CHRIST OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

BIG IDEA: Christ is our righteousness!

Romans 10:4
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS EVERY RELIGION MUST WRESTLE WITH:
- What is good and true?
- Who is Jesus?
- How can I be saved?

Romans 9:30-31
What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.

Romans 10:2-3
For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

THERE IS A WAY TO SALVATION:
- Be perfect as God is perfect. - Matthew 5:48
- You shall be holy for I am holy. - 1 Peter 1:16 / Leviticus 11:44
- Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 5:20

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PHARISEE

Righteousness:
Doing the right thing, to all people, at all times, with the right motives.

Are you getting it right…
- in regard to trust and anxiety?
- in regard to forgiveness?
- in regard to money and generosity?
- in regard to purity?
- in regard to the spiritual disciplines?

Matthew 5:20
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

“It is an intolerable and horrible blasphemy to think up some work by which you presume to placate God, when you see that He cannot be placated except by this immense and infinite price; the death and blood of the Son of God, one blood of which is more precious than all of Creation.”
~ Martin Luther

Romans 9:32-33
Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Romans 10:4
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

SALVATION IS BOTH PARDON FOR SIN AND IMPUTATION OF CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS

Jesus did not just die for you, he also lived for you!

2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus always and continuously heard:
“YOU ARE MY BELOVED SON, WITH YOU I AM WELL PLEASED!”

If you are in Christ, the Father continuously speaks to you:
“YOU ARE MY BELOVED, WITH YOU I AM WELL PLEASED!”