In this presentation on the subject of righteousness by faith, the Bible reveals how a person can go from the rags of self-righteousness to the riches of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

<p>In this presentation on the subject of righteousness by faith, the Bible reveals how a person can go from the rags of self-righteousness to the riches of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

From Rags to Righteousness

Our Father in heaven, speak to us, we pray.

Let your word be alive in our experience.

Give us grace to experience your power and your presence.

It was reported in the Milwaukee Journal back in 1946.

Because everything you read in the newspaper is true, I am left to assume that this is a true story.

During the last days of World War II, in 1945, German forces were occupying Sasten in Czechoslovakia, a country, oddly enough, that does no longer exist, near the Austrian border.

That city is now in Slovakia, seeing as Czechoslovakia ceased to be on the first day of 1993.

The Germans were using the mayor's office at the town hall as their headquarters.

And on this particular April day, the Nazi commandant was getting nervous.

Nervous because the Russian army was closing in on his troops.

In his office were a few battered trunks filled to the brim with korunas, the Czechoslovakian currency.

It had all been looted from the vaults of the Czechoslovakian National Bank in Bratislava.

Outside, his staff car was waiting for him, with the motor running.

He had to leave immediately or he'd be taken by the Russians.

But there wasn't any room in that car for the trunks full of money.

So he told a couple of Slovakian peasants to look after the trunks.

He said, I'll be back some day and I'll come to you for these trunks and if you hand them over to me, you will be richly rewarded." It was the next day when the Russians arrived in town.

1 of the first things they did was inspect the Nazi headquarters.

Wondering what they were, they broke 1 open and found them filled with currency.

Now, you have to keep in mind what was on the minds of these soldiers.

They'd been on the move for months with just 1 aim, and that aim was to march into Berlin and secure victory.

So a weary lieutenant, whose name nobody knows today, said, Who knows if I will even be alive tomorrow?

He gave orders for the people of Saston to receive a thousand Korunas for every year of their life.

In all, 300 million Korunas were handed out, the equivalent in 1946 of $6 million.

People with large families ended up between 150, 000 and 200, 000 coronas, a pile of money, especially in that day and that time.

Those downtrodden people went quite literally from rags to riches.

Now, just about anyone hearing a story like that listens with just a hint of envy, at least.

But the fact is, suddenly getting your hands on a ton of money can be a curse.

An English baker named Keith Goff died some years ago cursing the fact that he had won the lottery.

In 2005 he won 9000000 pounds, the equivalent of almost 14000000 dollars at the time, and it ended up ruining his life.

When they won the money, the Goffs said they'd never have to worry about money again.

Well, they lost their marriage, they lost all their money.

Goff lost his life due to a heart attack said to be brought on by worry about money, alcohol abuse and boredom due to not having a job.

He told a newspaper about a year before he died, what's the point of having money when it sends you to bed crying.

A man in the United States won $250 million in a lottery.

His wife said she wishes he had never bought the ticket.

Either way, what the believer in Jesus can experience, without any worry at all, is going from rags to righteousness.

In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul deals with the question of experiencing true righteousness.

In chapter 3 he lists some qualifications that would lead many to believe that he was a tremendously righteous man.

We're in Philippians chapter 3 and I believe we're going to start, and let me just Turn there with you, Philippians chapter 3, and we'll begin in verse 4.

Paul says, "...if any man thinks that he has whereof he might trust in the flesh, " Paul wrote, "...I more." He went on to say, "...circumcised the eighth day, like a good Jew should be.

Of the stock of Israel, a descendant of Jacob, of the tribe of Benjamin, that's the tribe King Saul came from.

Paul, who was Saul, was in all likelihood named after King Saul.

And it was the tribe of Benjamin that stood faithful to Judah at the division of the kingdom.

He went on to say, And Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness, which is of the law, he wrote, he was blameless.

How holy he had to be to be able to say, according to the law, I am blameless.

If there was something the law required, He did it.

He was righteous in the eyes of the religious people of the day." This was somebody whose Jewishness was beyond question.

And had the Jews been considered to be God's own people, Paul was suggesting that using the measurements that people commonly used, he was a pretty holy sort of man.

However, he goes on to say something that's really quite shocking.

He goes on to tell that in spite of having tremendous credentials, those credentials wouldn't win him the election if there was a search for someone who was genuinely holy and righteous.

He said in verse 7 of Philippians 3, "...but what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

He goes on to say, yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dumb, that I may win Christ." That's an interesting description.

Paul once saw the great, dedicated, zealous, righteous man came to the place that he considered all of those credentials to mean little or nothing to him.

You see, Paul came to a stunning conclusion.

In spite of the fact that he had some impressive credentials and impressive qualifications, he came to see that they were woefully inadequate for getting the job done.

All his goodness, all his righteousness, his pedigree, his family tree could not obtain for him true righteousness.

And that would be the righteousness of Christ.

Paul discovered that all the discipline, all the self-control, all the good intentions, all the fervent belief in the world couldn't make an unrighteous person into a righteous person.

He possessed an awful lot of impressive credentials.

Rows and rows and rows of ribbons and medals on their chest.

An Army veteran might have a ribbon for World War II, or for having been a POW, or for having served overseas, or for having served in a place such as Korea, or for having served in Iraq.

Then when you add to some of these a Distinguished Service Medal, or a Soldier's Medal, or an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, or an Iraq Campaign Medal, Those things look impressive.

Paul had row after row of religious ribbons and medals.

And they looked good, but they didn't mean anything.

In Paul's case, all they did was look good.

When it came to righteousness, they were not worth anything to him.

So What did Paul really find would bring spiritual satisfaction?

In fact, let me just recap a little bit of verse 8 and then springboard into verse 9.

He said, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord so that I may win Christ and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Notice what he said.

All this self-righteousness not worth 2 cents.

But what I want is Christ's righteousness, and I want the righteousness which is of God by faith.

You can't get away from the fact that when it comes to Christianity there are rights and wrongs.

It's right to tithe, it's wrong to steal.

It's right to be courteous, It's wrong to be dirty-minded.

Problems come about when we start to lean on that checklist and rely on the results of our checklist, we get the idea almost of Christian karma.

You'll hear people who think that karma is, you do enough good and good things will happen to you.

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From Rags to Righteousness

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