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Cedar Lake SDA Church

The Everlasting Gospel

Mark Howard

1. The Goodness of God

2. Another Gospel

3. The Lord Our Righteousness

4. Preparing the King’s Highway

5. Righteousness by Faith

6. And They Don’t Take American Express

7. Looking Unto Jesus

We are in a series on the everlasting gospel, and the message today is entitled, Christ Our Righteousness, taken from our scripture reading there.

I want to revisit a little bit about what we talked about last week.

Last week's message was a little more theological.

We talked about imputed and imparted righteousness.

We talked about justification and sanctification and these kinds of things.

And 1 of the things we talked about was an interesting and important piece of history for us as Seventh-day Adventists.

And I mentioned that in the middle of last century, about 1950 or so, in Adventist history, we had an experience where we had some Seventh-day Adventist leaders who met with some evangelical leaders.

And the long and short of the meeting was that they attempted to explain Adventism within the context or in the framework of evangelical Christianity.

And the challenge with that is that it can't be done.

And the reason it can't be done, I gave a few reasons last week.

First of all, the leaders that our leaders met with believed in, they were Calvinists, so they believed in predestination.

Seventh-day Adventists don't believe in predestination.

Predestination says that God has already determined who's going to be saved and lost and wherever you end up, you end up, you have no choice in the matter.

And so to try to fit in a view of the gospel in a context that doesn't give free choice is impossible.

They also believe in 1 saved always saved, which goes along, not everybody who believes in predestination does, or in those terms, but it's kind of hard not to at any rate.

But 1 of the most obvious things that's different is Seventh-day Adventists believe that when Jesus died on the cross, rather than dying on the cross to do away with the law, he died on the cross to magnify the law.

So Seventh-day Adventists believe that the law is still part of Christian living, where the evangelical leaders did not.

We're told in inspiration that the commandments of God, the law of God, I'd rather, let me back up.

We're told that the gospel is the divine remedy for sin.

If you take the law out of the picture, the gospel becomes a remedy or a cure for a disease that doesn't exist.

If the gospel is to save us from sin, but there is no law, the Bible says very clearly in Romans 4, 15, where there is no law, there is no transgression.

And so what it does is you take the law out of the picture and it confuses the matter.

Rather than the gospel being, as we looked at last week, the power of God unto salvation from sin.

Because there's no sin, the gospel becomes about forgiveness, and forgiveness becomes about appeasement, rather than a gift from God for transformation.

And then Jesus becomes the Savior from the penalty of sin, but He's not the Savior from the power of sin.

And this has very much influenced even our church today.

And 1 of the probably the most obvious areas is a downplaying of the part of righteousness that's called sanctification.

Now you don't have to get lost on all these terms, but we'll get into it a little bit further here.

Now I did share these last week, and I wanna revisit a couple statements I shared with you last week.

Christ's subject lesson, page 128, says this.

No man can rightly present the law of God without the gospel, or the gospel without what?

The law is the gospel embodied, and the gospel is the law unfolded.

The gospel is the fragrant blossom and fruit which it bears.

Again, just saying, the law points out our need for the gospel.

The law shows us our sin, which is why we need to go to Christ.

The next statement here from Evangelism 231 says, both the law and the gospel are blended.

Now it's interesting, it talked about the law and the gospel, and the gospel was the law embodied.

But the clearest embodiment of the law we have is in Christ, isn't it?

And the thing about this is the law, when you come, now you can read through, we can take the 10 commandments out, and I wanna get us past that.

When we talk about the law, we're not talking about a checklist that we go through and say, okay, got that, got that, no, I don't do that, don't do that.

The law is a spiritual law, and you see the fullness of it in the person of Jesus Christ.

And here's the thing, when you come face to face with the law, really come face to face with the law, and the Spirit of God brings that sense upon your heart and your mind what it's about, It brings conviction of sin.

It exposes sin where you didn't think there was sin.

What's interesting is you go to the New Testament and you see the Pharisees and the people thought the Pharisees were the most righteous people on the planet until Jesus showed up.

The Pharisees also thought they were the most righteous people on the planet until Jesus showed up.

The Pharisees also thought they were the most righteous people on the planet, by the way, until Jesus showed up.

But when the embodiment of the law showed up, it exposed them for what they were.

In contrast with him, it was very clear that they were anything but righteous.

And that is what drew out that hatred against Christ.

I was reading the introduction, if you've never read the introduction to Martin Luther's book on Romans, The Reformer, I found this statement, I thought it was powerful, he said, the more the law demands what men cannot do, the more they hate the law.

The more the law demands what men cannot do, the more they hate the law, because we like to do it ourself.

We like to be self-sufficient, and the law exposes that.

And so in no discourse are they to be separated.

The law exposes the sin, which leads us to Christ for the power over sin.

Now, Ellen White made this famous statement that fits in this context.

She says, as a people, and I want you to notice the date we're going to go to here in a little bit, 1888 era.

She says, as a people we have preached the law until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa that had neither dune or rain.

Now It's funny, sometimes I've had people say, hey, we preach the law so much, we need to preach Christ.

Well, we do, but we need to preach Christ in the law.

In no discourse are they to be separated.

Because if you preach the gospel without the law, you're preaching a remedy for a disease that doesn't exist.

Right, hey, I've got some medication here, no thanks, I'm not sick, Right?

It's those who are sick who need a physician, not those who are well.

He wasn't saying his listeners weren't sick.

We must preach Christ in the law and there will be sap and nourishment in the preaching that will be as food to the famishing flock of God." It helps us to sense our need.

And we were in Sabbath school this morning, we looked at Christ's Object Lessons 152, which tells us the sense of need, the recognition of our poverty and sin is the very first condition of acceptance with God.

That's why Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn.

Now something interesting happened and I highlighted the date here.

There's something interesting that happened in our history of Seventh-day Adventists in 1888 and Ellen White puts it in these words.

In fact, I'm going to tell you this whole section, I'm just giving a paragraph, but this whole section of Testimonies to Ministers is, if I could require it as reading, I would.

It's powerful and it's important as an understatement.

This is highlighting a piece of our history.

Now I hear Seventh-day Adventists, and you can probably finish this quote.

Series

The Everlasting Gospel

3. The Lord Our Righteousness

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Christ our Righteousness

Christ our Righteousness - Part 3

1h 5m

Roger Seheult Weekend

Last Supper Again

56m

The Everlasting Gospel

4. Preparing the King’s Highway

48m

Out of the Dark Ages: Escaping Righteousness by Works

2. Righteousness by Faith

35m

Overcoming Addictions (Evening Meetings)

Overcoming the Greatest Temptation

43m

The Final Destination

1h 11m

Righteousness by Faith

53m

Who Then Can Be Saved?

46m

Practical Truth for Perilous Times

3. When Righteousness Becomes Sin

1h 2m

The Shadow’s Light

God’s Love Forgives

27m

Restoration 2005: To The Point

Are You Right or Righteous?

55m

The Everlasting Gospel

5. Righteousness by Faith

48m

Sound Doctrine