Blood Covenant - Justification
Many people reject Gods offer of redemption. They don't
want to face the truth and refuse the solution to the human predicament.
JOHN 3:19. Just like Adam and Eve people are given to fig leaves
and hiding behind bushes because their deeds are evil.
A. There are two ways people seek salvation. All religions fall
under one or the other.
1. #1, In some way I can make myself right with God by my own
works.
1. There is something I can do that will make me righteous. This
is self righteousness.
b. I'm not severed from God. In my heart I am a good person. Im
not evil or a sinner.
c. I can appease God by keeping some kind of law, rules, rituals,
observances.
(A) I can keep these religious laws, rules, rituals by calling
on my own power, discipline,
ability and ingenuity.
(B) If I try hard enough I can eventually do it.
(1) Become very proud, self righteous by comparing selves to others
and outsiders.
(2) LK 18:11. Pharisee.
(a) Opposite of what God always wanted. Void of any real love
or humility.
(b) I must keep God's Law to perfection and I will be lost if
I don't.
(c) Perpetual sense of guilt, frustration, shame. Always making
perpetual promises of "I'll try to do better next time, I
promise, I promise."
(3) This worldly religion has crept like a poisonous snake into
our belief system..
(a) Instead of looking to God and the finished work of Jesus on
the cross. Many
keep depending on themselves to work and keep some rules and regulations.
(b) Hoping to somehow manipulate God into loving and forgiving
them.
2. #2, Is the New Covenant. The Gospel, that says, Man can
do nothing to save self.
a. God established a means of salvation and justification for
man just because of the
fact that man cannot do it himself. God did it for man on the
cross.
(A) God made a New Covenant in Jesus. All we can do is respond
by faith to Him by
saying, Thank you God, And we do that by our obedience
to Him.
(B) Not by MY works, But by His works. Not by what I do, but,
by what He did.
(1) Not by my trying, but by my trusting so much I respond by
obedient faith.
(2) That's when I'm given salvation. Put into covenant relationship
with Him.
b. EPH.2:8-10.
B. We Justified by Faith. ROM.3:28; 4:5; 5:1; GAL.2;16; 3:24.
Some do not believe that.
1. What's their Problem? They don't understand what JUSTIFICATION
is.
a. Most have misunderstood the word justify. JUSTIFY is a word
that defines what the New Covenant is all about.
(A) Justify does NOT MEAN to make you into something you are not.
(1) It means to treat you "As." To ACCOUNT, or RECKON
you "As."
(2) If an innocent man is acquitted in a court of law, he is NOT
MADE Innocent.
(3) He is just ACCOUNTED innocent. He is justified. You don't
make him anything. In his case he was already justified. He is
Innocent before the trial . You don't make anybody anything by
justification. Justification is a legal term that says, "This
is what you are accounted as."
(B) Man appears before God as guilty of sin. But God accounts
him as NOT Guilty.
(1) God accepts him as if he had NEVER Sinned. That does NOT make
him NOT a sinners. It doesn't make him something he is NOT. He
is still a sinner.
(2) Man stands before God as guilty. But God accounts him as Not
guilty and He receives him as if he had never sinned. He is a
pardoned sinner, a forgiven sinner.
(a) Grace pardons me for every sin I have ever committed. As I
continue to live by faith I am continually PARDONED from my SINFULNESS.
1 JNO. 1:7. Every time I sin I am a CLEANSED sinner. Im
accounted as not being a sinner.
(2) Did I sin? Yes! Do I pay sins penalty? NO, and why not?
Because God accounted me Not Guilty.
(b) On the basis of Jesus shed blood God declares me, accounts
me, NOT
Guilty.
b. You are Accounted and declared, "Not Guilty", based
on the fact that someone else paid the penalty for your sins.
(A) Your justification takes place in the mind of God. That's
how God accepts you.
(1) Justification does not make you into something you are not.
That comes later.
(2) Justification does not suddenly turn you Into a perfectly
sinless person.
(a) God Says, "You are Righteous." You feel guilty because
you still commit sin.
(b) You loose your self esteem thinking youre a hypocrite.
And you go crazy trying to make yourself into something youre
not.
(c) You are not righteous in, of or by yourself or by any of your
efforts to to be righteous.
(b) Justification does not mean you are turned into a perfectly
sinless person.
(3) Justification simply means God writes down or commits to memory,
or
however He does it, That your sins are, from beginning to
end, forgiven.
(a) Why? Let me Answer that with another Question. How am I walking?
Am I
walking by faith, in the light, In the Holy Spirit, In Gods
Word and will?
(b) What does that say about me? Gods law is written in
my heart and mind.
(4) JER.31:31-34.
(1) That promise is fulfilled in me. How is that possible? Because
Gods Law is written in my heart and on my mind. That means
that I do not habitually live in sin. I sin but not on purpose.
In fact I hate it when I sin. Sin is not in my heart and in my
mind. My heart and mind is the place where God lives, not si
(b) Therefore, God receives me into His presence as pardoned.
As if I had
never sinned because Im covered, pardoned with Jesus Himself.
(B) No wonder Paul joyfully shouts those beautiful words in ROM.8:1-3.
(1) There's only one way you can walk through life free from sin.
Free from the power of sin and the from the condemnation of sin
and the penalty of sin.
(2) Only one way you can have that. Become a child of God this
hour. Believe,
confess, repent, baptized. Be raised from waters of baptism to
walk in Newness of
life with the joy, peace and the power of eternal salvation.
(3) Acts 20:32.
Spur - 1/21/2001 pm
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