That’s It! I’m COUNTING Myself Righteous In Christ

SPEAKER 01 : 0:04

So we need to look at the passage that we explored yesterday now from a psychological point of view and a spiritual and a faith training point of view. You remember the passage we looked at was, what shall we say then? The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith is. But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as if it were by the works of the law. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? But what does it mean for us? You see, let’s consider that some people listening to this broadcast are struggling with various addictions like drugs and alcohol or food issues or sexual issues, pornography, for example. And they’re Christians, and they’re in great conflict about this. And yet maybe they think they’re Christians but don’t know how to be and would like to be Christians but think they must clear away all of this mess and addiction before they can become Christians. Well, you see, according to this verse, Gentiles, that is, non-Jewish people, found righteousness. What is righteousness? Well, righteousness can mean a number of things, but in this particular context, we’re thinking about holiness before God. We’re thinking about God’s acceptance of people in the sense that they are now righteous people. Well, we all know, especially if you’ve struggled with addiction or are struggling with addiction, that presenting yourself before God as righteous is an impossibility. And yet the mind keeps urging it, doesn’t it? You feel that if you could just get over this hump or go to more programs or have more dedication and more commitment and overcome this particular addiction, you would become righteous and God would save you. And so the tendency, the pressure on the mind, is to find a way to behave more righteously, with a greater degree of goodness. and holiness. And yet you’ve tried this for years, and the frustration is that it doesn’t work, or it isn’t complete. And for many Christians, that has led them to give up. They’ve walked away from the church, or they’ve walked away from the Bible and prayer, because the stress of knowing that they don’t measure up to what is called for is just too great. And so, what do you do? You try to be more dedicated, more holy, more pure, more good, or you give up altogether and let that part of you go and you just let, what’s the phrase, let everything flow out, let it all just hang out. There’s the phrase I’m trying to look for. And so it’s a tremendous conflict. It’s called cognitive dissonance psychologically. Cognitive meaning knowledge of the mind, and our mind and our conscience dissonant out of harmony with our behavior. When we have cognitive dissonance, we let one or the other thing go. We either let our faith go, or we try to change our behavior. But since so often in addiction behavior does not seem to change soon enough or adequately enough, then what is jettisoned is our faith. So you can see the conflict. Is there a solution to this? Absolutely there is. And it is so simple that you’re likely to dismiss it and pass me off and say, well, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Look, the message that we have explored over many, many, many months now, and for years for those who’ve listened to the program for years, is that the righteousness that Paul is talking about is by faith. But now that’s not a sufficient explanation, because you might say, well, faith in what? Faith somehow that if I have faith enough, I will get righteous? That I haven’t been exercising enough faith, and therefore I don’t have enough righteousness? Is that it? No, it’s not. And, you know, when people talk about righteousness by faith, they think they’re explaining things, when in fact they’re not at all. The righteousness by faith that Paul is talking about is the righteousness of Christ that is credited to me as if it were mine. And that is received by faith. And the faith that receives it is a gift from God also. So God gifts me or accounts me as righteous and also gives me the faith to believe that I’m counted as righteous. Now how does that look in relation to your addiction, say drugs or alcohol? You may be tempted and you may have fallen and you feel down and out and overwhelmed because you thought you were really doing well, maybe after several weeks, and now everything’s come crashing down. And so the tendency then is to pull away from God or not to talk to him because you feel embarrassed or ashamed or guilty and you just feel you have no right to pray. Now, righteousness by faith does something quite different. It says, Dear God, I know I have failed, and I’m sorry that I have failed, but I praise you and give thanks to you that that failure has no power to bring me down and no power to diminish the righteousness that I have accounted to me in Jesus Christ. For you tell me in Romans 4 verse 5 that you justify, that is, declare innocent the ungodly who trust in you. Do you see that? Now, that prayer started with praise, didn’t it? It acknowledged its sin, but it affirmed as well and thanked God that the righteousness that God accounts you with is not at all diminished. that he still treats you as if you were pure and holy because you are believing, not because, but as you believe in Jesus, who is your righteousness. So this prayer that flows from believing that Christ is our righteousness is a prayer of praise. Now, notice that because people who believe in overcoming their addiction by the law, and that means by human effort and by human dedication and by human fortitude and willpower, They can’t praise. They beg. They say, Lord God, help me. Please give me more strength. Oh God, I implore you to give me strength. What is wrong with me? I’m sorry, Lord. I repent. And Lord God, I don’t know how to repent more, but I’m going to try to repent. And the prayers that people who are involved in the works of the law are very anxious prayers. And they are stressful prayers. But the prayer of praise, yes, sometimes the prayer of praise is pushed out of us against our best inclinations, but ultimately the prayer of praise is calming us down, relaxing us. You see, that’s important. Why? Because the response to a failure is sometimes more powerful than the failure itself. If, in other words, you get all bent out of shape, having fallen yet again, and you get stressed and you say, Oh, God, be merciful to me, and you pound the pillow and you beg God to help you and give you more strength, and on and on you go with this anxiety praying… Or you don’t pray at all. You are so numbed at your failure that you just block God out for the next two or three weeks until you’ve forgotten how your sin felt so that you feel a little more righteous to be able to come to him again. Those kinds of prayers are responses to righteousness by works, to the belief that, Lord, I haven’t succeeded yet. I’ve got to try harder, and I must keep going until I do. Well, of course, we keep going. There’s no question about that. But how do we keep going? We keep going by faith. And how do we express that faith? We express that faith by affirming that in Christ we are righteous. Now, that tells you a little bit of the psychological dynamic that goes on in the mind when faith is being exercised. You see, faith alters the mindset. Faith alters the mind. The mind will bring willpower to your cause, and it will be self-defeating. The mind will try to tell you, try harder, do better, be more sincere, be more surrendered, and it will defeat you all along. It’s as if the mind were righteous in its own right and were just telling you to be righteous. But the mind is not righteous. The mind is part of the broken image of God as much as the body and the flesh are. It’s not that we have a flesh that is sinful and a mind that is righteous. The mind is deluded by the works of the law. So we come to God and we say, Father, I thank you that Jesus died for my sins. And I’m understanding that now, Lord, in a deeper way. That when I say that Jesus died for my sins, I mean that Jesus took all of the judgment of my fallen human nature upon himself so that that judgment is no longer mine. I therefore reject the forces of guilt and shame and fear that inflict me every day. I will not bow to them and come cringing to you as if I were so unworthy I must grovel. Lord God, I don’t need to grovel anymore because Jesus has taken my judgment at the cross. And therefore, Father, I give you thanks that I’m treated as if I were a good man. And not only that, I’m treated as if I had always been a good man. I’m treated, dear Father, as Christ, your Son, is acknowledged before you as righteous. I thank you for that, dear God. And Lord, I will praise you because when I praise you, the impact of my sin and failure and fall is less powerful. And so, Lord God, when I give thanks to you, I’m realizing that my response to my failure is so much more important than my failure itself. I will not shut you out because I have failed. I will not grovel because I have failed. But I will acknowledge my failure and yet also thank you that I’m still in your righteousness. Now, when you bounce back like that, you will see that righteousness by faith has an effect upon your heart and your behavior. Thank you for listening today. Colin Cook here, and this is How It Happens, a broadcast that you can hear on your smartphone and lots of programs archived on your smartphone by simply downloading a free app, SoundCloud.com or Podbean.com or others, and key in How It Happens with Colin Cook when you get there. Thanks so much for all your support. If you’d like to make a donation, you can online at faithquestradio.com. I’ll see you next time. Cheerio and God bless.