Righteousness Through Faith

The pastor talks about the two classes of religion: works and grace. He explains that works-based religions focus on doing rituals and following rules to earn salvation, while grace-based religion teaches that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ and His righteousness. He warns against false teachers who promote works-based salvation and emphasizes the sufficiency of Christ's finished work on the cross. The pastor also shares how he used to boast in his religious accomplishments but now considers them as loss compared to knowing Christ. He encourages believers to put their confidence in Christ's righteousness and not in their own works. The following message is brought to you by the people of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. For more information, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org. And now here's Pastor Jason Booth with the message. The Word of the Lord, found in Philippians chapter 3, beginning in verse 8, and reading through verse 11. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. And we trust the Lord to add his own blessings to the public reading of his Word, for our good and for his glory. Amen. Amen. Amen. The title of my message this morning is Righteousness Through Faith. Righteousness Through Faith. I've heard it said, and I happen to believe this, that there are only two religions in the world. Many of you have heard this line of thinking before. I've shared this line of thinking and reasoning before. And I contend that this is the truth. This is the settled matter. There are only two religions in the world. Now, at this point, many will look at you funny when you say this and say, whatever do you mean? I can name dozens just off the top of my head. And what I mean to say is, there are only two classes of religion. Now, there are thousands of ways one can doll up one of these classes of religion. And these two classes, beloved, works or grace. Works or grace. Every religious description fits into one of these kinds, one of these classes. For the philosophies of all of the false religions of works all teach the same thing at the end of the day. Do these things or abstain from these things. And if you do or don't do enough of the things we tell you to do and not do, then maybe you will advance and become something greater or perhaps attain some level of exaltation or assurance of exaltation in the next life. And then there's grace. While on one hand you have religions telling everyone, do this, do this, do this, do this, and maybe you will appease your God or maybe you will fulfill some sort of destiny. But if you fail in these things, you will not. Our grace message is that you cannot be saved by the doings of your hands. But grace says Jesus has paid it all and He calls His people into a relationship with Him bought and paid for by His very blood and righteousness. Grace says your works cannot count. In fact, your workings and doings are an affront to the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. For every time you work to earn God's favor, you deny the sufficiency of the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ to forgive sins and to atone. In chapter 3, verse 2, the writer Philippians tells us this, Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Now here, the apostle is talking about the religious leaders of the Jews and then by extension, the false Christians here who are espousing the doctrine that you have to be circumcised and maintain the Jewish law in order to be a Christian. Paul here calls them those who mutilate themselves. So they were arguing and contending that Greek Christians, Gentile Christians had to be circumcised in order to be Christian. They had to maintain these Sabbath laws. They had to maintain the dietary restrictions. They had to basically become Jewish in order to be Christian. And here Paul says, look out for these dogs. Look out for these false teachers. In verse 3 he says, for we are the real circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. While one class of religion in this world will tell you, do all of these rituals, do all of these rules, do all of the things that we tell you and then maybe you'll have a chance. A grace preacher walks into the room and says, if you're counting on anything that you do as worthy of commendation from God, then you are woefully, woefully lost and undone. Do not trust the dogs who would have you mutilate yourselves. Or in our day, do not trust those false teachers who would tell you that you're saved by what you do or don't do. But rather, put no confidence in the flesh. Let your boast be Jesus Christ. Put your boast in the glory of His finished work. When you're asked, why do you know you're saved? How do you know you're saved? Look someone right in the eye and say, I know that in me that is in my flesh, no good thing dwells. But I have met the Master in the full pardon of my sins and I have been found clothed in the righteousness of another. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. But rather being clothed in His righteousness. Being clothed in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. And this righteousness from God depends on faith. And we know from Scripture that faith isn't something that we've drummed up. Faith itself is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. Now, Paul says if anyone had reason to brag about the works of their hands, he certainly did. Remember, one class of religion says, you've got to work to be saved. Or you've got to work to maintain your salvation. You've got to do these things in order to assure your salvation. But the true religion of grace, the true religion from heaven, pure religion, says that we're saved by the righteousness of another, Jesus Christ. And the works we do, we do because God has ordained that we walk in them. Not to be saved, but because we are saved. They're a reply of faith. They do not cause us to be saved, but save people who love the Lord and seek to do His will, however imperfectly in this life. What a difference that subtlety makes. It's not so subtle in the results. The results are not subtle. So be careful. Guard your mind against those who would tell you that you've got to do this or that in order to know that you're still a Christian. Or to know that you are a Christian in the first place. You're not any of those things. You're not saved because you give an offering at the church. You're not saved because of your attendance, although I encourage you to attend to the meeting of God's people for the worship of God. But these things don't make you righteous. They're not the righteousness that avails before God. The righteousness that avails before God is the blood of Jesus Christ. And if it be applied to you by faith, you are saved. You've been clothed in the righteousness of another. But Paul here says, I have all sorts of reasons to be confident, if confidence can be wrought from the flesh. He says, if anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin. A Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. When you finally reach a point where you've apprehended grace by His precious, precious mercy, and you've seen what sort of man or woman you are, and the gospel comes to you in saving power, at that point, you realize, as you repent from all of your dead works, that your church membership down at the community church wasn't ever going to save you. The fact that you sat and maybe even chaired on church boards didn't save you. The money you donated to the local charities didn't save you. None of the things that men in this world pat themselves on the back about are saving. And Paul says, if you thought you had a list to brag about, listen to what I could have bragged about should I want to. If becoming Jewish was a prerequisite for salvation, Paul says, I've got you all beat. He was talking to the Circumcision Party, those who tried to Judaize Christianity in a way that would cause us all to have to follow Jewish laws. And Paul says, no, no, no. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to them that believe. And he says, I have more reason to brag and boast than all of you do. And he lists the litany of his exploits in Judaism. He had been raised, of course, as a practicing Jew. He was circumcised on the eighth day. He was a Pharisee, which means he had vast swaths, perhaps the entire Torah memorized. He was a fanatic when it comes to keeping the ceremonial law. And because of that, he had reason to boast in the eyes of many. But Paul says about all of these things, I'm a zealous fellow. I went out, I went after those false people, those Christians, you know, the ones that didn't follow the law. I was zealous against them. Because I have all sorts of reasons to brag. But at the end of the day, what does verse 7 say? Whatever gain I had or whatever I thought I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Many today, so anxious to maintain their pedigree, will hold on to some vestige of what they thought they had, even when they were in false religion. You know, I've been religious my whole life, but I finally came to the truth of the Gospel of God's grace last year. And I tell them, I said, what are you holding on for? It's okay. So you're saying you're a Christian now. You were a church member for 20 years, but now you're a Christian. You don't need to tell me about all that other stuff. It's okay. You don't need that to commend you to God, because you have Christ and His righteousness. You don't need your old pedigree or whatever you thought it was. Paul was willing to take everything that built his identity in this world and burn it up in a pile and count it as loss for the sake of Christ. Righteousness that depends on faith. Not righteousness that depends on works. The righteousness that avails before God is the finished work of Jesus Christ and beloved, we come into communion with Christ through God's gift of faith. Hallelujah. And we count everything as loss in verse 8, just like Paul said, because of the surpassing worth. Do you understand that it's not that the things that we did had no worth. They had some worth in the community. If you donated a few dollars to a charity, those dollars went to do something of an earthly or temporal good, I'm sure. What Paul is saying here is, you're trying to appease a perfect God with imperfect works. And while they have temporal value, temporal worth, listen to what he compares them to. He says, I count them as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. So when you put two things in a scale, remember I said there are two classes of religion. Grace and works. Grace infinitely outperforms works to such an extent that Paul here says, you can go ahead and count every single thing you've ever tried to do for righteousness as loss. It's a lost call when you compare it to the surpassing excellence of the work of Jesus Christ. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things. And Paul wasn't lying. He'd been through some stuff. And count them as rubbish. So all the things that he could have bragged about, he said, now they're not worth even talking about. Why is this? In order that I may gain Christ. He's saying, I have Christ and I will not sully the excellence of his mercy by attempting to add or augment something that Jesus did with the works that I have done. I'm not going to add my two cents to the finished work of God through Christ. I don't need that. I'll count everything I have as loss for the sake of gaining Christ. Hallelujah. And be found in him. And how is it that we want to be found? We want to be found in Christ. And as the writer here says, not having a righteousness of my own, as if such a thing were possible. What we're talking about here is that phony false assurance of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is a mocker and a liar. Men will think they have something of which to boast. But in comparison to the finished work of Christ, which one of those things, your righteousness or your so-called righteousness or the righteousness of Christ, which one of those things will commend you perfectly to God? You see, those who are self-righteous might even think about it for a minute and say, I have the righteousness that avails before God. And they will be woefully, woefully, woefully surprised one day when they are the ones who look to the Lord in that judgment day and say, haven't we prophesied in your name? Haven't we done great and mighty things in your name? Haven't we cast out devils in your name? And the Lord will look at them right straight through their pathetic self-righteous attempts at righteousness. And he's going to say, depart from me, worker of iniquity. I never knew you. Ah, but one day we're going to be found. Why is it we're going to be found? Because the great revelation of Christ is coming. He's coming. And when He returns, we're going to be found just like God found Adam and Eve in the garden. We're going to be found. Are you going to be found naked? Because self-righteousness will leave you naked and afraid. But to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, that's how we want to be found. Listen, verse nine, to be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, because that's no righteousness at all, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God, the righteousness from God, that depends on faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Do you believe that this morning? But you must also believe that faith is not a magic that we work up in our own soul. It's not our willing to believe something. Faith is a gift from God. He calls us to do His good pleasure. He calls us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He calls us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And when He does, we know Him and we know the power of His resurrection. And when we finally experience Christ in the preaching of the gospel, when His mercy comes in on the scene and causes us to realize that everything we had put our stock in in this world was sinking sand, we repent of those dead works and we turn by His gift of faith to the living God in Christ Jesus. And we cast ourselves on His mercy. And we trust in His grace. And the Bible says, for whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. We confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord. We believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead. What is that? That is to know Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the power of His resurrection. To believe that God brought Him back. That God Himself proved His point. Justified the faith of the people by bringing Christ right back up. And the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead will one day quicken our mortal bodies. Just a few days ago, some of us had gathered around a cemetery. It was a sad occasion. And I looked over the cemetery and I saw many, many surnames of people that I know and knew. And as I looked over that graveyard, I couldn't help but think, even in that sadness, that glimmer of gospel hope, that one day a trumpet is going to sound. One day the Lord of glory is going to come. And He is going to announce His arrival with a trumpet blast. And those graves of those souls who went there, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, clothed in His righteousness, the Lord is going to make an open spectacle of death. And those graves are going to let loose the bones of those who died in the Lord. And I'm going to tell you right now, when I go to a graveyard, every time we put a Christian in the ground, we testify that we believe in the resurrection. We don't put our loved ones in the ground because we seek to forget them or we seek to bury the truth of their demise. Oh, no, no, no. We put them in the ground. We lay them there face up. And then we say, all right, Lord, all we've done in putting them in the ground is to cock the trigger. Because we know that one day the Lord is going to make all things new. Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory? All these things are swallowed up in the victory of Christ. I don't walk onto a graveyard with a saint in tow, thinking that we've lost the fight. Are you kidding me? I serve He who conquered death, hell, and the grave. And I know in whom I have believed. And I know that one day I will see Him as He is. And I'll see Him in my flesh, even when I die. Job taught us and gave us that great promise. In my flesh, I shall see God. Hallelujah forevermore. Every Christian cemetery is a testimony to the faithfulness of God. He's coming through Jesus and He's going to raise those people up. He's going to call them in in physical form when He returns on that great day. And that day, I want to be found in Jesus. I don't want to be found having a church membership certificate that has all of my hope and dreams on it. I don't want to be found being able to brag about just being the biggest donor in a charity. I don't want to be found just saying, Oh, I tried to do my best. Oh, no, no, no. Because every one of those works can be marred with my own fleshly desires and my own sin. I want to be found when He returns or when I meet Him, knowing full well that everything that I have of any value toward God is Jesus Christ and Him alone. Can you say that today? Can you say that the Lord has caused you to believe that everything is lost but Jesus? Do you want to be found in Him just as Paul cried out here? I want to be found in Him that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and may share in His sufferings. Oh, you see, when we meet the Lord, and bad times and struggles and trials and temptations come our way, our righteousness through faith is not just an attestation of facts. Oh, it is that, but it's also much more. Because the Lord causes us to believe this Gospel, but then the Lord sends His Holy Spirit, and He guides us into truth, and He holds us fast, and He reminds us of the great love with which God loves us, and He holds us through the trials. He gives us strength each day. Joys in the morning. His mercies endure forever. And Paul says, even though I'm going to go through trials and persecutions and all these things, I hope by any means that I may attain the resurrection from the dead. What's he saying here? He's saying, huh, none of this stuff matters in comparison to the resurrection of the dead. And I've attained that through being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the righteousness that depends on faith. Oh, beloved, Paul here goes on and says, Oh, beloved, Paul here goes on in verse 12, and we can maybe mention a little bit of this. He says in verse 12, that not that I've already obtained this. So he's saying, I'm not yet dead. I'm not yet glorified in the presence of God. And I'm not, nor am I perfect. So he's saying, yes, I fight the good fight of faith every day. But he presses on. Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press toward the mark of the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And so he argues now that while we're here, we're going to struggle and labor in this old fallen world. But our eyes should not be taken off of he who is the prize. Do not think that your labors save you. But rather, in love, serve the Lord, for he has done the work. Your joy comes in the morning. Our righteousness depends on faith and faith alone. Oh, this isn't faith that is alone. I love that when people start parsing the words. I'm not saying sign a membership card and then go on out the world and be living your life any old way you like. I don't believe that's what God calls us to. I believe that he encounters us on the road to Damascus. And he saves us by faith. And then we serve him in love. But this faith is not of your own doing. This work is not of your own doing. The work of salvation is God's work in Christ alone. And I want to be found in him. I want to be closed in his righteousness. And I pray that those of you who are here today, those of you who are watching, I pray that the Lord of glory would sovereignly and convincingly save his people according to his will. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And beloved, there is no righteousness that this old boy wants than the righteousness from God in Christ that depends on faith. Because I want to be found one day clothed in righteous robes that will leave me clothed when the fire of his glory appears. Because so many people are going to be stockpiling all the things they think make them righteous. And it's all going to get burned away at the brightness of his coming. And it will leave them naked and shamed. But hope maketh not ashamed. I thank the Lord for sovereign grace. I thank the Lord that we can have hope and confidence. I thank the Lord for gospel assurance. I thank the Lord that even though I am not perfect, I have perfect righteousness imputed to me by the finished work of Jesus Christ. And I thank the Lord that he loves me and that he has loved me forever. And it's too much for my mind to attain. I don't understand. I am not God, but I can humble myself in his presence, as his Spirit reveals more and more to me as we study the Word. My, my, his love is the same love he loved me with before time began. But every day he shows me in his Word some new aspect, some new depth. And as I grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus, I can't help but look at him and say, Lord, is there no end to the depth of your love for me? And what a journey. And I thank the Lord I'll have eternity upon eternity to contemplate the love of God in Christ Jesus, a righteousness that depends on faith. You have just heard a message from Pastor Jason Booth of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. To learn more about the good news of Jesus, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org.