Becoming the Righteousness of God

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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April 5, 2015

00:03: One of the things that some ministers are really really good at and I am NOT is preaching with a microphone in my hand Some guys just really have it with it You know, they get up there and they have the mic and that's just the way that they're used to almost, you know That's just their method.
00:20: So I feel a little awkward I must admit But I'm going to do my best because I want you to be able to hear me even over the traffic as it goes by in this our outdoor service So we're going to begin our Study of the word today by turning our attention to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 If you have your Bibles you can open up with me there in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 we have Over this past week We've looked at a couple of texts of Scripture and we have spent some time Devoting ourselves to what the Apostle Paul Told us was his main focus in ministry and in 1st Corinthians 2 2 He says I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified So starting Tuesday night, we spent time looking at John's Proclamation of Jesus that's John the Baptist when John the Baptist is on the banks of the Jordan he's baptizing and here comes Jesus and John says behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and We spent time that night talking about what it means to take away our sin To take away the guilt of our sin to expiate that sin from us placing it upon cross upon Christ as as as it were a Burden which weighs us down which crushes us which which kills us Christ lifts off of us and places it upon himself and then Friday night we looked at the subject of propitiation a Subject which a lot of people do not understand it in in the in the scary thing is so many people don't understand it Even people in the church and it is the very heart of the gospel Propitiation means appeasement or satisfaction when Christ was on the cross God's wrath was being Satisfied in him all of the wrath of God was poured out upon Christ for our sin so that the justice of God could be meted out and the righteousness of God could be satisfied and that's what we call Substitutionary atonement Christ is the substitute we all know what a substitute is one who stands in the place of another and Atonement means at one minute or taking two things which are separated and making them together Bringing them together to be one as as I said on Friday night It's it's as if we took the the word one that number one and we make it a verb God was wanting us With himself he was he was joining us with himself He was unifying us with himself by taking away the wrath Taking away the sin that separates us and bringing us together at one with himself And that's what the word atonement means to be at one So we've looked at expiation.
03:30: We've looked at propitiation this morning We're going to look at another important facet of the cross another important aspect of what Christ does and we're going to look at the doctrine of Imputation, so we've seen expiation propitiation today.
03:47: We're going to look at imputation and this comes to us in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21 and Give me a second to turn their 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21 The Apostle Paul is exhorting us in our role as ministers of the gospel as evangelists and ambassadors for Christ He tells us that God has given us the ministry of reconciliation and then he calls us as evangelists and he says We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God that's verse 20 and then we get to verse 21 and we have this great summation of our message the great summation of the gospel is 2nd Corinthians 5 and verse 21 which says this for our sake He made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him We might become the righteousness of God Pray with me father in heaven.
05:11: I thank you.
05:12: I thank you for this Short yet profound explanation of the gospel Lord we can see in this one verse a A fullness of theology that so many people are Devoid of in our day so many people Misunderstand the purpose of the cross and they glory in their Misunderstandings they exalt in their ignorance But yet in this one passage Oh God you have given us the glorious truth of what is The purpose of Christ's Crucifixion and as Paul said we seek to know nothing but Christ and him crucified Lord today as we preach this text May it be That Christ is exalted That your name is glorified that your people are edified and That unbelievers under the sound of my voice are convicted and by the power of your Holy Spirit In Christ's name we pray Amen yesterday evening I was I was pointed toward a Social media page of a very prominent conservative Politician And This conservative politician was making much of Christ.
07:04: At least he would say he was He was speaking of Jesus He was speaking of what Jesus did and why Jesus did it and he was saying all these very nice things But if you read closely his words You would see that he knew nothing of the Christian faith and nothing of the cross His words though they sounded very neutral and very loving and very Encouraging what they actually were Were denials of the very Christian faith, which the Bible espouses He said that Christians Muslims and Jews all serve God as If to say they all serve the same God This is not so The Bible tells us that the God of Scripture is a triune God He is God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit one in essence and three in persons that is denied and repudiated by both Islam and Orthodox Judaism, it's not the same God He said that Christ died as an example of martyrdom and love and compassion not true Christ did not die as a martyr That surprised you by saying that Christ didn't die as a martyr Christ died as a substitute he died to absorb the wrath of God for our sins and He said he rose as an example of of some sort of want to make sure I get the right word here some sort of Compassionate unity and love no Christ rose to demonstrate his victory over death hell in the grave That is why Christ rose He rose for our justification so sayeth the scripture Beloved we need to understand our faith and we need to proclaim the true faith We need not be satisfied in ignorance We need to be satisfied in the truth and one of the places where we find the truth so eloquently stated is in 2nd Corinthians 5 and 21 And we could spend days months weeks Looking at this passage and breaking down its constituent parts and understanding the fullness of the gospel That's in just this one passage But I want to say this morning not just because of limited time but because of of how I know our minds work We take in bits of information and we have to we have to compress them and we have to absorb them We have to understand them And if we were to try to break down all the constituent parts that would it would overflow our minds this morning I want to give you two Propositions which this passage tells us are true and it is at the very heart of the gospel There are two propositions which come to us to contrasting propositions in 2nd Corinthians 5 21 One is simple for our sake he became sin who knew no sin That's the first proposition for our sake he became sin who knew no sin It's vital that we understand one thing This does not mean Nor is it saying in any way that Jesus Christ became a sinner The Bible makes it very clear that Jesus Christ is not a sinner First John 3 5 says, you know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in him there is no sin Hebrews 4 15 says for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses But one who in every respect was as tempted as we are but without sin The Bible goes to great lengths to prove to us to tell us to confirm to us that Jesus Christ was sinless so in 2nd Corinthians 5 21 says for our sake he became sin do not confuse that with the idea that he became a sinner That is not the case What it is saying is that Christ? Became sin in this way He took upon himself the penalty and guilt of our sin Colossians 2 tells us how this works.
11:31: It says you Were dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of the flesh God made you alive together with him having forgiven us our trespasses By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands this he set aside Nailing it to the cross.
11:51: You see you had a legal obligation to God You have in fact, you have a legal obligation to God if you're still an unbeliever Your sin debt is a legal obligation to a holy God.
12:04: He's the judge You've sinned against him you've broken his law you stand before him as a lawbreaker You stand before him as a as a person who has broken his moral law every day of your life In fact, you know, we often go through the Commandments.
12:18: We say have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever looked with lust which Jesus says is adultery or hated someone which Jesus says is murder and we often say that's the way We prove to someone that they're a sinner But let me tell you the easiest way to prove to you that you're a sinner and that you're a sinner every day the first commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and how many of you have done that From the time you woke up this morning to this very hour none of you Not even for a moment Not even for a day Not ever have you loved the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind with all your strength perfectly You never ever have fulfilled that commandment and you stand before God as one who is worthy of his punishment You stand before God as one who has broken his moral law And thus you owe to him a debt which you can't pay and so Christ becomes the substitute he made him sin who knew no sin that's Imputed That's imputation of our sin imputed if by the way, I don't mean to use big words to confuse imputed Simply means to charge to an account It's as if there is a ledger book and in your ledger book there's all this red Because you are in the red you are debted to God you're indebted to God You have a ledger book Christ ledger book of sin is absolutely clean.
13:47: It's bright white It's never been sullied by even one sin Christ never sinned in thought word or deed His ledger book is completely empty completely bare and yet God takes the sin of your ledger He Extrapolates it from you and he places it in the ledger book of Christ and he charges your debt to him.
14:10: That's imputation Very simply put that is imputation of sin and you might say wonderful great I'm no longer bound by the weight and guilt of my sin.
14:22: Hallelujah, but that's not enough To say that you're not a sinner is only to say at that point that you would be neutral And God doesn't demand neutrality God demands righteousness If you stood only with no sin, you would still stand devoid of righteousness and you would say but I'm good I do all these good things.
14:49: The Bible says that all our Righteousnesses are as filthy rags before the Lord You sound you say pastor you sound like you're really upset about something I am I'm upset because people don't understand this I'm upset because people think that they can do something to merit the grace of God Yes, he wanted your attention give it to me though don't let that get your attention listen to what I'm saying The merit that we think we have in our good deeds is not merit at all But God does demand righteousness, which we don't have So, let's go back to the picture of the ledger the ledger book of Christ's righteousness Christ has Overful Overfilled The ledger book of his own righteousness He not only didn't do anything wrong he did every single thing, right He not only never sinned he loved the Lord his God every day of his life perfectly He was Absolutely righteous and When that sin was transferred to him That righteousness that he had was taken from his ledger and applied to ours So now if the text says in him we become the righteousness of God That's the beauty That's the great transaction of the gospel He made him who knew no sin to become sin for us Our sin is his and he takes it.
17:06: He bears it.
17:07: He wears it and he is our sin nailed to the cross his righteousness all that copious righteousness that daily righteousness that Christ had taken from him and given to us Beloved this is the gospel This is the gospel Christ was perfectly righteous for us as Martin Luther said this Just as a bridegroom Possesses all that is his brides and she all that is his for the two Have all things in common because they are one flesh So Christ and the church are one spirit thus the blessed God and father of mercy has according to Peter Granted to us every great and precious gift in Christ.
17:59: You see we are in Christ and his righteousness is ours And that is the blessed transaction of the gospel So what we see What we see in the the past few times we've come together and I know some of you have been here Thursday Friday and this morning What we have seen is the beauty of the many-fold aspects of the gospel the Lord Jesus Christ Our sin, which was a weight upon us has been taken away the punishment which was due our sin, which was applied to Christ and his righteousness Which he earned through perfect obedience to the father has been given to us expiation propitiation and Imputation all together in the beautiful work of the Lord Jesus Christ and all of this and more happened in a single moment When Christ gave himself on the tree You see we often think that We often think that we get saved and that Christ's blood atones for us at the moment of our salvation Beloved Christ blood atone for us at the moment of his death It wasn't until we Were regenerated that we came to faith and we understood what he did for us But beloved our transaction was made 2,000 years ago The work that was done on our behalf is done and need be done no more This is the heresy which continues to plague Rome Because Rome demands the perpetual sacrifice of the mass that is heresy and false Because Christ death was once for all Never needed to be repeated Never needed to be added to and not one thing we do Can make it any? greater One of my favorite questions and I mentioned this the other night one of my favorite questions to ask people when I'm witnessing and I realize it's sort of old hat and it's the it's some people consider the old method, but dr.
20:22: D.
20:22: James Kennedy Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church before he died He had a had a program called evangelism explosion and and I don't necessarily ascribe to all of the methods of EE But I always like the diagnostic question The diagnostic question of EE is this if today you were to die and You were to stand before God and God were to say to you Why should I? Let you into my heaven What would be your answer? You know why that question is so precious Because it exposes the heart of men Because almost every man will say something to the effect God should let me into heaven Because I am a good person Beloved if that's your answer repent The only reason God should allow anyone into heaven is because Christ is the only good person and his goodness Has been given to us Why are we? Allowed to come into the presence of God.
21:54: It is not because of our goodness It is because of the goodness of Christ alone My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name When darkness veils his lovely face I rest on his unchanging grace and every high and stormy gale my anchor holds Within the veil his oath his covenant his blood Support me in the whelming flood when all around my soul gives way he then is all my hope and Stay when he shall come with trumpet sound.
22:37: Oh, may I then in him be found? dressed in his righteousness alone Faultless to stand before the throne on Christ The solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking saying Father in heaven.
23:02: I thank you for your word.
23:04: I Thank you for the truth of the gospel And I thank you Lord that in the midst of all of these Attempts at taking our attention away at all of these interruptions you have Oh God Seen fit to let us again hear your gospel.