The Lie of Self Righteousness (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name�s Mike Abendroth. It is pouring rain outside here in real time, and it�s amazing.

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I�ve got a cold. I�ve got something. My skin hurts. What do you call it when your skin aches and you just have the blahs?

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Maybe the blahs? I had some NyQuil last night, and I feel foggy.

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My mind feels cloudy. Well, tomorrow I embark in real time to Omaha, Nebraska.

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I am from Omaha, Nebraska. I bleed Cornhusker red. At least I used to. Not so much anymore.

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I see if they�re going to win or how many points they�ll lose by. It was fun growing up with the

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Nebraska Cornhuskers. Lyle Bremser. Man, woman, and child, he is gone. Meeting Johnny Rogers and Richard Glover and Jerry Taggey.

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I don�t think R. Scott Clark listens to No Compromise Radio very often. Maybe if he�s on the show, he might be listening.

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But if he does listen, he�s from Nebraska as well. He�s the kind of guy, along with James White, we want on our side.

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I don�t want them after me, theologically. If I say something dumb, I don�t want them to get their tweets out.

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Did I hear that Twitter is going to go to more than 140 characters? I�m not sure. Well, this morning I was working on getting my seat assignments for Southwest Airlines flying to Omaha.

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And, of course, you know you either pay money ahead of time to get one of the early numbers, the A1 -15 numbers, whatever the numbers are, 1 -25, 1 -10.

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We don�t fly Southwest that much anymore. And there must be a name for it where you are standing there looking at the atomic clock, clicking on, you know, flight check -in, and then it says you can�t check -in within 24 hours.

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You know, you have to be within 24 hours to check -in. You click it in, you click it again, and then pops up A56. What�s that called?

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We need to give that a name. When a grown man of 55 years old will stand hovering over a computer.

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Had set the alarm today. I woke up, and then I set the alarm for 9 -10 because the flight�s at 9 -15 tomorrow, and then

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I needed to 24 hours the day before, or the day before is 24 hours.

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Anyway, it must be called something. You can write us at info at nocompromisedradio .com. Here�s the way it works. You write an email.

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It goes to Spencer. And he usually sends them to me on Monday nights.

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Most of them are pretty good. Most of them are pretty good. And if I really, you know, want bad things or something, if I want to see any bad pastoral news, well,

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I could go online and look at people�s Facebook accounts. People that have something, some kind of grudge match against me.

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As you know, I love to ride the bicycle. And I am not a Sabbatarian. And if you are, well, okay, then you are.

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But it�s funny to see people putting posts on Facebook that they, you know, bicycle riding is bad on Sundays.

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I wonder to whom might they be referring. Of course, they�d never look me in the eye and say, �We can�t believe you�re riding your bicycle on Sunday.�

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You know, wake up, go to the prayer meeting, go to Sunday school. I usually meet with people during Sunday school hour, some appointment, worship service, talk with people, sometimes go out to lunch with folks, sometimes meet people after the church service, you know, special meetings.

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And then go home, work on Sunday night IBS class. And then, you know, I can�t go take a bike ride for two hours or an hour.

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I have to sit at home and indulge in the sin of gluttony, I guess. I have a desire to read the

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Sunday newspaper. And then I can�t do that. So, in Omaha, I�m going to be speaking about lies we believe.

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Now, as you know, sexual fidelity, No Compromise, is probably, well, I ordered the books yesterday.

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They�ll probably be out by the time this show airs, or close to it. And you can go to the NOCO Radio site, nocompromiseradio .com.

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There should be a link and you can order some. Hopefully, by then, we�ll have, you can order the one book, they�re $11 .99

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plus shipping. You can also order one for your pastor at a discounted rate, or if you want to order 10 or more.

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I don�t know what we do. We put your name on the studio here. We engrave it.

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It�s engraving. You have an engraver? My dad got an engraver and everything was

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LHA. Everything in the world, LHA, you know, bowling ball, LHA, Lee Henry Avendron.

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And the Omaha trip, we�re talking about lies. And there will be a new book,

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Lord willing, in 2016, a NOCO book, Evangelical White Lies, playing off some of the same things.

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And I wanted to talk about lies we easily believe, lies that feel like the truth.

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And if we�re not careful, we believe our own consciences that have been tainted by sin.

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We believe our own hearts. We trust our own hearts. We are fueled by the media. We are fueled by satanic endeavors.

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What exactly? I don�t know. I just know he�s alive and roaming around, seeking to devour people.

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So I am saying so again, Jill. One of the lies that I want to talk about at Omaha Bible Church is the lie that we as Christians are better than people.

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And ultimately, that lie boils down to we think we have some righteousness of our own and other people don�t have any righteousness or they have less than we do.

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It is righteousness of a relative scale. So you find someone else who�s doing something really wickedly, and then you say, �Well,

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I wouldn�t do that. I don�t do that.� And it can manifest itself in lots of forms. Unbelievers can certainly do it.

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They think they�re okay with God because other people do worse things, and they do some perceived good things, altruistic philanthropy type things.

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But believers can also do it as well. When you are driving to worship service on Sunday morning,

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I can feel a visceral, guttural � what�s another word for that?

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� an internal feeling of superiority crouching at the door of my heart regularly when

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I see people ice skating, ice fishing, fishing, riding bicycles � it�s okay to ride a bicycle after the service, but not before, not during the service.

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And I think I�m the one going to worship, and they are the ones who are the pagans, especially if they�re ice fishing, smoking cigarettes, and my superiority barometer is out of the park.

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It�s spinal tap � we�ve got to turn the volume to 11, right? One of the things

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I�ll talk about in Omaha Bible Church is the lie that we are better, and it eventually and ultimately says that we don�t need all of Christ�s righteousness.

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Jesus Christ lives the perfect life. He earns righteousness. Yes, in fact, if we wanted to say it, although we�d have to say it carefully,

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Jesus Christ has self -righteousness. He is self -righteous. Now, 99 % of the time that word with the hyphen �self -righteous� is negative, of course.

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It�s a sinful thing. But Jesus in himself, if we can take time to define it a little more clearly and more biblically, he does have righteousness.

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It�s his own righteousness. And he, as a man � I know he�s more than a man � but as a full man, fully human, he earned righteousness, and he therefore has righteousness.

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He had it, and he has it, and he always will have it. He always does the things that are pleasing to the

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Father, John 8. This is my beloved Son in whom I�m well pleased. When we think we�re better than someone else, we minimize our need for 100 % righteousness.

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There are many questions you could ask people in evangelical settings. As one might be, if you were to die today and stand before God, and he were to ask you, �Why should

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I let you into my heaven ?� what would you say? I think that�s fair and good and right, and I commend that.

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If you can say that to an unbeliever, great. There�s another approach where you could say, �Would you consider yourself to be a good person ?�

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I commend that approach, because both of those are going to lay down the law so that Romans 3 .19,

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every mouth might be stopped, so they might turn and say, �I have no hope then unless there�s a

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Savior who could save people like me.� But another approach might be, �I think

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I probably learned this from S. Lewis Johnson. Anything good that I�ve learned, it�s come from MacArthur, S. Lewis Johnson, my wife, or someone else.�

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I�m not the repository of interesting takes on truth.

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I just like to gather truth and then disseminate it as it goes through these airwaves through the ebendrothizer.

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I have a host button, a caller button, a squelch button, a mute button, a volume button, and an ebendrothizer button.

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Notice how I said button, because here in New England where I am, this particular city that�s close by where the gym is,

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C -L -I -N -T -O -N, really? I think you forgot your top button.

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So we try to say button Clinton, and we have to be laboring for every enunciated syllable.

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Self -righteousness, until it�s recognized as unrighteousness, there�s a heap of trouble to use the vernacular.

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And the book of Romans, and that�s where I�m going to go today and probably the next couple of Thursdays, the book of Romans helps us because it�s a book all about righteousness.

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If you want maybe a seven -point outline of Romans, you think sin, salvation, sanctification, security, sovereignty, service, salutations, that�s seven, sixteen chapters.

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If you want a two -point outline, sin, salvation. If you want a one -point definition, the knee -jerk response to what does

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Romans talk about, the answer is righteousness. And it is a righteousness from another.

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It is forensic righteousness, it is alien righteousness, it is imputed righteousness, it is Christ�s righteousness.

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Justification is vindicated, it is explained, it is elucidated, it is there in the book of Romans.

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And Paul begins with unrighteousness. You have no righteousness, you need righteousness.

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Matter of fact, it�s not that you just don�t have righteousness, you have unrighteousness. And so you�re negative, you�re not even neutral, needing something positive, you�re not halfway there, you�re in the negative, you�re in the red, and you need the black, and you need the help of another, you need salvation done by the work of the

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God -man, the risen Savior. So we go around in life thinking that we have some righteousness, and therefore we don�t need as much righteousness as we think we do.

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So maybe I think I have 30 percent, because I�m pretty good, and if I give you my word I try to keep it.

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And I usually wake up on time, and I usually don�t holler at the kids, I usually don�t kick the dog.

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I�m a pretty good person, so I only need 70 percent of God�s righteousness. But maybe you, especially you no -co listeners, you black -hearted listeners, you�re probably at about 15.

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I know in some people, maybe in Santa Maria, or some people in the

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Dust Bowl of Kansas, or other people up in Idaho, or some down in Alabama, especially those up in New Hampshire, anybody with Pastor Nate or something like that, they need a lot more righteousness than I do.

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So Romans comes along, and it demolishes the lie that we are better than other people.

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And you walk through Romans chapter 1, and Paul is setting you up.

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Paul knows that when you see the wickedness, the outrageous sin of other people, of �them�, to use

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Paul�s words, �they�, and you see how God�s wrath is on that unrighteousness, you start to say, �Amen.�

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You start to hoop and holler. You start to say, �Preach it, Chief.� I remember once I was preaching in South Central Los Angeles, or thereabouts, and there was somebody that kept saying, �Preach it,

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Chief.� I think that was before the whole Washington Redskins imbroglio.

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I have no righteousness. I need 100 % righteousness. You listeners have no righteousness.

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You need 100 % as well. And you need to see that your self -righteousness, perceived, can be measured against other people.

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Relative righteousness doesn�t get anybody to heaven, although it assuages the conscience.

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You need perfect righteousness. You need an absolute righteousness, earned by Christ Jesus, and we know that it is through faith.

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Not because of faith, but through faith. God is to be blessed forever.

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Psalm 72, �Blessed be His glorious name forever, and may the whole earth be filled with His glory.�

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Amen and amen. Psalm 72, 19. But pretty soon you start having some amening that these wicked people in Romans 1, technically these

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Gentiles, these pagans, they�re so wicked, they�re so bad that we start chiming along and we, along with the moralistic

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Jews of chapter 2, fit right into their thinking. And it�s a �we� versus �me.�

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It�s a �them� versus �us.� They are the wicked ones and we are not.

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And all of a sudden, Paul takes the tables in the temple and he turns them upside down.

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But here it�s the tables of the temple in your mind. Romans chapter 1. Can you feel and sense just how bad this wrath of God is on ungodliness and unrighteousness?

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These people who suppress the truth, these people who know about God, and they understand

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Him in terms of a Creator, and they are without excuse.

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They know God, they don�t honor Him, they don�t give thanks to Him, they�re futile in their thinking, their foolish hearts are darkened, they think they�re wise but they�re fools, they exchange

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God to worship a scarab beetle, are the New England patriots.

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These people are wicked. This is Romans chapter 1 verses 18 through 23.

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And then the bell tolls for these people three times in this passage with the language of pushing people down the hill.

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This kind of response from God, �gave them up, gave them up, gave them up ,� verse 24, verse 26, verse 28, is not simply, �Is that what you want?

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Okay, then go ahead. That�s what you want? Well, I�m going to turn it up all the more.�

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That�s the idea here of giving up. And He gives them up to sexual sin.

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That�s the first give up. Secondly, He gives them up to dishonorable passions, homosexuality.

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And then the third bell that tolls for these wicked, awful, unrighteous people is that He turns their mind off.

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He walks over to the candle that is lit, and you know how you walk over and you lick your fingers and then you squeeze your thumb and your index finger together and you extinguish the wick.

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That�s the language here, except it�s with the mind. I don�t know. Why don�t we just blow the candles out? I�m not sure.

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We�d rather burn our fingers. But that sizzling sound, that smell that goes along with it, pretty fascinating.

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As we say in Nebraska, it�s pretty, pretty fascinating, �terrible good, terrible good ,� as Barclay would say.

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These people are unrighteous, and God gives them over, and then after God pushes them down the hill, they�re in a little wheelbarrow, they�re in a little wagon, a little red wagon.

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And you ever push a kid down a hill in a little red wagon? Those wheels aren�t meant to go. Remember the front?

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It�s so unsturdy in terms of turns and stability. And they were then filled, verse 29, with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

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They are filled with envy. They are filled with murder. They are filled with strife.

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They are filled with deceit. They are filled with maliciousness. They are gossips. They are slanderers.

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They are haters of God. They are insolent. They are haughty. They are boastful.

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They invent evil. They are disobedient to parents. They are foolish. They are faithless.

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They are heartless. They are ruthless. Though they know

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God�s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give hearty approval to those who practice them.

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Therefore, chapter 2, verse 1, God was pleased to slay them.

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God damned them. God executed them.

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God eternally judged them. Is that what the text says?

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What does every Christian need to be reminded of in light of this passage that�s talking about basically the unbelieving

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Jew who thinks he�s better, the moralistic Jew who thinks he�s better? What does everybody need to know forever and always?

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The text says in Romans 2, �Therefore, you�. �Therefore, you, therefore, not they, they, they, they, they, they, they, therefore, you have no excuse, oh man, finger in the sternum,

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Nathan -like, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself because you the judge practice the very same things.�

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We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.

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Verse 6, �He will render to each one according to his works.� They, they, they, they, they, they, they�re wicked, they�re foolish, they�re heartless, they�re feckless.

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And we know they�re sinful. And since we do know they�re sinful, that means we can judge what�s right and wrong.

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And then how did we do perfectly keeping the law? How�s this for a try -on, 2 .13

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of Romans, �For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.�

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We�ve got two ways to get to heaven. You need to do things perfectly and earn your own righteousness 100 percent, not 50 percent more than these really bad people, but you need 100 percent righteousness and absolute righteousness.

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God�s inflexible judgment demands it. And then you look at these other people and you think you�re better, but you have to say to yourself, �Me knowing that I�m better in my mind proves that I�m judging things and I�m not judging myself clearly because God requires holiness, perfection, righteousness that I don�t have.

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And now my unrighteous finger -pointing at people, the unrighteous people,

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I have to realize my self -righteousness is unrighteousness as well. I, too, need a

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Savior.� I�m not better. I have to quit comparing myself to other people and say to myself, �Before

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God, who am I ?� That is the issue. That is the issue.

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The gospel blows away unrighteousness and saves anybody that God wants to save.

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But from the human perspective, your self -righteousness needs to be seen as unrighteousness as well � we just think we�re too great, even as Christians.

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I understand the context here, but I�m thinking about this as a good backdrop to teach against self -righteousness.

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They, they, they. What about the indictment on us? The lie is

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I�m better. The lie is as an unbeliever and I keep a lot of the moral code in my mind,

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I think I�m better. But the same thing happens for Christians. I think it�s a good application here.

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Those people are sinful, but my sin isn�t as bad. I minimize my sin.

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And I say to myself, as my friend Byron would say in Romans 2, �Wait a second,

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Paul. I�m not gay.� You don�t know what you�re talking about. �I�m not like them.

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I�m not gay.� Yeah, the wicked gay people, they�re awful.

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�But you see, I�m not gay.� William Secker said, �Many have passed the rocks of gross sins, who have suffered shipwreck upon the sands of self -righteousness.�

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I see other people�s sins, therefore I don�t really have to think about my own very much.

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And the text says in Romans 2, verse 1, �You have no excuse.� You are continually without excuse.

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It is a present tense. You have no excuse. It sounds like these are the people that have no excuse in chapter 1.

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Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. You need Christ�s righteousness 100%. And you need that through faith, trusting in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, His representative life confirmed by the resurrection.

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You need to trust in Jesus and not your own self -righteousness, because you are actually worse than your neighbor.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God�s Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.