He gave you His Righteousness

Matthew 6:33 says,

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

I’ve heard this verse a thousand times and I completely missed the “His righteousness” part. Small wonder the enemy kept me blinded, because once I started studying His righteousness two years ago, I feel like I’ve grown in my walk during this period than I have in the past twenty. 

A revelation of His righteousness given to us is the nearly-too-good-to-be true news.

Many think righteousness is behaving right and doing right things. They think it’s living holy, reading your 4 chapters a day and going to church a lot. I used to think that you can grow in your righteousness, that there were different levels of it and you had to do good things to become more and more righteous.

I understood that we didn’t get saved by good works, but I figured that now I’m already saved, God is expecting more from me and I have to do my part to maintain my salvation and stay righteous. I find that all Christians are established that good works can’t save you, but millions have fallen into the above mentality, which is completely false.

“But Aaron, doesn’t the Bible say ‘work out your own salvation’?”

Yes, thank you anonymous voice. It says “work out your own salvation,” not “work for.” And the very next verse says, “for it is God who works in you…” He is doing the work, giving you the grace to do it – and then rewards you for using that grace.

The New Covenant righteousness for you and I today is not about right doing. It’s about who you are. It is right being. It is a gift from God. It is His very own righteousness He has given to you apart from your good works!

See it for yourself in Romans 5:17, 4:6,

Much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. 

Once you get a revelation of this, it’ll deliver you from that performance mentality of always wondering if you’re good enough for God.

What is righteousness? It is “right standing with God.” It is the ability to stand before God without a sense of guilt or inferiority. In the Old Covenant under law, righteousness (get it by works) was something that God demanded from man. In the New Covenant under grace, righteousness (get it by faith) is given to man. 

Law demands, Grace gives. One is from the outside trying to get in, the other is from the inside out. Righteousness was given to you when you got saved, it is not something you earned - righteousness is a gift.

Do you know what a gift is? A gift is a gift is a gift. No strings attached. It is free, just receive it. Imagine you gave your friend a gift for his birthday, and he says, “How much do I owe you?” How would that make you feel? 

Or what if he gave you half of a gift and said you had to earn the other half? What kind of gift is that? In the same way, we’ve done that with salvation. We’ve told people, “Yes, you’re saved by grace. But now you have to prove it by holy conduct, long prayers and Bible study attendance.”

How is this different from other religions? A Muslim can say, “I’m right with God because I fought jihad and read the Qur’an.” A Buddhist can say, “I shaved my head and took a vow of poverty.” And if a Christian said, “ I’m right with God because I read my Bible and pray everyday,” then it’d be all the same – they’d all be trusting in their own works.

But a Christian who knows the nearly-too-good-to-be true news that is the Gospel of the grace of God will say “Hey, I needed a Savior so Christ died for me – it’s nothing I did, but what Jesus did.” When we get to heaven, we’re not going to be shouting, “Worthy is the Lamb!.... oh, and me too!”

Good works are important, but don’t trust in your good works to get favor from God. There was a time in my life for one year straight I was in church 13 hours a week, that’s 676 hours. But I can’t go to God and say, “Lord, because I spent all this time at church, you should answer my prayers and I get more of your approval.”

I don’t deal with God based on what I deserve, in myself. It’s like when you’re browsing an album on Facebook and a girl comments, “This picture doesn’t do me justice.” I feel like typing, “Girl, you don’t need justice - you need mercy!” Trust me, you don’t want what you deserve. It’s a self-righteous attitude.

Do you want to know how God sees self-righteousness?

Isaiah 64:6 states,

All our righteousness are as filthy rags

I looked up the word “filthy” there in the original Hebrew, and you know what it says? Menstruation. The English translators chickened out! All our righteousness are like menstrual clothes. Anybody want a used tampon?

Ew. I just gagged.

So is there any hope for us, really?  Yes, His righteousness!

2 Corinthians 5:21,

For He hath made Him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

How did we become right? Was it because we did right? No, it says we were made right.

This might be hard to understand, because we know that we didn’t do right to deserve His righteousness. How can I be righteous without doing anything right? How can I be righteous apart from my performance?

I submit then, that you must also ask yourself this: How did Jesus become sin apart from His performance? How can Jesus become sin without doing anything wrong?

Did Jesus sin? No. But did He become sin? Yes. Did we do anything right? No. But did we become righteous? Yes! I don’t know how Jesus received my sin, but He did. In the same way, I don’t know how I received His righteousness, but I did.

I got good that I didn’t deserve, because Christ got bad that He didn’t deserve. That’s unfairly good but that’s grace. It is God’s Righteousness At Christ’s Expense.

God made Jesus sin at the cross, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him - so that we can have right standing with God in Him. Not in ourselves. In ourselves are used tampons. But in Christ! It is His righteousness. That is why whenever you read the Bible and you see, “in Christ” you can say “that’s me!”

At the cross Jesus carried all of our sin. We don’t carry each other’s sins, we only carry our own sin, and our sins are making us miserable. But Jesus carried all of mankind’s sin, every person that ever lived. And even the mere thought of it made Him literally sweat blood.

All of God’s wrath came on His Son that day. But it wasn’t because Jesus sinned, it was because he received our sin. It was our punishment that Jesus took. When Jesus hung 6 hours suspended between heaven and earth – heaven didn’t want Him, earth didn’t want Him - did God not treat Him like He was the world’s worst person? Like he was the world’s worst sinner? Even the sun stopped shining on Him.

If God treated Jesus like that having received our sin, how much more you, beloved, having received His righteousness - can you expect to be treated like you are the world’s best person to God? Like you kept every one of God’s commandments? And now you can expect heaven to shine on you, because it didn't on Jesus.

“Well Aaron, it says made righteous. That means after we get to heaven.” Well, do people become sinners after they go to hell? No, so people don’t become righteous after they go to heaven. In fact, they ain’t getting to heaven unless they are righteous. You were born a sinner, but when you received Christ you got born-again righteous.

We were not sinners because of our sinful actions – we were born into sin. We inherited a sinful nature. That is why we sinned, because of our sinful nature. We inherited it from Adam. It seems unfair but that’s just how life is. If your grandpa drowned you wouldn’t be here today (think about it).

Romans 5:19 says it like this,

For as by one man’s [Adam] disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s [Jesus] obedience many will be made righteous.

We all know we were born sinners. Religion does a great job of telling us that. But let’s be honest with ourselves. If we can accept the fact that we were once made sinners, we must accept the truth that we are now made righteous! 

With the same faith you had to believe you were a sinner, use that same faith to know that you now have a righteous nature. At least give God that same respect.

Your sinful nature is gone. You’re not a sinner saved by grace. You were a sinner, then you got saved by grace, and now you’re the righteousness of God in Christ. Now you have the ability to stand before God without a sense of guilt or inferiority. That’s righteousness.

Before you were born again, there was nothing you could do to change your sinful nature. You could give a one time gift of $30 billion to charity like Warren Buffet did, but your good works still couldn’t change your sinful nature. It still couldn’t get you to heaven.

On the flip side, after you received Christ and now have a new nature, those occasional acts of sin you commit won’t change your righteous nature.

You looked like I just slapped you. “You mean I can just go and kill someone and still be righteous?!” Let me ask you, do you want to kill someone? After knowing how Daddy God gave up His only son Jesus for you so you can be reconciled to Him? 

Your new righteous, holy nature you received will change your “want to.” I understand that you’re still dealing with your flesh. Paul talks about that struggle in Romans 7. But he mentions three times his “want to” is to do good and right.

Most people think sin will stop God’s grace. So sin is greater than grace? What they’re saying, in essence, is Adam’s work was more powerful than Christ’s finished work. But the Bible uses the phrase “much more” four times in Romans 5 concerning Christ’s finished work bringing superabundant life over Adam’s work that brought death. They have more faith in their ability to sin than in the blood’s cleansing power.

Stop flattering sin. It won’t win. You don’t got enough sin in you to sin out God’s grace. If God’s mercy could’ve run out in your life it would already have.

And when you mess up, don’t beat yourself up. Christ already took the beating for you. When you miss your flight at the airport and the clerk asks, “The next flight leaves in 30 minutes, want me to book you?” You don’t say, “Hold on… I have to think about how I blew it for 45 minutes.” No, get on the flight!

In Christ, we have become a new creation, and our old sinful nature has passed away. When a worm becomes a butterfly, it no longer wants to hang around in the dirt. It used to enjoy the dirt. Even as a butterfly it may fall into the dirt at times, but it will not “un-butterfly” and turn back into a worm. Eventually, it’ll get sick of the dirt and start to fly again.

Some people are scared that if you tell the church they’re righteous apart from works they’ll go out and sin more. They have more faith in the people’s flesh than they do in the power of the Holy Spirit to change them with the Word. 

But the Bible says, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not.” (1 Cor. 15:34) The more you awake to this truth that you are righteous, the more you’ll start to act like so.

Romans 1:16-17 says to know you are righteous it must be by faith,

For in it [the Gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

It’s not from faith to works, but faith to faith. You don’t get to a point where you’re so “mature” that you go from faith to works now. It is about right believing. 

And don’t worry about right doing, right doing will come out of right believing. Right doing is a by-product of a relationship with God, not a means to obtain it.

We didn’t do anything to become right, but we now have His righteousness. Our part is putting faith in what Jesus did, the Last Adam. Read the book of Romans and see for yourself how many times it says “justified by faith.” (Hey! Did you seriously just google “romans justified by faith”?)

Why does God want it by faith? Because sometimes, child of God, you’ll have thoughts and actions that are contrary to your righteous nature. But that is the time you must stand up and say, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ.”

This new righteous nature happened in your spirit, the real you - the part God relates to. Our bodies didn’t change when we got saved. If you had dandruff before you got saved, you still got dandruff after. You have a mind that must be renewed in the Word (Romans 12:2). But your spirit is as righteous as Billy Graham. In fact – it’s as righteous as Jesus (read slowly: “righteousness of God in Christ”).

I’m not saying that we have become Christ and can be worshipped now. What I am saying is that we are joined to Him. We are in Christ. And when God sees you, He doesn’t see what you used to be - He sees Jesus.

Perhaps this would be easier to understand by looking at the Old Testament. If you don't understand this part then you won't know why Jesus came.

In the OT, when somebody sins, they would have to find a lamb as a sacrifice for their sin. But not just any lamb. The lamb needed to be clean, spotless and without blemish.

The sinner would then take the lamb and bring it to the High Priest, who represents God to the people. When the High Priest sees the sinner coming to Him, he’s not looking at the sinner. He already knows why the sinner came - it’s obvious: he sinned. However, what he is looking at is the lamb.

When you come to God, He is not looking at all your faults. He is looking at the Lamb. You represent the sinner, the offeror. But He is not looking at the offeror. He is looking at the offering.

Who is the offering? Who is the lamb? Jesus is the Lamb! When John the Baptist first saw Jesus from afar, he shouted, “Lamb of God! Who takes away the sin of the world!”

The High Priest examines the lamb to see if there is any blemish, and makes sure the lamb is perfect. Then the sinner lays his hands on the lamb. At this moment, all of his sins get transferred to the innocent lamb. Simultaneously, all the purity, innocence and righteousness of the lamb is transferred to the sinner.

Because the lamb received sin, it must die. The High Priest slaughters the innocent lamb, and the offering is burnt. It goes up to God as a sweet-smelling aroma, because it reminds Him of His Son's sacrifice that brought you near.

As the offeror walks away, he doesn’t walk away sin-conscious, expecting punishment. He walks away expecting only the best, because all the goodness and righteousness of the lamb is now his. And when he looks back at the altar, he knows that should have been his death.

Jesus is always referred to as a Shepherd, and we as the sheep. But in the sacrificial context, He is known as the lamb.

Why?

Because He took your place. And to honor His sacrifice, I am not ashamed to say that I am the righteousness of God in Christ.

And so are you.