Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore

Heart and soul of all Christianity is our relationship with Christ. All strength to live a Christian life, all strength to overcome temptation and trials, all the strength to serve Christ in the midst of discouragements comes not from inside us or anywhere outside, but from our relationship with Christ. The heart of Christianity is having a deep and intimate, living, growing relationship with the Lord. We would have experienced in life that no matter what comes, if that relationship is strong, nothing can disturb our joy, peace, strength, and hope. Yes, it is important to learn truths, doctrines, confessions of faith, and practical applications, to gather and live a church life. All of that has a place, but its place is to stimulate this lifeline of our relationship with Christ. When that line is blocked, we have all kinds of problems.

We reduce our Christianity to just outward religious activities: on one side, a daily, cursory, superficial, hasty blitz of daily devotions, and on the other side, a habitual, ritualistic Sunday morning service. We lose touch with a deep, intimate personal relationship with Christ. As the relationship stops growing, we stop growing. God has to sometimes use severe trials, loss, and trauma to drive us back to Him. It should not be that way.

So as we begin this morning, let us examine our hearts with a question: What is the current condition of my personal relationship with Christ? Don’t take that question lightly; that is where all your problems are, and where the solutions for your problems are.

We have been seeing Paul’s radical testimony. His three calculations: first, when he was introduced to Christ, he saw all that he was holding with a death grip as a loss, and he threw that away and believed in Christ, and was saved. Second, he says he is growing in Christianity because he continues to count all he does outside, even as an apostle, as rubbish. Paul, what is so infinitely great, divine, and heavenly that you found that makes you say all these things are rubbish and dung? He lists seven things. These seven things are listed as different, but they are in a way overlapping or identical blessings seen from different sides, using different metaphors.

1. Knowing Christ – The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
2. Gaining Christ – That I may gain Him.
3. Be found in Him – That I may be found in Him.
4. Righteousness of God – The righteousness which is from God.
5. Experiencing the Power of His Resurrection – The power of His resurrection.
6. Fellowship of His Suffering and Death – The fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.
7. Attain Resurrection of the Dead – That I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

If you look at all these seven things, none of them are outward religious activities or some membership. It all has to do with the reality of an inward, deep, intimate, spiritual relationship with Christ. Oh, this is all mysterious language, “password protected” for nominal, superficial Christians. These can only be grasped by a deep, close experience in a relationship with Christ. So when I try to explain, I may seem to be babbling today. What a tragedy for the Christian world we have, where we are all boasting outside, satisfied with outward acts, and don’t look at the true spiritual gains that Paul is talking about. Oh, may God open our eyes to see its glory.

We saw the first one: he was consumed beyond everything with the value of knowing Christ, his personal acquaintance with Christ. He says it is surpassing, it is beyond everything—knowing Christ intimately and personally, experientially. His meaningless life became so meaningful when he realized knowing Christ was more precious than anything else.

I think that is every true believer’s salvation experience. There was a time when Christ was so precious, the joy he brings in our heart, his peace, and his love so overwhelming. Salvation experience makes Jesus Christ extremely attractive. He was so beautiful and so gracious and so loving and so merciful and so kind and so winsome and so forgiving that He was attractive beyond anything we ever saw. And we were drawn to Him. And that’s how a man gets saved. He sees a hidden treasure and wants to throw everything we accumulated away for Christ. He becomes more valuable to us, He becomes the pursuit of our life, the song of our life. That is how most of us felt when we were saved. The great question is, “Where did it go now?”

Somewhere along the way as years passed, we have lost all that in “confidence in the flesh” religion, and that is the reason for all failure in the Christian life. We see Paul never lost that. Even after 30 years, he says all that he is and has achieved as a Christian is rubbish, and Christ is still more and more precious in his eyes. This is how God wants us to live the Christian life, or else, like in Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” we have gone in the very wrong way. How can we correct that? Our Lord looks at the Ephesus church and says, “You are doing a lot of activities, you are careful about false teaching, but you have fallen from your first love.” How to correct it? He says, “Repent, turn back, do the things he did at first, or I will remove the lampstand.” The Lord says, “I want primarily a knowing, growing, living relationship first, not just your outward activities.” So the way to learn from Paul is to realize our wrong, repent, and change our lifestyle to what Paul teaches in this passage.

So the first thing Paul gained was a growing, intimate, experiential knowing of Christ. How is your relationship with Christ?

Let us look at the second thing: he says “Gaining Christ.”

Verse 8, “for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

The “gain” is of course the opposite of the “loss.” His balance sheet has “all things lost” on one side and “Christ gained” on the other, and that is profitable trading. Because gaining Christ is the greatest gain. We can say the surpassing value of gaining Christ is so far beyond that I suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish. When most of the men in the world are so blinded, they are gaining a thousand and one things, but not Christ. The Holy Spirit opened Paul’s eyes to see true gain in this life.

Have you asked the question, “What is the real meaning of gain?” “I have gained a big education, a big position, big money, wealth, and a name.” But Christ taught that for a man with an eternal soul, even if he gains the whole world, it is not a gain if he loses his soul. All that Ambani or Adani has gained, they will lose one day. If you get a chance to stand near the deathbed of the richest men, see their faces and hear their words; it tells “loss, loss… all loss.”

But there is one gain that neither this life nor all eternity can take away from us: that gain is called Christ. It is an eternal gain. A wealth that will never be taken away from us. Paul’s eyes were opened to see the precious value of this gain called Christ. So he was willing to lose all; he says, “I gained Christ.” He made Christ his greatest possession.

The marvelous truth of the gospel is that the eternal Son of God not only saves us from our sins, reconciles us to God, and takes us to heaven, but He is a great, universal gift given as a gain to every saved soul. What is the greatest gift? The book of Hebrews says there is no one greater than God, so He took an oath on Himself. In the same way, at the height of His grace, Christ gives Himself as a gain to every believer.

Christ really imparts Himself to the believing soul. There is a real communication of His own life to us. In a true, deep sense, all Christ is and did is mine. We possess Christ. Christ becomes my great wealth. As I said last Friday, this is not just theory. Oh, God has to deeply teach this spiritual truth to our minds. Do you know the surpassing joy of gaining Christ daily in experience? What joy! Oh, how little we know, how feebly we hold to this wealth, and how shallow our experience and enjoyment of this wealth.

Great, inexpressible joy comes into our heart when we realize experientially what gaining Christ means. It is expressed in songs: “Blessed assurance… why?… Jesus is mine.” When I know this, what is my experience? “Oh, joy, heavenly joy… this is great fortune.” Ask yourself, do we know this experience? Oh, joy, heavenly joy. It is a surpassing, blessed joy.

Paul uses the present continuous tense, “I may gain Christ.” He has not only gained, but he speaks in the future tense. His life is a continuous pursuit of gaining Christ. He knows he has gained Christ, but there is an infinite stretch before him, infinite growth in gaining Christ. He is experientially growing in gaining Christ. How? By considering all as loss and leaving all for Christ.

Can I tell you, you and I grow in this divine experience the more like Paul we consider things as loss and leave them to gain Christ? You will never lose ten cents unless the Holy Spirit opens your mind to see His glory. He makes you realize, “My eternal, permanent wealth… my life’s pursuit is losing and gaining Christ.”

All He did is mine. His life is my life, His obedience is my obedience, His suffering and death is my death. Spiritual enlightenment makes the eyes of the soul see the suitable and desperate need of all that Christ is for me. All our faculties want to possess Christ, each according to its kind: mind and heart, thoughts and emotions, and desires, hopes, and longings. May each have Him abiding in them, guiding them with His strong and gentle hand, animating them into a nobler life, restraining and guiding, gradually transforming and ultimately conforming my entire being to His own likeness. To be a man fully summed in all his powers, each of us must “gain Christ.” Okay, may God help us to experience what gaining Christ means. Let us pray.

Secondly, “Be found in Him”

Have you ever felt lost? Like a ship adrift at sea, with no compass and no land in sight? Or perhaps like a child wandering through a crowded marketplace, unable to find their parent? We all experience moments of feeling lost, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually. The only hope for such people is to be found in Christ. We cannot find our way back to God through our own efforts, our good deeds, or our religious practices. The path is blocked by sin and its consequences. We can find our way back to God only in Christ. He alone can bridge the gap between us and God.

Paul has experientially realized this. He knows the surpassing value of Christ, he gains Christ, and now he is thrilled that he has become one in Christ—to be found in Him. I am both presently found in Him as a believer, and I want to be found in Him more and more always.

The language is deep, and it indicates our mysterious union with Christ. The instant we abandon trust in our own good works and put our trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ, we are placed in Him, so that all that is true of Him becomes true of us. God the Father views every believer in Christ, through the merits of His Son. This is expressed in hundreds of times by the sweet phrase “in Christ” used in the Bible. In Him we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Believers are so inseparably united to Him; there is no union like that in the universe. Scripture uses examples. Just as a branch is found in a vine, not artificially, but organically, with living life flowing from the vine to the branch, just as the members of the body are united to the head, with life flowing from the head… Then going beyond all, Scripture uses the example of how the Father and Son are found in each other, and we are found in Christ, one with Him in an eternal, inseparable union.

This is the greatest place of safety for sinners like us. The righteous God will search and find out every sinner to punish him for every sin he committed. All of you, wherever you are hiding, we may deceive ourselves and others, but not God. He will drag us from any deep holes. When the wrath of God comes on the whole world, not one drop of wrath can fall on those found in Christ. This is the greatest hiding place, like Noah’s ark, a city of refuge. If we are found in Christ, we shall be safe in time and eternity.

Paul again talks about growing, experiential union with Christ. I want to indwell in Him. I don’t want a separate identity, but to be fully found in Him, like a branch in a vine, so His life sap may freely flow through me, like a body member, so His divine life flows from the head to me. Like Christ found in God, so I want to be found in Christ. This mutual indwelling supplies all which we need for life and blessedness, and it makes us achieve the sovereign aim of a human. “This one thing I need.” This should be our great care: to be found in Christ.

Third gain: Perfect righteousness before God

To be found in Christ is closely linked to this. It is because of this union that we are made perfectly righteous before God. Notice:

Verse 9: “and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”

Let us see this in some detail. Let us understand what Paul is saying in verse 9 in three simple questions. “What is righteousness?” “How can we never obtain it?” and then, “How can we obtain it?”

If we ask an average man, “Do you need righteousness? Do you care about righteousness?” You may say, “righteousness or an onion… I don’t care. I am worried about my joblessness, houselessness, moneylessness, goldlessness, nervousness… who cares about righteousness?” We don’t know what righteousness is. In verse 9, Paul says to get this commodity called “righteousness,” he was willing to lose all his former gains and present gains. He desired it so earnestly, saw it as so important. Notice he mentions “righteousness” twice in one verse. Now, what is this commodity?

If you know properly who God is and if you know what your condition as a sinner is, there is nothing more important for you than the term “righteousness.” If you have any sense of who the true living God is, His character, His holiness, and His only measuring scale of law, you will know there is no way any creature can come to Him and find His favor without perfect righteousness. He is a righteous God, and we cannot have any connection with Him without having perfect righteousness. Then, you cannot say, “That is fine, let Him be righteous… I don’t care.”

Your great need as a creature of God, in His image, is this righteousness. Because all your struggles inside you are because of a guilty conscience. He has written His law in your conscience. Until you find perfect righteousness, your conscience will never allow you to find peace within you. Secondly, as a creature created in God’s image, you are like a child separated from a mother ten times, or a ship lost at sea. You are weeping inside. Your greatest need is to find peace and communion with your Creator. Augustine said, “Our souls are restless until we find Thee.” In simple words, your greatest need is a relationship with your Creator; you cannot have that without righteousness.

If you want true peace and rest in life, you have to know what this righteousness is. What does it mean? Well, it means basically a correct standing before God and His law. This is a kind of standing… God can look fully at His own perfect righteous standard, His measuring scale for man, He alone knows the breadth and width of His law, and on the other side, He looks at the man, all that He knows extensively and intensely about the man, his life and being, knowing his every thought and motive, word and deed from the very dawning of his conception. He compares the man with His measuring scale of law. He declares two results: Negatively, that this man has not broken His law in the slightest way, and does not deserve any punishment for breaking it. Then, positively, he has perfectly not only kept the law in his thoughts, words, and actions, but conformed his whole being to the nature of the law. “So I declare him perfectly righteous in my sight, worthy of my favor, and my embrace. I accept him as worthy of all my favor, love, and fellowship. He deserves to stand before me as my righteous creature.” Now that’s what righteousness is.

Without this, no man can not only have God’s favor in this life, but he is under God’s wrath, curse, and punishment. There is a righteous anger and wrath of God on this world even now, on your head even now. Oh, when He comes to judge, it would have been better for him never to have been born. Because God is going to compare every man according to His measuring scale and decide his eternal destiny and eternal punishment based on His standard.

So the greatest question any man can ask is, “How can I, a sinner, ever find such a righteousness to be reconciled to God?” This is the greatest need you and I have. We are so senseless about it. The Apostle Paul by the spirit was brought to that awareness that he desperately needed such a righteousness.

So we have understood what righteousness is, and Paul says in verse 9 how one can never obtain righteousness.

In the middle of verse 9: “not having my own righteousness, which is from the law.”

He says it is not a righteousness that comes in any way from personal performance of the law, “not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law.” In that phrase, he describes his whole life before coming to Christ. He spent his whole life doing what he says in the first half of verse 9, trying to gain righteousness by keeping the law. He went to the highest level of that life and even became a Pharisee, who believed they could attain salvation by perfect adherence to the law of God.

He kept the moral and ceremonial law outwardly to such an extent that he could say in verse 6, “as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.” Imagine with respect to all the thousands of minute details of the ceremonial law, all the details we get so tired even to read, but Paul kept everything carefully, not ignoring any dietary regulations, dress, worship, and sacrifice.

Then God made him realize it is impossible to gain righteousness that would be acceptable before a holy God by one’s own works. Have you come to that realization? All your goodness and your external moral life cannot save you. Paul realized the purpose for which God gave the law was not to be a ladder to heaven, but to be a mirror, to show him how much he needed another righteousness. Paul realized the purpose of the moral and all the ceremonial law is to point to another righteousness. Paul came to understand, as he said, “Christ is the end of the law.”

He explains how the Holy Spirit did this in Romans 7. Paul’s religious life blinded him and didn’t allow him to see his heart. He could escape by saying, “Ah, I have not murdered, or committed adultery,” but the Holy Spirit took him to the 10th Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet.” He realized that he was a great covetous man; every time he was not happy with what God’s providence gave him and coveted others, he had a covetous, thieving heart. The law is not just about outward acts, but it touches the deepest springs of desire, attitude, and disposition.

Oh, how many have not realized this today? They live in such a blind, self-righteous religion, dreaming they will stand righteous before God because of how good they are, that they haven’t done bad sins, and how piously they go to church and give tithes. Paul says in Romans 10, talking about the Israelites, that they were “ignorant of God’s righteousness and they’re seeking to establish their own.” This was a life-long effort to establish their own righteousness by works, tradition, sincerity, ceremony, ritual, and going to worship.

Have you realized that? Nothing you do can make you righteous. Do you know that there is a murderer sitting in this congregation? Yes, there is. Just yesterday he murdered someone. He thought no one saw it; he didn’t even realize the crime, but all of heaven saw, and God and His law judged us and pronounced His eyewitness statement, “Everyone who hates another in his heart is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). There is an adulterer sitting here; God says anyone who lusts after another woman has committed adultery. See, the law doesn’t just cover our external acts but also our deep motives and desires. The root of murder is hate; the root of adultery is lust. We may control our external acts, but God judges us according to our hearts. What about the 10th commandment that caught Paul? “Thou shalt not covet.” The command of the law is that you should live so content with all that God has given you in this life—your wife, finances, house, job—that you should never covet. If you covet in your heart, others’ wives, or things, you are a covetous thief. Who can say, “I have never sinned”? No one. That is one side.

What about the positive demand of the law? Do you know what the greatest sin is? It is not adultery or murder. What is the greatest sin? Breaking the greatest command is the greatest sin, right? Now, what is the greatest command? Lord Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength.” That is the greatest command. Every second you break that, you are committing the greatest sin by not loving God with all your heart. Do you see the depth of God’s law? We are so foolish; we live in a dream world of our own wrong measuring scale. We think we are so pleasing to God, so righteous before Him, because of our small external acts.

Before such a God, how can we ever stand as righteous? Where in the world would anyone ever attain a righteousness if that were the standard? Paul came to the conclusion, as Romans 3:19 and 20 says, “By the deeds of the flesh or the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.” You’ll never be righteous by what you do. The righteousness of external morality, religious rituals, and good works is self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is so damning because it’s so deceptive. Millions go to hell with that false religion. So Paul says righteousness can be gained in no way, at no time, under no circumstances, related to anything he has done, is doing, or ever shall do, even in perfectly obeying divine law.

So, on the negative side, he says we cannot get righteousness by our performance. This righteousness we so much need. Then Paul, how can we get it? Positively, notice verse 9: “but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”

Here are three fundamental characteristics of the righteousness God will accept.

1. Its Source is God

The first thing is that the source of this righteousness is God. Notice, he describes it as “the righteousness which is from God.” God alone is the author of this righteousness. This is the uniqueness of the Christian religion. All religions of humanity tell us how we can earn righteousness before God by our religious acts. They start from the bottom and try to go up. The Bible alone shows in a unique way that it started from above. God, knowing this is our greatest need and that we can never attain this righteousness, accomplished a righteousness Himself. It was done by divine initiative and divine intervention; it came from heaven to earth.

2. It Is from God, but It Is Connected to Christ

Secondly, not only is this righteousness from God, but it is fully connected with Christ. It is “through faith in Christ.” It could more literally be translated as “through the faith of Christ.” The object of our faith is Christ. The original emphasis falls not on the faith, but on the object of faith. It is a faith that is, in a peculiar and unique way, preoccupied with Christ. This great righteousness for which he was willing to suffer the loss of everything was not only a righteousness from God, but it was a righteousness in connection with Christ.

On one side, this righteousness has nothing to do with us at all. This righteousness is completely and fully to do with what Christ did. This righteousness comes to us by the active and passive obedience of Christ. Active obedience is what Christ did in His life, perfectly fulfilling the law on our behalf. Passive obedience is what Christ suffered for our sins.

If we are to become righteous, two things need to be achieved for us.

a. Our first need was the removal of our guilt. God’s law inflexibly demands that a full penalty be inflicted for every infraction, and only when this penalty has been fully endured can our guilt be removed. By His “passive” obedience, Christ suffered the fullness of the curse and penalty due to us on the cross, becoming sin and a curse for us. He thereby provided the basis for the removal of our guilt (Galatians 3:10, 13; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 53:5-6). God pardons all our sins and removes our guilt only on the basis of this fulfillment or satisfaction of the penal demands of God’s law. This is the first part of justification, which involves our pardon.

b. Secondly, part of justification is active obedience. The first part is only negative. Justification cannot happen only by removing our sins. Because of the requirements of the law, we were also in need of a positive righteousness. God’s law not only has penal sanctions but also positive command demands, which we should have followed. If any of us were ever to be accepted by God, our Substitute must not only endure the penalty due to us but also fulfill all the demands required of us. We needed not only a passive but also an active obedience.

Christ lived a perfectly righteous life for 33 years, fulfilling all righteousness. He was born under all the requirements of the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the civil law, and he did everything that the law required. He obeyed all the Ten Commandments from his heart perfectly. There was not a deed, a word, a thought, or even an imagination that was tinged by sin as a child, a teenager, or a man. Oh, what a life He lived, a perfect life! It is a magnificent life, none like it in all of history. This world has seen a man as holy as God is holy.

But remember this: this is also the righteousness of the God-man. This is the Son of God’s righteousness. It is the righteousness of the second person of the Godhead, and so it is immeasurable righteousness. It is unchangeable righteousness; it is divine righteousness. It is everlasting righteousness, and it will last forever and ever.

This righteousness not only saved us from hell but, do you know, it is this righteousness that purchased all of heaven for us. Why would God allow you and me in heaven? On what merit? Not on the basis of how you will live after conversion. It is a meritorious righteousness. That is why Heaven is called a “purchased inheritance,” and this righteousness is the price that bought it. All those who have this righteousness, it is this righteousness that will make us stand righteous for all eternity before God. It is everlasting righteousness.

Righteousness with infinite worth. It is infinite righteousness. Such is its intrinsic value that, had it been so designed, it was sufficient to have redeemed the whole posterity of Adam, even ten thousand worlds of angels and people, on the supposition of their existence and fall. It is so meritorious. Oh, with what confidence, then, we as poor sinners should trust this righteousness! What faith may a poor soul venture its eternal salvation upon this foundation! There is such merit in it that it expiates sins of the blackest hue and redeems a whole elect world from wrath and ruin.

Oh, what a marvelous thing God accomplished through Christ’s life! There is something intensely human in the desire to know exactly how a precious possession was made, and best of all, to see it being made. So when we are reading the gospels and the life of Christ, we are observing how the Lord Jesus accomplished a righteousness for us, resisted sin for us, and overcame temptation for us. We watch the creation of the righteousness of Christ in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

How does God make sinners righteous now? By a two-fold, double imputation. Isaiah talks about it as a cloth, where our dirty clothes are put on Christ and He was treated as we were, and we are given His garment of righteousness. His obedience to the law is considered our obedience, and His death under the curse of the law is considered our suffering for our sins. It is like a debt transfer. Our negative account is put into His account, and His positive righteousness is transferred to our account. This is the only way sinners like you and me can be made righteous and find unchanging peace with God. This is the gospel of mutual transfer: my sins are all passed to Christ, and His righteousness is put on me. Romans 5:19 says, “as through the disobedience of the one the many were constituted sinners. So by the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”

We may look up to God with confidence, having a righteousness of His own appointment, a righteousness commensurate with all the demands of law and justice, a righteousness in which we may stand before Him without spot or blemish.

So Paul realized the righteousness which God will accept in the face of all my sins, a righteousness which meets all the demands of God’s law, is a righteousness found in connection with Christ Jesus.

3. It Is Received by Faith

But then the third thing he tells us about this righteousness is that it was received by faith. Look at the text again: “Not having the righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is from God.” We might say, “upon the condition of faith.” In other words, it is a righteousness from God found only in connection with Christ and appropriated only by faith.

Again, people will twist this and make faith a good work. “Oh, God sees righteousness because of faith,” and we want to boast in our faith. How stupid! Faith holds such a central place not because it is an act of merit that has peculiar worth and adds something to our worth. Faith is chosen by God to be the means of receiving this righteousness because in faith alone is there a trait that makes us see the emptiness of our righteousness, throw all that away, and accept God’s righteousness. Faith is a very humbling grace.

You see, faith is likened in the Bible to an empty hand, not necessarily a clean hand, but an empty one. Faith is likened to a thirsty soul drinking water provided by another. Faith is likened to a weary person dumping their burden upon another and finding rest. Faith makes us look away from ourselves and look to another. It is the most humbling grace. A believing person goes out of themselves and into another. That’s it. Out of themselves and into another. It has no works and no merit. That is why it’s always contrasted with works and always joined to grace. Because faith never comes boasting about itself, bringing anything with it.

That is why Paul says the righteousness for which I lost all is not that which comes by my works or obeying the law, but by going out from everything I did and do even now, it is going to Christ in faith. So this righteousness’s source is God. He is its author. It is all based on Christ, and it is received by faith alone. It’s placing all complete confidence and trust in Christ. That’s how you’re saved. And when you put your faith in Christ, God gives you His righteousness. You’re going to be accepted by God. Faith is the confident, continuous confession of total dependence on and trust in Jesus Christ for the necessary requirements to enter God’s Kingdom. It’s not just believing that Jesus lived and died. It’s trusting in Him and depending on Him to meet the requirements on your behalf to give you entrance into God’s Kingdom. It is the righteousness of God in Christ that comes from faith.

That was the great discovery that the apostle Paul made. It was Martin Luther’s discovery of the riches of God’s justifying love in Christ, not only in his conversion but also throughout his life and ministry, that lit a fire through him that eventually gave birth to a spreading flame called the Reformation. When Luther finally came to understand that the righteousness God requires is not his righteousness but the gift of Christ’s righteousness, freely given to all who believe, he said, “For me, this was the gate of paradise.”

Application

As an application, let me talk to those who are still not saved. What a contrast there is between the Apostle Paul and you! He counted the whole world as dung for Christ, and you count Christ Himself as of no value in comparison with the world. The language of your heart is, “Let me gain pleasure, riches, honor,” and Christ says you will be the greatest fool. Ask yourself if your thinking is correct. You are choosing fleeting vanity, the pleasures of sin and the world, for the most important needs of our souls: the pardon of sin, peace of conscience, and hope of eternal glory. You will sacrifice such perfect righteousness for the things of time and sense. These things, which will never be taken away, you see as cheap before these temporary things. You try to chase them, you will lose your life and never get them. Think deeply before it becomes too late.

Paul says, “I saw all rubbish for this righteousness.” Do you possess this righteousness? As you sit here this morning, God offers this in the gospel when you just believe Christ. This is not a “take it or leave it” offer. It’s perfect righteousness or hell, nothing in between. Perfect righteousness or hell, nothing in between.

You may not like my message, but there is one partner I have in your own heart: your own conscience. In your innermost conscience, there is a chasing and haunting awareness of your accountability to God. You feel a burden of guilt, and that is expressed in all kinds of fears: fear of death, fear of small things in life, the emptiness of life, boredom. How are you dealing with guilt? Now, what have you done with that?

Some people try to bury it with a life of sensuality, running after the lusts of the world, and numbing their minds with drinks and drugs. Some fill their ears with music day and night. Why? Because whenever they are quiet and in full possession of all their faculties, when their minds are not dull without any distractions, this conscience talks to them. Old movies will show the same man coming in front of them and telling them how wrong they are. It will talk about important things: “How long are you going to live like this? What a wretched, selfish animal you are, like beasts. You will get a big punishment. God’s wrath is on you. Any moment, your leg could break, you could get a disease, you will soon die.” They find themselves ill at ease with that haunting awareness. “I’m accountable to God. I’m accountable to God. I’m not right with God. A great punishment for what I did may be coming.” How do you deal with that? More entertainment, more music, more drinks?

Others try to silence it through external works of religion like Paul did: self-righteousness and good works. They satisfy themselves that they come to church, pray, and give tithes. They throw these biscuits to God, thinking all that is more than enough to meet a righteous God on the day of judgment. How cheaply we think of God’s righteousness! These are dead works. The Bible says we have to repent of all such works in which we try to earn God’s righteousness by our works.

This pride of yours will be a greater hindrance to being saved than any sinner. It was this pride which caused the Pharisees to reject the Savior. “They would not submit to the righteousness of God,” trying to establish their own religious righteousness. Hence, they perished, while millions of idolatrous and ungodly Gentiles embraced the Gospel. See whether your righteousness is better than that of Paul.

My friend, all your worldly distractions and religious activities will never help us silence that divine voice inside you. But it will never go away. The older you get, the louder it will become. When your old senses dim, you cannot see, you may not hear. When you sleep in your death bed, it will hit your head with a hammer.

Can I show you the best way to treat that problem? My friend, face the reality. Admit it. That is the first way to treat any problem. Don’t run; face it. When you face it honestly, you realize it is the voice of God calling you to Him. And the glory of the Gospel is that God doesn’t come and crack a whip over us and say, “Work and hope that you’ll attain a righteousness that will meet my standard.” He says, “I have already made everything ready for you. Believe in the righteousness I have prepared for you in Christ’s work.” That’s the Gospel. That’s the Gospel. That’s the glory of the Gospel. Just humbly believe and accept this righteousness God gives in Christ. Oh, your burdened conscience will feel such peace and relief, you will never have experienced it in your entire life. You will know the value of Christ, gaining Christ, being found in Him, and being clothed in His righteousness.

When I stand before Paul, I am ashamed of my lukewarm Christianity. When God has done a marvelous thing for me in Christ—delivered me from the burden of guilt, imputed this glorious righteousness on me—I am standing perfectly righteous before Him.

People say the great danger of preaching justification is antinomianism. “Oh, I am righteous before God, so it doesn’t matter how I live now.” I don’t agree, and neither does Paul. That reaction exposes false Christians. But the Bible shows that the evidence of true justification is sanctification. In fact, the right response to justification is sanctification.

God never makes anyone righteous without revealing the beauty of the person of Christ in whom righteousness is found. And, having beheld His beauty, you’ll want to know Him more and be close to Him more. That’s Paul’s reaction, the reaction of every truly justified soul.

Worship, thankful praise, and service. If God has done this, surely I want to know this Christ. I want to enter into an intimate personal communion with Him. Instead of that, if there is an antinomian reaction—”Oh, I am so righteous before God, now it doesn’t matter whether I pray regularly, read the Bible, or whether I sin”—it betrays and makes your justification questionable.

If you possess that righteousness, it will show in your reaction. Paul is rejoicing in his discovery of hidden treasure; everything else is garbage before that. A man is on fire. Why is our Christian life so dull? A child is definitely sick. We have to find out the diagnosis.

Go home asking what I asked at the very beginning: “What is the current condition of your personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Is it a growing knowledge? Is it a deeper relationship than it’s been in the past? Are you more preoccupied with the worthless trash of the world than you are with the infinite treasure in Christ?” Have you lost your first love? Christ says, “Repent and do the first things. Otherwise, I will remove your lampstand.” Take His warning.

The lukewarm follower He will cast off with abhorrence. And let me ask, is this an unreasonable response to salvation? Did He give up the glory of heaven for you? And will you account any sacrifice you may be called to make for Him as too much? Did He endure the curse of the law for you? And will you grudge to suffer anything for Him? Be in earnest, then: first, to form a proper estimate of Christ; and, next, to give up everything that may stand in competition with Him.

Are you living with confidence in the flesh? That will completely blind you to the glory of Christ. See what Paul achieved as an apostle. What had he as a Christian? There he was surpassed by none: none ever did more for their Lord than he; none ever suffered more. Yet, he could find nothing in himself in which to trust, and therefore he sought to be found in Christ alone. Is Christ so valuable to you, or are you just glorying in already achieved Christian achievements?

Tim Keller’s helpful summary of the Gospel: “Religion says, ‘I obey; therefore, I am accepted by God.’ The Gospel says, ‘I am accepted by God through Christ; therefore, I obey.’”

Schaeffer learned that the biblical essence of true spirituality is linked to the ongoing appropriation of the justifying work of Christ to the Christian. It should result in great assurance, thanksgiving, and worship. If our view of justification does not generate a life of worship and thanksgiving, then our view of justification is wanting.