go on sinning because He who was born of God abides in Him.

And He keeps Him safe. And He does not let us just continue to sin. That can't happen when Christ is dwelling there. Now, the Holy Spirit has come. Christ raised from the dead so that He could do what?

Prove that He didn't stay dead? Is that the only reason He rose from the dead? To prove that He didn't stay dead? Or did He have something else to do? Something that He said is actually better than Him staying.

He had to go to the Father. And why was it better for Him to go to the Father? So that He could send the Spirit of the Father, and therefore, all that the Father has, all the glory of the Father could be made known to us because each of us can have all of Christ, all the time, all by ourselves.

Something the old covenant never dreamed. Dwelling in us. The tabernacle of God is with men. We are the temple of the living God. Living in us glorifies Himself. This is the treasure we have in earthen vessels.

That's the treasure we have. And if we're really going to magnify and boast in and rejoice in the resurrection of Christ, we'll do so by walking in freedom. You've been called under liberty. Liberty from sin.

You use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but what? In love. You live by the Spirit. Keep in step by the Spirit because in Romans 8, just one more Scripture. Romans 8. Then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Can you just accept this by faith? If the Spirit of God dwells in you, you're not in the flesh. I don't think I'd be blaming my flesh on things I do.

If the Spirit of God dwells in you, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.

But the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Hear me real quick. There's a verse that comes to my mind. The Spirit is life because of righteousness. Why would he make that statement? Because if you remember what Paul wrote in Galatians 3, if a law had been given that could impart life, righteousness would have come by the law.

But the law is not living. It's just basic principles. It's not alive. It agrees with God. And it's good. The principles are good, but they are not living principles. The righteousness of God must come from the life of God.

And the Spirit is life because it's the only way we'll ever be righteous. The life of God by the Holy Spirit filling us produces the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control, and against such things, no law.

We escape the corruption of the world which is in the world through lust by what? Being made partakers of the divine nature. We partake of God's life by His Spirit. The first Adam was made a living soul, but the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.

And what does it take to produce righteousness? God's life. And it's ours. That's a celebration. My freedom I celebrate. Let's give thanks to our Lord. We thank You, Father. We thank You for Your wonderful plan that all of You can be made available to all of us.

Your mind, Your purity, Your power, Your wisdom, everything You call good, everything that works good, You've given to us in Your Son. You've given to us by Your Spirit. Oh, Father, help us, Lord, to grow in Your Spirit, to receive Your Spirit, to be filled with Your Spirit.

Baptize us in Your Spirit.

Yes, such a merciful God. A good Father. And You send Your Spirit to those who ask. And Lord, we ask, God, that You would pour out Your Spirit upon us without measure. God, we desire to know You. We want to be close to You.

We don't want to stay in this election state that we've been in. Lord, we want to know You. And the only way we can know You is by Your Spirit. And Lord, we thank You for Your Spirit. We thank You that You sent Your Spirit.

And You poured out Your blood so that You could make us righteous and righteous.