What Does It Mean to be Righteous Before God? | Classic DT

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily. This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman. Hi everybody. What does it mean to be righteous before God? Right now my wife and I are down here in Arizona and you've heard of that passage. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be sent to Arizona in July. No, just kidding. Just kidding. Okay. So how are we right before God?

[00:00:27] What makes us righteous before God? It's a good question, isn't it? I want you to go ahead and listen to this passage found in the book of Matthew chapter 25 verse 46. Now this is talking about Judgment Day and Jesus separating the sheep from the goats. The goats on the left hand, the sheep on the right hand, namely meaning unbelievers and believers. And this is what it says. After he separates them, this is what it says. And these will go away into eternal punishment. Those who are goats, those who are not believers.

[00:00:57] But the righteous into eternal life. He's talking about us. He's talking about believers. So I've got a question. What makes us righteous before God? It's not our actions, our thoughts, our words because they are contaminated by sin. Even though we have good intentions of doing the right thing, thinking the right thing, saying the right thing. We many times fall short of the standard of God's word because of our sin.

[00:01:22] So what makes us, puts us in a right relationship with God? How are we righteous before God? Here's how. Don't miss it. We've appropriated by faith the merits of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to this world and he lived the life we cannot live. You've heard me say that many times. He lived the life that we can't live. He kept the commandments that we have broken and he did that for us.

[00:01:48] Then he was a holy, perfect sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, shedding his blood in payment for our sin. And then his death-defying work through his resurrection defeated death. And now, through faith in what Christ has done, our sins are forgiven. Listen to this. And we're robed in the righteousness, purity, and holiness of Christ. We've received that by faith. And so God doesn't see our sin. He sees the Savior. He doesn't see our wrongs.

[00:02:18] He sees the holiness of Christ. He doesn't see our transgressions. He sees the perfection and purity and righteousness of Christ, which we have through faith in Christ. I love that hymn, Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness. It goes like this. Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, thy beauty are my glorious dress. Mids flaming worlds, these arrayed with joy shall I lift up my head. That's talking about the final day. Bold shall I stand on that great day. Sins atoned, no debt to pay. This then shall be my only plea.

[00:02:48] Christ Jesus lived and died for me. You appear before God right now. Pure, holy, spotless, sinless. And you might be saying, well, wait a minute. That's not how I am. That's not what I think. That's not what I do. That's not what I say. But that's all been taken care of through the finished work of Christ. Because Christ did what he did. God will do what he does.

[00:03:16] Namely, giving us forgiveness and eternal life all based not on what we do, but based on what Christ has done. And so when Christ comes back and the Father is, we're standing before him, we're not going to hear questions like this. On July 13th, 1986, you did, why did you do that? Or we're not going to hear anything like this. Why did you think that? Or how could have you have said that?

[00:03:45] We're not going to hear any questions like that. And you're probably thinking, well, Pastor Dave, a few DTs ago, you talked about us giving an account of our stewardship. Well, that's right. We will give an account for our stewardship. God's given us gifts and we should use them. And if we don't use them, we have some explaining to do on Judgment Day.

[00:04:08] But you see, us being good stewards or bad stewards of the gifts that God has given us does not put us right with God, right? What puts us right with God is faith in Jesus. What puts us right with God is faith in Jesus. So here's the thing. No questions will be asked about our life, you know, about our sin. Because our sin was taken care of at Calvary. Let me say that again.

[00:04:33] Our sin was paid for through what Jesus did for us through his life, death, and resurrection. Now, here's the thing. We have a lot to worry about, it seems, on planet Earth right now. I mean, we have Hurricane Helene, which we dealt with just a couple, three weeks ago. You know, we have the election coming up and so many people are concerned about that. We have rising inflation. There's rising crime in our cities. You know, things seem to be more chaotic.

[00:05:01] More and more people are falling away from the faith and on and on and on. You could be overwhelmed and consumed with worry. But here's one thing you don't need to worry about. You don't need to worry about your salvation. You don't need to worry about where you're going to go when you die. You don't need to worry about how you're going to stand before God on Judgment Day. You're in a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. So do you know what I say to you today? Just bask in that. Rejoice in that.

[00:05:31] Reflect upon that. Thank God for that. Proclaim that to other people because it's awesome to know that you're a child of God. You know, I think of that song, who the sun sets free. Oh, is free indeed. I'm a child of God. Yes, I am. That's who we are. And that's why we rejoice. And that's why we celebrate. And finally, forgive me for that silly joke about Arizona. Maybe I'll edit it out.

[00:06:01] Maybe I won't. All right. Have a great day in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is today's Daily Truth. Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Allman. Pastor Dave Allman is the pastor of Mount Hope Church in Boulder, Colorado. If this ministry is blessing you, please consider supporting us by sharing this channel with a friend. You can also like, comment, subscribe, or leave a review. This helps us tremendously. Come back tomorrow for your next Daily Truth.