It's a terrible thing to be out of sorts with someone. We're all experiencing it, it's a part of life, isn't it? To be out of sorts with your spouse, I've heard of that, to be out of sorts with a neighbor, you can be alienated from one of your children or a parent or a friend or a coworker, right? And that could cause, I mean, a churning stomach, you can sleep at night, your diet's affected, you can be gripped with anxiety and worry and discomfort because you're just not right with somebody that's important for you to be right with. It's really a terrible thing, you want to get it resolved as quickly as possible. The summer of my wife and I were in Europe when one of my children had an automobile experience, let's just say it was a botanical anomaly, a tree acquired the characteristic of motility and wrapped in front of his car and much damage was done to my car in that experience. And we were in Europe and my son there for at a smash car and was wondering how his parents would feel about that, but he couldn't talk to it. He had to wait for us to come back and then getting out the plane, he's got to reveal this situation. He didn't like being waiting for a couple of days and having that anxiety of not sure that I'm right with dad. This recently in a meeting, Ron Brown and I had a spirited dispute and when the meeting was over I felt I'm not sure, I'm anything maybe some lines were crossed in that discussion, I'm not sure we're really friends here right now and so I went straight to his office because I wanted to give him a chance to apologize. Well, anytime to go by and you know what I'm talking about right, that we've got to regularly really say to people, are we okay with each other, you know, there's anything between us that we got to be, we got to be clear here, we got to be, right, that there's one relationship for which it is of paramount importance for that to have happened and so that to happen. It's a relationship with your father, with the God who made you. You could say, I'm right with him, the decks are clear, when I lay my head on the pillow at night, I know that he's, you know, we're in right favor with each other. Do you know what it's like when you're not right with someone, you know how I can just mess up your, imagine, never being right with God, imagine living that way as a way of life, it will destroy you and what excites me tonight is I know there are people in this room who have never experienced being right with God and I want to say to some degree, you've never lived. You don't know what you've missed. You've never had a night sleep like you could have. You've never known the piece, it was Augustinus said, there is a God shaped vacuum in every human heart and man is restless until he finds, you know, his rest in Christ so the father and you are on, you know, speaking terms again. So let's talk about what the Bible says about being right with God. Do you have a sermon outline with you if you follow it on there? The first thing we need to say is that being right with God is something we need, okay? That's something of paramount importance, the need is before us.
We know it used to be right with the bank, right? That means our debts are paid or to be right with the power company or the department store. You know, we've satisfied our bill, right? We know what it is to be right with Uncle Sam, April 15th, becomes a tense moment for men, isn't it? We've got to square up with the federal government, like to be right is to have nothing between us, no debts, no obligations, no charges, you know, before the state, before the judge, before the court, we don't, we want to have nothing between us, right? So what is it to be right with God? To be right before the judge of all the universe is to have no debts, no obligations, no charges, it is to have no sin. It's to be absolutely perfect, it's to have never violated the law of God, and that's the only person who can ever be right with God as in that condition. Righteousness, a righteousness that will leave us in good standing with God is something that we desperately need. Because the Bible says, right in this passage, doesn't it, verse 23, for all have what? All are sinned and fall. Sure, everybody's all sure. And you know, man, we're always comparing ourselves to other people, trying to feel good about law, I'm not as bad as someone, so I'm certainly more holy and pure, religious and righteous, and so on, so it really doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter whether you're in a, you know, a trance in the ocean, or whether you're a zombie in the Himalayas, you still can't touch the stars, can you? Right? I'm not going to have grieve your life is, you're not right with God naturally, and it says it's very clearly, Isaiah chapter 59 says, your sins have made a separation between you and your God, your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear you. Isn't that a perfect description, you know, when you get out of search with somebody, and you kind of like don't even want to pass them in all way? You know, God's face. The light that says, he's hidden from us, he doesn't even want to hear. There's no relationship, it's Kevin's broken, and that's the condition of all men. If you don't think so, again, look at Romans chapter 1, look at the litany of in verse 29, we are wicked, greedy, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gods of slander, haters of God, insulin, and on and on, and on, it goes, we need to be right with God, and we're not. And I want to tell you something, every malady we deal with, and our own lives and the lives of others traces itself at its root to what? Being separated from God, not being right. It's just a root of it all. Had opportunity, the responsibility this week to deal with somebody who's in a serial adulterer, meaning they commit adultery 30, 40 times a year, every year. They're a serial adulterer. Now, you can talk about putting them in accountability, and read this book, and you need to do this, and all kinds of activities to try to straighten this person out. But at the bottom, you have to say, what are they seeking? What are they hungry for? That leads them into this destructive pursuit of companionship and behavior that wants to get the heart of it. There's an intimacy with God that they don't know, and their heart will never be satisfied till they know what we need to be right with God. Secondly, here's the good news. What does the Bible say? Not only righteousness we need, but there's the righteousness we can get. The righteousness, the reception of this righteousness. This is what the Bible says, you know, that's right there. But now, but now, it's all our sin and all our rebellion, where it can actually happen. We can, as soon as I can actually be right with God. Typically, people can actually stand before God, and God could look at us and say, I find absolutely no fault in this person. How about that? What the Bible says, that won't happen by law keeping. Is that what it says right here in the passage? Verse 28, so we maintain that a man is justified before God by faith apart from what? Apart from observing the law. Recending they're right with God, but it's a righteousness that we can't produce. It's not going to come from us. It's not going to be because a lot of people are here. It's going to be because we receive a righteousness as a gift, and the righteousness we will possess before God will be an alien righteousness holy forms us. It's not our righteousness. Understand? It's not by law keeping. And you understand, this is where Christianity is divided from every other world religion. Oh, there are many words to God. There are many ways to God, you know, when we hear this kind of talk, don't we? The Christianity is different than ever in a religion. Be it the Mormon. Be it somebody who saw me this week. They threw out the Utah, they sat next to a Mormon the whole way, and the Mormon just talked about Jesus and talked about their life, and their life was so hot. So all of a sudden, and all these things, and none of that is to be denied. So what's good is these are all us for religion. We see people who are practicing fasting, and people who are genetically in their religion, and people are divided in a way that many people in this world, many of us, would never experience. Right? But there's something completely different between that and Christianity. All these world religions say that it's up to us to take the initiative, and to somehow produce our righteousness in which we give it to God. But the Bible says what? The Bible says that there is a righteousness of the good news is that there is a righteousness what? From God. It's not a righteousness reproduce and give to God, it's a righteousness of God possesses, and it gives to us, and this makes all the difference in the world. We're reading about this we call religious no more. Religious no more. The Christian church should be violently anti-religious.
We should do everything we can to stamp out religion in our hearts. We're not religious. Christianity is the end of religion. It's the end of man trying to live in such a way that God will be pleased with him. Anyway, this book, religious no more, talk about the Honduran church. But Honduras, and almost everybody that proclaims the name of Christ in Honduras, is utterly legalistic. No makeup. No jewelry. No cutting your hair. One woman was saying, you know, I was told, but since I cut my hair, I'm going to hell. No wearing pants. No wearing shorts. No music. No dancing. And it just goes on and on. You must attend church six to seven nights a week. And this is a definition of Christianity. And the author is saying, where in the world did they get that from? Where did they get it from? So when we talk about being right with God is a matter of what God does for us, not what we produce. And then I said, every world religion practices trying to produce the righteousness from God. But that's not Christianity. I want to tell you something. Most of what passes for church in North America, Protestant or Catholic is why. Is exactly the same as those world religions. Everybody that's Protestant would say, we are saved by grace, not by worth. Everybody would say it. And then almost everybody believes that my daily security with God comes from how I behave. And when you go anywhere in the world, you see this legalistic Christianity and where did it come from? It came from North American Protestant missionary. These things are even great. It's not a matter of lyrics. But in truth and reality, our sense of security with God comes from our behavior. I produce it. That's not the gospel. That's not, that will never be right with God that way. In Christianity, we don't go to church to be taught how to seek God. The Christian gospel, as you go to church, to be reminded and informed that there is a God who seeks you. There's a God who seeks you. And that distinction makes all the difference. There's an old him that says, come ye weary, heavy laden, bruised and broken by the fall. If you carry, tell you're better, you will never come at all. So the Bible says we need to be right with God. There is a righteousness that God will provide for that. But it's not received by law keeping. It is received by what? By what? Faith. Faith in Jesus. Now what does that mean? God means that I am going to rest and trust in what Jesus has done for me and not what I do or what I can produce by myself. Romans chapter three, those of you are standing out right now apart from the law, a righteousness from God has been manifested. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Now it's faith. I want to tell you something. It's faith in Jesus, not faith in general. Dwight Eisenhower, president Eisenhower once said, America was built on a staunch and devoted religious faith. And I don't care what you call it or what it's in. That's not the Bible, sir. Faith doesn't save you. Jesus saves you. Right? It's not faith that saves us. It's the objects of our faith. It's not the practice of faith. It's whether the objects of our faith is worthy of that faith. Even have faith in all sorts of things, right? Can have faith in Buddha or faith in this or faith in that. The question is, do you have faith in something worthy of the faith? And so it's not faith in general. It's faith in Jesus and Jesus. As it's just today, this week, I saw two little little little girls. Two little little girls. Two little girls. One beauty contest at the Citrus County Fair. You know, Miss Citrus County, Miss Teen, Citrus County. And all of this. And they're both Christians. And they both go to Citrus High School. And they both talk about Christ, quoted scripture. You know, trusting the world with all your heart, lead not in your own understanding. And all your ways acknowledge Him. And he would guide that path. And the gave a testimony in the article. And a heading on the article said, beauty pageant winners trust the higher power. That's what it said. God, Jesus is not a higher power. It's not faith in something. As long as you have some faith in some higher power, that's what you need. Isn't it enough? It's faith in Jesus. Not a higher power. Jesus. And Jesus only. The Jesus is a Bible who said, I am the way in the truth in the life. And nobody comes to the Father. But by me. Faith. Faith is resting on what Jesus has done for us. You see, that you have faith in something. That's just another work, right? You can save yourself by having faith in something. What are you just doing it yourself? Faith doesn't save us. What you're facing in. See? That's resting on what Christ has done for us. And what only Christ could do for us. Now, what does he want to say? He said, he's our Redeemer. He redeemed us. That's what it says in verse 24, right? Christ redeemed us. He bought us back as slaves. He purchased us in the marketplace at the cost of his own blood. I put my faith in that. And I put my faith in the fact that he is my reconciler. He's obeyed the whole law. So that he restores me to the right relationship with God. And you got to understand it. Listen to this. In all my years in the ministry, I asked people, how do you know that you're a Christian? If you stand before Donnie, he would say, why should I let you in heaven? What would you say? Do you remember that question? You know what they always say? Jesus Christ died for me. That's part of it. But the reconciling work of Jesus isn't just that he takes away our spirit. He doesn't take away our sins, so that we're parted. Parting isn't all it is. And there's lots of Christians who live parted, but distant from God. Do you understand the difference? God doesn't, Jesus doesn't just pardon us about sins. He brings us in his family. He reconciles us to his father, so we embrace by the father and we respect the fair scholarship and favor with God. There's a big difference. Jackie Kennedy could have pardoned Ray Harvey Oswald, right? She could say, I forgive you. And let's suppose she even had the power to have him not charged for murdering her husband. That's one thing, right? She could have pardoned him. It's a whole different thing to bring him home, right? It would have been a whole different thing to welcome him into her life. To embrace him as her brother and her friend, and to lock arm and arm together as people who are dear and in love with each other, right? It's a whole different thing. Jesus Christ pides us, but he also reconciles us. He adopts us. He welcomes us into his family. That's what's ours. That's why the gospel is precious. He makes us right with God. Holy reconciles. It's a beautiful thing. Faith in Jesus. Chuck Carlson is in India, and he's at a press conference, and all the Indian reporters are saying to him, praising his concerns, his prison ministry that's global and worldwide, and they were saying to Chuck Carlson, your prison ministry is great, but your gospel stinks. Your exclusive message to Jesus is the only way to God. We reject it. And Carlson said, very casually, how do you feel about Mother Teresa? And they said, you know, we practically worship her. And Carlson said, why do you think she cares for the dying? And they said, because she is a humanitarian, and he said, no, because she loves Jesus, and because Jesus loves her. I do what I do in the prisons. She does what she does with the dying, because of Jesus, only because of Jesus. We would not do anything for a great moral teacher, but we will give our lives in loyalty and devotion to the one who has redeemed us, and rescued us, and reconciled us so that we are right with God. I hope this makes sense. We need to be right with God. That happens not by anything we contribute. It's wholly done by God for us. And we put our faith in what Christ has done from one last point. Who can experience this? Being right with God. Who's eligible? That's the same, verse 22. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ too. I overlay you. There's no station. That means no matter how flawed, how broken, how messed up, how far from God you are, how much you are messy made out of your life, if God does it all and gives it to you than everybody's eligible, aren't they? I mean, we don't do anything to make ourselves right with God, then everybody's eligible. Everybody. Doesn't matter how messed up, how flawed, how the garbage you've done, you're eligible. You know, I haven't got to tell you something. I've been a pastor here for 17 years, and I have never believed before that the gospel could change anyone. Oh, I would have said I did. I mean, a friend of mine was, in a prayer meeting one time, he said, the gospel could change anyone, and somebody stood up in the back and said, you don't believe that. He said, he drove home that night thinking, you know what? I don't. He detoured, and his way home, drove to the nearest dairy queen where a motorcycle gang would congregate. Walked up to the topus looking one of them and told them about Jesus. Because he said, I'm going to put it to the test. I'm going to find out whether I really believe that Jesus Christ can give his righteousness to anyone, if it's all of them. Six months later, that motorcycle that gang leader was converted, and Mary, that man's daughter, and is a PCA pastor today. Do you know why I believe the gospel can change anyone like I've never believed it before because it's changing me? Well, I could never have before. Before I saw people change, so I knew that God could change people, but I didn't see somebody else change me. I didn't see myself loving my wife anymore. I didn't see myself engaging my kids anymore because I didn't get the gospel. And as I see the gospel changing me, then I know it can change anyone, perhaps even you. Now, here's kind of the next last point. There's a problem here. There's a problem here. Let's just call this the problem. The righteousness comes from God. He provides it and gives it to us so that we are actually to stand before God with nothing between us and God. The problem is, how can God do that? There's a problem. How can God call sinners right? How can we do that? There's a problem. It's called His what? His justice. His justice. How can it just God? The whole intestine is filled with instruction where God says to judges, you may not have guilty people come before you and then call them not guilty. And you may not have innocent people come before you and call them guilty. That's unrighteousness. And here we read the Bible says that God declared unrighteous people to be what? Righteousness. How can you do that? How can we do that without violating your own law and becoming unjust Himself? Do you see the problem? If we want God to be just, we want justice. I tried to promise me. We want justice. When a Tampa Bay Bucket is received in the last minute of the playoff game against St. Louis, catches the ball and the instant replay all the turns that catch. We are insects. We want justice. When somebody backs into your car and smashes your new car, and you go to the judge, and the judge says, fast, everybody makes mistakes. Sorry. How do we feel about that? We want what? We want judges who are poor in the law. We want justice. We also want what? Mercy. Well, you know, we say, why can't God just forgive us or sin? I mean, parents do it. Kids screw up and the parents are going to keep themselves and say, what I did wrong? Parents say, okay, it's kind of the nature of things. You make mistakes? That's all right. We'll go on. Why can't God do that? Because He's not just a parent. He's a judge. Judges aren't allowed to do that. Somebody rages one of your friends in their car and they're brought to record the judge can't say, well, mess up. Sorry. Sorry. You better next time. God's a judge. He's a holy and just judge. He's a parent. How do you reconcile those two things? Somebody was in the courtroom. Number 20-year-old boy, about to be sentenced. As the judge was speaking harshly to the boy, about ready to pronounce the verdict, suddenly the courtroom was pierced with a plaintive whale. It was the boy's father. The boy's father who remembered that little toddler he used to hold. Who remembered that little little lager that he used to play catch with. Now he saw his little baby boy going away to prison and he couldn't constrain himself and he cried out. The judge distracted, looked over, everybody looked, and then the judge passed sentence. Both are doing the right thing, aren't they? Judges got to be a judge. A dad has got to be a dad. So how does a righteous God ever get right with us? It's called the what? It's called the cross. The justice of God and the love of God meet and they embrace. Because every bit of God's justice and holiness is poured out on Jesus. God does not spare any of his wrath. It's all poured out. That's why verse 25 says that Jesus is a, and there's a big word there. He is the propitiation. He is the offering that assuages the wrath of God. But not only is God the judge, he's a loving parent. So not only does he pass the verdict, he absorbs the penalty himself. And so God is both just and the, the justifier. Every other pagan religion says, and man must offer up himself to satisfy for his sins. Only Christianity says God offers up himself for the center. It's a beautiful thing. To be righteous, understand this. To be right with God doesn't mean that God has waived the penalty you should pay. The penalty was paid. He doesn't waive anybody's penalty. Every penalty is paid. Which means that he can never hold it against you. To understand the security of this truth, your Jesus paid it all. Christ, God, what He looks at you, if you are covered with the righteousness of Christ, he doesn't say, you know what? He should really be condemned, but he got off. He's going to get into heaven by the little, little slimy little devil. I wonder how you know, stripped around my justice. When God looks at you, he sees someone who is perfect and pure because the penalty was paid. And it would be unjust of God to ever hold it against you. You are really truly free. And righteous before God. You didn't get any better than that, folks. And that's the last point. Now what's the fruit of all this? I just read an email, ten minutes before I walked in here. The email from my sister-in-law, and she pulls out her heart about her son, told her last week, he's diagnosed him with autism, but he's got these disorders, so that she went and observed him at school this week and she sees that he is totally outside the social circle. The other kid just sees him is so weird. Because when they communicate with him, he doesn't get it fast enough. And he just locks up, he's so afraid. And he just stares at him or he says inappropriate things or sounds come out of him. And so everybody else has just rejected him. And they are cool kids, aren't they? The sort of way I had a brain tumor once in my sister-in-law said that was so much easier than this. To see that my child is the butt of the jokes, to see that my child is hated and ostracized and mocked. And you know what I read when I read that email? You know what I saw it? I'd like to strangle those little kids. Do you think that's what I thought? No, I was that kind of kid. My brother had the same problem. And I did everything I could to keep my distance from my brother. We were in the same grade all through school. He got put back because he had problems. And I never have owned up to the way I tormented my brother until I read that email tonight. I've never ever told my brother I was sorry. I've never even realized it. What can wash away my sins? What can make me whole again? Do you think I can ever do anything to make up for that? Nothing. But the blood of Jesus. Nothing. To understand, the Bible says the fruit of realizing that there's a righteousness from God that makes us right with God means that there's no boasting, right? If Jesus paid it all, what am I boasting about, right? There's no boasting. That doesn't really mean boasting. That means bragging. It just means that I'm going to find my security in what Jesus has done for me, not in the things that I do. Paul said, I'm a Jew of Jews. I'm a member of the Sanhedrin. Circumplised on the eighth day, you know, a paragon of virtue in Israel, zealous for the law. But I would throw it all away and count it as dumb to be found in Christ, not possessing a righteousness of my own, but possessing the righteousness of Christ. When you have the righteousness of Christ, you don't boast anymore in yourself. You boast of nothing but the cross. Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what it means to be able to say? I am utterly secure. I am now utterly secure. There's just a freedom in my life that I've never experienced before. Because even though I'm seeing my sin clearly, just like when I read that email, you see when you get reconciled to God, God starts to reveal your sin and one thing he makes you want to do is be reconciled to other people like your own brothers. This is the fruit. There's no boasting. There can't be any boasting anymore. There's a soft-heartedness towards other people that isn't there when you're not secure. There's a refreshing authenticity that happens, too. Do you know what I mean? If you realize that it's Christ that makes you acceptable with Father, you don't have to act like your hot stuff anymore. So when you get a church, you know it's a pretend that you're so good, right? You can be real and genuine. Isn't that what we want this church to be? Don't we want people to walk in here and say, how those people are stuffy and so religious and so holy? Is that what we want? That would really be faking people out, wouldn't it? That's not who we are. We're a mess. And you know what? When you come to realize that my acceptance before God is something all that God provides me, I can let other people see that mess as if I could really hide it anyway. And something awesome breaks out in a church, this authenticity. Brothers and sisters, I want you to see that there is a security that many of you have never known. You've always believed that you are saved by grace through the work of God, but you don't have them lived like it. You've lived like your daily security comes from whether you're behaving or not. And you will never behave well enough to be secure.
Christ has behaved for you. So before the Father, He cherishes you. And there's an incredible bond when you realize that you, in all your uglyness, are loved anyway. In fact, even regarded as beautiful. A friend had a prized German shepherd, a Canadian offspring of a Canadian grand champion, a legal dog, a five-month-old, who came home one day and found a dog rising in the driveway its head swallowing twice its normal size. He rushed into the vet, he thought that it maybe stuck its nose in some kind of hornet's nest. In fact, a vet found three pure smarts and said that this dog has been bit by a copperhead. It pumped anti-toxins and antibiotics into the dog and nobody felt the dog would live and nibbed something in it's, you know, endured. After a couple weeks, they came to take the dog home and they were utterly unprepared for what they saw. The poison had caused the dog's face to a lot of way. And so there was eyes and flesh, muscles, sinus cavities wide open. I mean, it was a ghastly sight. And it was a noxious smell. They made a recovery rental mount in the garage. They didn't want this in the house. And my friend said that the treatist dog had to put on medical gloves and put this ointment on. And every time when he went out to do it, the whole experience gave him a heave. He rubbed this ointment on the dog's face. But over a course of two months, this dog became well. Its face here, the urbanist, copper, ruddery kind of skin that made this, in fact, this proud grand champion, the ugliest dog. Wherever my friend went, this dog went. When he walked to the woods, when he went hunting, the dog was by his side. When he taught and lectured, the dog sat at his feet at the lectern. In his office, the dog sat under his desk. They were inseparable. At night, the dog slept in the room. Because there is a tremendous bond forged between the one who is unlovable. And the one who has the power to see past the ugliness and love us anyway, brothers and sisters, we are that dog. We tangled with a snake once. It made us ugly. But the sav of the gospel has been applied and we have experienced a love that makes us loyal and devoted and passionate towards the one who loves us so. That's the gospel. Amen.