Latest / The Daily Word / May 23 – Righteousness by Faith
Transcript
- Cory Barnes: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good. We hours of the night, whatever time you are joining us, welcome to the daily word podcast from Lake shore Christian fellowship. My name is Corey Barnes and as my privileged pastor, our Katawa campus, and I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another daily word episode where we're going to be doing a devotion out of today's new Testament portion of the life journal Bible reading plan that we as a church family at Lake shore are walking through. together. Today is May the 23rd. That means on the docket was Romans chapter four. Now remember that I said on Romans chapter one that Paul started this book by establishing just how bad the situation on earth was, the wickedness, everything that was wrong. And he really started setting the stage for the fact that something was missing and we needed something. and then introducing righteousness that Jesus provided for us. ⁓ that, kind of came into, into the conversation in chapter three. And here Paul is continuing to elaborate on the theme of righteousness. And he's using in this chapter Abraham as an example to establish the fact that righteousness comes through Jesus and our faith in Jesus. So let's look what exactly is righteousness. I think that might be helpful for us. And here is a working definition, a good definition for what righteousness is. And it's God's gift of restoring people into a right relationship with him through faith in Jesus. Now the result of that is both that we are declared to be in right standing before God and it also brings in a transformed way of living by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. So it's twofold. Righteousness in the book of Romans, right standing with God, right living by the power of the Holy Spirit. Does that make sense? And so Paul is really establishing the by faith part in this chapter. That is how it comes by faith. He's using Abraham as an example, how Abraham believed God's promise would come to pass, that he would have a son, even though he and Sarah were both advanced in age, it was physically impossible. His wife, Sarah had already gone past childbearing. age and yet Abraham believed God's promise was true and that faith in God's promise was imparted to Abraham as righteousness and just like that was the case for Abraham it's the case for you and I today. Let's look at verses 23 through 25 kind of the very end of this chapter kind of Paul summarizing his argument about Abraham here. We're going to read this in the New Living Translation. And when God counted him, Abraham, as righteousness, it wasn't just for Abraham's benefit. It was recorded for our benefit too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. So the fact that righteousness comes through faith, not through works is important for us to understand. Another part of this chapter that Paul really dives into is the fact that Abraham was accounted righteous before he was ever circumcised. See, the Jewish people believe that their circumcision was a sign of their righteousness and it was by being circumcised that they were made righteous. and Paul is twisting that thought on its head that it's not actually ⁓ the that made Abraham righteous. was faith that made Abraham righteous. And then a sign of that righteousness ⁓ was circumcision. Here's how that applies to you and I. It's not by ⁓ right It's not by following God's commandments. that you and I are made righteous. No, no, it's by faith in Jesus that we are made righteous and that right living is actually the outflow of our righteousness. Right living comes out of righteousness. Righteousness doesn't come through right living. Does that make sense? I'm asking you, that make sense? Like you can actually answer me. I'm hoping it does. But here's our application for all of this. In all of our lives, there are areas where we realize that we are not hitting the mark. In all of our lives, there are areas where we realize, ⁓ my gosh, that needs to be addressed. I need to fix that. That's an issue. I don't always know how to fix that. I don't know how to get this sin pattern out of my life. I don't know how to start doing the things that I need to do. I don't know how to stop doing the things that I shouldn't be doing. I'm a mess. And we get it in our mind when we recognize areas like that, that we need to fix that problem to be in right standing with Jesus. But the truth is that our right standing with Jesus comes through believing in his finished work, not in our lifestyle changing. In other words... Before we ever fix that sin problem, we are in right standing when we believe that Jesus' finished work has paid the price for that sin and that Jesus' finished work is what is going to empower us to overcome that sin. So what area is there in our life and your life and my life that I feel like this thing is standing between me and Jesus. And as I identify that thing that I feel like is standing between me and Jesus, recognize the fact that actually Jesus is with me and is empowering me to overcome that thing. It's through faith. that we receive Jesus's righteousness both right standing with him and the grace to overcome that thing. See, Paul goes on to elaborate coming up in Romans chapter 8 that there is therefore no condemnation based on all this talk about righteousness, all this talk about Jesus's finished work, because of Jesus's finished work there is therefore no condemnation to those who believe. Christ Jesus. There is no axe over our head as we are standing and recognizing that there are things amiss in our life. Jesus is actually right beside us in those things and he wants to walk us through them. He's not shaming us and waiting for us to overcome them before we can be right with him. We're right with him and he's going to help us to overcome. Let's recognize that in our lives and start changing our mindset in those areas that we are fighting from victory, not for victory. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I just thank you for what you did on the cross. I thank you that you gave your life and you sacrificed your blood, your body, so that we could be made righteous with you. There is nothing standing between us that the blood of Jesus does not wash away. We are in right standing with you. Even as we grapple through the things that are holding us back, the snares that have us around the ankle, even as we're fighting through those things, you're with us and you're fighting with us. And we thank you Jesus for that perspective change. We thank you that we can see you in the battle with us. not standing separated from us, just waiting for us to overcome these things on our own. We thank you, Jesus, for that mind shift. I pray that you would help us all to recognize that that is the truth, that righteousness comes by faith and faith alone, and that you are with us in every trial and every battle. We thank you, Jesus, that nothing can separate us from your love, because your blood has washed away all unrighteousness, sin, every barrier has been washed away by the blood of Jesus and you are going to help us to live righteously and to live rightly. We praise you and we thank you Jesus that you're just so good. We love you and we thank you that every time we come to your words you have something to talk to us about. We love you Jesus, we really do. Amen.