Change of Mind Toward Righteousness

Introduction to Repentance and Righteousness

0:03 We come tonight to the great theme that we have been studying for some evenings here,

0:12 the great biblical subject and theme of evangelical repentance, or that repentance which is inseparably linked with the great blessings of the gospel. We have already seen from the scriptures the great importance of this doctrine. It must never be conceived as one of the peripheral issues of the gospel, but it lies at the very core of the claims of God in the gospel as that gospel is found in Holy Scripture. We have seen something not only of the importance of the doctrine, but also of the meaning of the biblical word repent.

0:55 The soil in which true repentance is found is the grace of God. The nature of true repentance is like that tree that we keep setting before you. Its soil is the grace of God, its roots conviction of sin, and the laying hold of Christ crucified, the main trunk of it being that deep change of mind, that radical revolutionary change in what I think, how I feel, what I choose. And then it branches out into these four main areas, a change of mind, respecting God, respecting sin, and then respecting myself.

1:33 Now tonight we come to the fourth main branch in the matter of true and biblical repentance, and I'm stating it this way, that it's a change of mind regarding righteousness, or how to have a right standing before God. One of the marks of true biblical evangelical repentance, the repentance which is unto life, is that it radically affects a man, a woman, a fellow, a girl's whole attitude toward this matter of having a right standing before God. Now to think our way through the subject, we're going to consider first of all

The Setting: Man's Relationship to God and His Law

2:15 the setting of this whole concept of man's relationship to God and the importance of it. Then we're going to describe man's attitude to this whole business of having a right standing before God, his attitude by nature, and then thirdly, what happens to this attitude by the grace and gift of repentance. First of all then, we want to go to Scripture and describe the whole matter of this business of man's relationship to God. And I want to say, and it's difficult, this is why I don't like topical preaching, and I'm only driven to this by a sense of duty.

2:54 I'm much more at home when I'm opening up text of Scripture, verse by verse, as I'm doing in the morning, as we generally do. Because I'm always fearful when handling something topically that I'll handle it in an imbalanced way, whereas the Word of God has its own built-in balance system, and when you're preaching through verse by verse, chapter by chapter, you're going to keep that balance. But I'm attempting to do this, and I want you to consider with me this very basic principle of man's relationship to God. In order to have the favor of God, men must have the approval, the approval of God in the light of His law.

3:33 In other words, if God is going to smile upon me as a person, He must be able to look at His law that He has given to govern me, and as He looks at my life, and looks at His law, He can nod His head with approval and say, that life measures up to my law, therefore I can smile with approval upon that man. Now inherent in the whole structure of man's relationship to God is this concept, that the smile of God, the favor of God, is contingent upon man's meeting the standard of God. Now as you turn to the book of Genesis, you find that God made man in His own image. Part of that image was righteousness.

4:17 He made man upright. He made him without sin. Therefore, when we read in Genesis, that God saw all that He made, and behold, it was good. And when we read that God was pleased with the creature, pleased with the creature He made, it's because the smile of God was contingent upon the fact that man measured up to the standard of God.

4:40 God could look at His requirement for man, and then look at man and smile. Favor, because man met that standard. But when sin entered, this was lost. Man broke that law.

4:54 So God looks at His law, and He sees it in relationship to His creature, and now God has to frown and say, you've not measured up to My standard. I can't look upon you with favor, because you have broken My law. You have violated My standard for you. And you see that in Genesis.

5:12 God comes to man seeking him in grace, but He says, you no longer are in the state of My favor. He banishes him from the garden. He says, cursed is the ground for thy sake. And He brings temporal judgments upon His creature.

5:25 He's showing that He no longer smiles, because man has broken that standard of righteousness. And since that time, by virtue of our involvement in the fall of Adam, the Scripture says of the entire human race, Romans 3 and verse 10, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that has the approval of God in the light of His holy law, so that even the best things that men do, apart from God creating new life in them, their very righteousnesses, their best accomplishments, are as filthy rags in His sight.

6:08 Man stands guilty before the law. He stands condemned by the holy law of God. Now, it's necessary to understand those simple biblical facts and those stark naked facts of human experience, if we're to understand the biblical teaching that repentance is a change of mind about this whole matter of having a right standing with God. If God's to smile upon me, He can only smile upon me in the light of His standard, which is met by me or on my behalf by another.

6:45 Now, how man, who has lost that approval of God, who's lost the smile of God, because he's broken the law, how he may once again have the smile of God and still have the law intact, have all the demands of God there in all of their purity, that's the heart of the gospel. How can man, who has broken that law, who has no means of himself to clear away the guilt, no means of himself to change the situation, how can he ever have the smile of God again? I suggest to you that that's the core of the message of the gospel. And that's exactly what's found in passages like Romans 1, and I want you to look at it for a moment, please.

7:28 And those of you that were in the Sunday School class this morning will recognize this territory. Romans chapter 1, the apostle says in verse 16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, or the gospel of Christ, as we have in the King James. For it is the power of God unto salvation for every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is revealed, now he's going to tell us what is the central blessing of the gospel.

8:02 What is the heart of the gospel's provision? What does the gospel come announcing? Here it is. For therein, that is in this gospel, that is the power of God unto salvation, therein is revealed a righteousness of God.

8:21 God has done something to provide a right standing with himself. Who ever heard of such a thing? Here man has incurred God's frown because of his sin. Man, as it were, has taken the bit into his teeth and run headlong in the direction of his own will and his own desires and his own lust.

8:42 And because of this, the wrath and the frown of God is upon him. And left to himself, man would destroy himself. But God is intervening. And God has put forth the initiative to do something whereby that guilty creature upon whom he now frowns may be brought back into a place of right standing not on the basis of anything he does, but on the basis of something God himself does for him.

9:09 A righteousness of God. That is, it has God as its source. He has worked it out. He has provided it.

9:16 He sets it before us. That's the core of the message of the gospel. That there is a righteousness of God revealed. A righteousness that is received by faith and leads to a life of faith.

9:30 So that's the setting of this whole matter of man's relationship to God. To have his smile, I must have it in terms of measuring up to the standard he set for me. Sin has caused me to break that standard and incur God's frown. The gospel comes with this wonderful pronouncement of how I can have the smile of God again because I can have a right standing.

Man's Natural Attitude: Indifference or Deception

9:56 God's done something so he can look at me in all that I've done and look at his law in all it demands and say I'm satisfied and smile upon me once again. That's the core of the message of the gospel. Now, the second thing I want us to do having considered this setting of the whole importance of man's relationship to God and the smile of God in terms of his law I want us to see the biblical description of man's attitude to this issue of a right standing with God. What is our attitude to this whole business by nature?

10:30 I would say that every aspect could be summarized under two headings. All men by nature evidence two delusions as far as this matter of having a right standing with God. Either they are one, absolutely indifferent to it or two, absolutely deceived as to how to have it. They're either indifferent to it or they're deceived as to how to have it.

10:57 Suppose I were to go down to Times Square tonight after the service was over and even with this kind of weather you'll see people roaming up and down and I were to get real excited and come up to the first guy I could find and put my hand on his shoulder and say Mr. I've got the most wonderful news in all the world. Right here tonight I'm going to tell you the best thing you have ever, ever heard. He looks at me and says You some kind of nut?

11:20 I say no. Now I've got all my marbles. I've got them in the right place. I'm as sane as I can be.

11:27 What do you want? You want something from me? No, I don't want a thing from you. I want to tell you the most wonderful news.

11:31 So after he feels me out a bit and makes sure that I'm all there and I'm not out to sneak him off in an alley and mug him or something else and take his wallet he says What are you talking about, mister? And I say I'm here to tell you on the basis of the authority of the God of Heaven how you can have such a relationship with God that in spite of all you've done and all you are God can smile upon you. He says What's so great about that? Who cares what a God smiles?

11:59 You see this spirit of indifference the average person walking our streets tonight has a spirit and an attitude of utter indifference to this whole matter of How can I have the smile of God? How can I have such a standing with God that he'll smile upon me? Romans 3 and verse 18 says of the natural man there is no fear of God before their eyes and the clearest expression of this is this indifference to having a right standing with God. When a man is walking in the fear of God that simply means that having God's smile in every situation is his most deep-seated longing and ambition

12:43 and knowing that smile is the conscious pursuit of his life. What does it mean to walk in the fear of God? It means to so live that I may have his smile. What does it mean not to walk in his fear?

12:55 It means to be utterly indifferent as to whether or not God smiles or frowns. To live without the fear of God is to live without that burning, driving, consuming desire to have the smile of God. Now you don't need to be a profligate. You don't need to be someone who goes out and shoots people and steals banks.

13:16 You can be very polite, nice, lovely, upright, cultured suburbanites. But if your life is marked by an indifference to the smile of God, this is the description of it, there is no fear of God before their eyes. And so the great expression of this is man's indifference to whether or not he has accepted before God. Man by nature, most men couldn't care less as to whether or not God looks at his law and then looks at them and smiles or frowns.

13:49 They couldn't care less. You don't believe it? You just tell them, look, I can tell you how you can have God's smile. He can look at his holy law and look at you and smile and say, so what?

14:00 I just want to know my wife's smile and not mad at me. I want to know my husband's smile. I want to know the boss's smiling. I want to know the other kids in school are smiling.

14:06 And men will do anything to get the smiles of their peers. They'll do anything. Wouldn't dare have the frowns of our peers. That's what drives us to conform to style, you see.

14:17 That's what drives us to conform to the latest modes of expression, especially you teenagers. You know what this is like. You don't want to be three weeks behind in your jargon or seven days behind in your style. Why?

14:29 Because others might frown. They might, quote, mock you out. See, we don't want to be mocked out by man. We don't care if he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh and mock at us and frown upon us.

14:40 But, oh, how we're enslaved to our acceptance or to acceptance by our peers. This spirit of indifference. It's as though God says to his creatures, what you need more than anything else is a right standing before me so that you may have my smile. And I have put forth all the ingenuity and wisdom of my own infinite mind.

15:03 I've poured forth the love of my infinite heart. And I've bared my mighty arm in the person and work of my Son to provide for sinners like you a way whereby knowing all that you are and all that you've done, I can look at my law and look at you and still smile. Oh, look at my Son. Look at his salvation.

15:26 Look what I've wrought to give you a right standing with me. A man looks at that as though God were trying to sell us old, outdated clothes and make a little money in the process. And we walk right by. If somebody stood on Bloomfield Avenue trying to sell to you ladies skirts that were eight inches off the ankle like they were in 1958 or so, you wouldn't pay any attention to them.

15:51 You wouldn't bother to even listen to their sales pitch. And that's the picture of the infinite God, the Creator of men, who could rightly pour forth His wrath and His judgment upon us. We've broken that law. He didn't break it for us.

16:05 We broke it. We've incurred His frown. We deserve His wrath. But that God has put forth the arm of His power.

16:11 And in the Gospel He says to us, Look, my creatures, I've revealed a way you can have my smile again. I can still be God and look full in the face of my law. Look you full in the face. But on the basis of my dear Son, I can smile upon you.

16:26 Won't you consider this great blessing? I'm not interested in your sales pitch, God. We go on our way. That's the way many of us were for years.

Man's Natural Attitude: Deception Through Self-Righteousness

16:36 Utterly indifferent to this whole matter of a right standing with God. Or, the second thing is true of men by nature, they are absolutely deceived as to how to have this right standing with God. Some men have enough sense of scriptural truth or their consciences have been made sensitive by other factors that they know that they've got to have a right standing with God. They've done some things that might incur His frown.

17:05 They haven't kept His law, so what do they do? Left to themselves, they will try to work out their own basis of getting His smile again. You read about this in Romans chapter 10. Brethren, verse 1, My heart's desire and supplication to God is for them that they may be saved, that is, His fellow Jews.

17:26 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God's righteousness, ignorant of the righteousness which God has worked out, the one that God has provided, the one of which He is the author, being ignorant of that righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. You see what it's saying? Here are people, they're concerned about righteousness.

18:02 They say, Oh yes, we want to have God smile. We want to have a right standing before God. We want God to be able to look at His law and then look at us and say, I'm pleased. But being ignorant of God's righteousness, they went about to establish their own.

18:18 I say the second attitude by nature of all men, if it's not indifference to having a right standing with God, it's deception as to how we may have a right standing with God. Now, how did these fellow countrymen of Paul's, try to establish a right standing with God? We have a very classic picture of it, a passage to which I often refer from this pulpit and I make no apologies in referring to it again because it's the clearest passage I know in all of scripture to show it in a nutshell. It's Luke chapter 18 and verse 9.

18:57 And he spake also this parable unto them who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and set all others at naught. Two men went up into the temple, to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I'm not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I get.

19:30 Here's a man who comes, he thinks, into the presence of God and he looks up and says, God, I thank you that when you look at your law and then you look at me, you smile. I'm glad, God, that I have a right standing before you. I'm glad that you don't frown at me. Now when you look down at your law and then you look at those publicans and those adulterers, you frown.

19:54 But oh God, when you look at me, you smile. And you know why you smile, God? Two reasons. Number one, because of what I am and because of what I do.

20:03 Notice what he says, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men. I'm glad, God, that when you look at me in the light of your law, you don't see in me a sheep who's gone astray. One who has a carnal mind that's enmity against you. One who breaks your holy law of thought, word, and deed a thousand times a day.

20:25 Oh God, I thank you that my life measures up to the standard of your law. Now what will ever lead a man to say that? Either total ignorance of himself or total ignorance of the law or a combination of both. And that was the problem with the Pharisee.

20:41 He looked at the law as a very low standard touching a few external deeds. Remember what Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount? He elevated that law to its proper place. He says, you old Pharisees, you think you've kept that law simply because you haven't taken out a knife and plunged it into someone's breast?

21:00 He said, no. When you simply say in a derisive way, thou fool, you're going to be in danger of the hell of fire. You've broken the commandment, thou shall not kill, thou shall do no murder, for what is murder but the fullest expression of content of another man's person in life. So he tried to give them a more adequate understanding of the law.

21:22 And in so doing, a more adequate understanding of themselves. But you see, these people were deceived. They thought they had God's smile because of what they were. They weren't in that great mass of humanity that has broken that holy law that falls far short of that law and then they think that what they do cancels out the few areas where they haven't measured up.

21:45 Now, God, there may be a few areas I haven't measured up, but, no, God, I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I get. So the few little black marks I do have, these nice little white deeds cancel them out. You see, a total misconception about what pleases God, what can satisfy the justice of God.

22:10 So, because the individual is deceived as to how to gain God's favor, this person thinks all is well. This was Saul of Tarsus. He says about it in Philippians 3. He said, In the light of what I was, a Hebrew of the Hebrew, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, circumcised the eighth day, in the light of who I was, in the light of what I was doing, zeal, persecuting the church, all of these things, he said, I thought all was well.

22:36 I thought all was well. He was utterly deceived. He was concerned about righteousness. He wasn't like that man on Broadway when you come up to him and say, Hey, would you like to know how you can be accepted before God?

22:47 How you can have the smile of God? Paul wouldn't have turned and said, No, no, I don't care about that. He would have said, Yes, I'm very concerned about it. In fact, I know I have God's smile.

22:54 Oh, you do? How did you get it? Well, you don't know who I am. You know what my name is?

23:00 Saul of Tarsus. Oh, tell me about yourself. Pure Hebrew stock. Strictest Jewish sect.

23:09 Pharisee. Oh. Abounding in zeal for God. Persecuting the church.

23:14 Oh, I see. So, you believe then that you're accepted before God because of what you are and what you do? Absolutely, he'd say. Absolutely.

23:23 Utterly deceived, you see. Now, do you find this tedious? I hope you found yourself. Most of us usually get interested when someone starts talking about us.

23:35 I've been talking about everyone here tonight. And if you haven't found yourself in one of those two categories, you don't know yourself. Because that's what all of us are by nature. Either indifferent to the smile of God and how to have it, or utterly deceived as to how to have it.

The Function of God's Law in Repentance

23:53 Now, consider in the third place what happens in true repentance to a man's attitude towards God's way of bringing his smile upon him. What happens to a man in true repentance in this whole area of how I may be accepted with God? Well, the function of God's holy law is to deal with these two problems we've been talking about. When a man begins to see God, who is God, has made me, has imposed upon me righteously this holy, just standard, and he will hold me accountable

24:38 for what I've done with this standard, and it touches not only my deeds but my thoughts and my attitudes and the first rising motions of my heart, what will happen to a man who begins to take seriously God's law? He'll no longer be whistling down Broadway indifferent to how he can be right with God. He begins to say, Hey, wait a minute, fella. You've been playing the fool.

24:59 You're God's creature. You were made in His image. You were made to do His will. You've turned your back upon Him.

25:05 You've broken His law. God's throne is upon you. And there's nowhere you go that you can escape that crown. And when a man begins to feel the sting of the whiplash of that holy law upon his conscience, then whatever else has been his pursuit, suddenly or gradually, in either way, this begins to be the all-consuming passion.

25:25 I must get right with God. How can I be? I've got to know that God can look at me and look at His law and still do something other than damn me. And that begins to be the consuming passion of his heart.

25:43 How can I have a right standing with God? That's why, you see, the root of true repentance is conviction of sin. For what is conviction of sin but bringing man to that persuasion? You're not right with God, but you must be, and there's nothing you can do about it in yourself.

26:02 Then the law will also take that fellow who says, Oh yes, I must be right with God, but what I am and what I've done will make me right with God. When God's holy law begins to show him that God requires something that goes deeper than the actions of His hands and touches the attitudes of his heart, he'll experience what Paul says in Romans 7. I was alive without the law once. I was ignorant of the meaning of the law.

26:29 But when that tenth commandment began to put its light upon my heart, and I began to understand it when the Bible says, Thou shalt not covet. I don't covet with my Pharisee hands. I don't covet with my Pharisee feet. I covet with my old Pharisee's heart.

26:46 He said, I began to see that in my heart, there was a seething cauldron of uncleanness and unholy desire. And he said, I had to say, Pharisee that I am, upright moral Jew that I am, touching the external requirements of the law, absolutely blameless. He said, I saw that I was nothing but a helpless, hopeless sinner. And I was prepared for a righteousness given to me.

27:14 Now what does that to a man? What will take the person who's either indifferent to a right standing with God, or deceived as to how to have it, and bring him to the place where he's prepared to receive God's way of acceptance? God's holy law. That's the function of God's holy law.

The Function of the Gospel: God's Provided Righteousness

27:34 To make a man desperate to have a right standing, and to show him that he can't look to himself as the basis of that right standing. Well then, what's the function of the gospel? Ah, it's to show him how he can be right with God. That's the function of the gospel.

27:52 Because it tells us that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. Why did He have to do all...

28:00 Do you ever stop and wonder, what's all this business about coming to the virgin, and the virgin shall continue? I mean, what's all of this? What's behind all of this? Oh, my friend, you begin to get desperate to know how you can be right with God.

28:13 And it's not just the same old Christmas story. It's not just the same old talk about Christ and the cross. Suddenly you see is what Scripture says, in Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God, the power of God. All the attributes of God come to their fullest and brightest display in that which was wrought in the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

28:38 Because if God's going to look with favor upon sinners, and still look at His law, something's got to be done to satisfy that law. His creatures have broken it. He's not only created it, He's not only creator, and in that sense, the father of men by creation, He's also the righteous judge of the world. How can He look upon guilty sinners, and look at His law, and say, well, I'll just forget the penalty.

29:03 I'll just overlook the demands of law. No, no, He can't do that. He's God, and His law said, this do, thou shalt live. This fail to do, thou shalt die.

29:12 So law must be satisfied. His justice must be satisfied. Man has sinned, and there's only one way for that law to be met. Man must keep it perfectly.

29:25 A man must die to satisfy its demands. But if he's just a man, he's a sinner. So he hasn't kept that law perfectly. If he's just a man, his death will avail no more than for himself.

29:40 So it's got to be someone of greater worth than man. It's got to be someone of infinite worth. Someone who in keeping that law will provide an infinite righteousness. And so God conceives the incarnation, and He brings God into union with man, and His name is Emmanuel, God with us.

30:07 For what purpose? To work out a righteousness that will satisfy God, His justice, His holiness, all the demands of His righteousness, and still let the sinner go free. And so that God-man fulfills all righteousness, even identifies Himself with the sinner's ordinance, baptism, perfectly keeps the holy law of God, every jot, every tittle, so that the Father who knows the deepest recesses of the human heart can look down with His all-piercing eye and say of His Son in the totality of His life and experience, This is my beloved Son in whom I am

30:51 well pleased. I look at my law and I look at my Son and I have to smile and I say my Son is perfectly keeping everything I've required. There's not one thing I've ever required of man that He isn't fulfilling to the hilt. I'm pleased with Him.

31:09 I'm pleased with Him. Perfectly satisfied with Him. Perfectly satisfied with Him. So the Lord Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the law for what purpose?

31:21 For what purpose? Keep that in mind. We'll answer in a moment. And the time comes when the Son of God is taken by wicked hands, led to a place of death.

31:31 As He hangs upon that cross, the wrath of His own Father is poured out upon Him as we read in Galatians 3.13. He is being made a curse for us. As the Son of God hangs in agony and blood, His piercing cry rends the heavens, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

31:52 And the only answer, though it's not recorded in the Bible, in the Gospels, it's set forth clearly in the epistles, is that the Father's looking to His law. And now He's looking to His Son. And He sees, as it were, in His Son all those for whom His Son is a substitute and a representative. And He says, My Son, all those in whose room and stead you now hang upon that cross are guilty sinners.

32:20 My law says punish them with death. That law must be satisfied and so the Father raises up the arm of His justice and He brings it down upon the head of His Son in whom all of His seed are seen in the Father's eye. Until He swallows up all the demands of that law and the Father can look at His law and say, the penalty paid in full. And the Son of God says, Father, I've heard you.

32:48 And He says it is finished. He bows His head and He dies. The third day He's raised from the dead, exalted to the right hand of the Father where He now lives. What's the purpose of all this?

33:01 Do you see it now in a hope and a new light? What's the purpose? That Paul might be able to say, I have a message that's the power of God unto salvation. Why?

33:11 It is revealed a way of right standing provided by God Himself, satisfying to God Himself. And when you ask Paul, what is that way? He'd say it's all bound up in this unique person, the God-man. And this wonderful work that he accomplished on behalf of sinners, his death, his burial, and his resurrection.

33:37 Oh, may the Holy Spirit make it real and precious to us. The whole end of the Gospel is to display now how sinners can be right with God and God still be holy, His law still be inflexible, His justice fully satisfied. Now then, when a sinner is brought to repent and to believe the Gospel and is vitally joined to Jesus Christ, he can look up and say, Father, I know you smile. Why?

34:14 Because you looked at your law and it said the wages of sin is death. And in the person of your dear Son, you fully met the demands of that law. You demand of me a perfect righteousness. I have none, but your Son is the one of whom you said, I'm well pleased.

34:32 He did everything you required. And now, oh Father, you see me in Him. And so we are saved by that perfect life and that substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus. These truths being set forth so clearly in passages like Romans chapter 3, again in a passage like Romans chapter 5.

The Change of Mind in True Repentance

34:54 What is repentance? Ah, it's that change of mind, not only about God, about sin and myself, but about this whole issue of righteousness or having a right standing before God. And whereas before, I may have been one of those who was indifferent, somewhere along the line, the Holy Spirit, through the application of the law, has brought me to the place where I've been desperately concerned. How can I be right with God?

35:19 I must be right with God. I must have His smile. Or if you were deceived, thinking you were accepted before God because of who you were or what you did, God has stripped all that away. And He's shown you, regardless of what your training is, your privilege, your background, your religious experience, all of that, as Paul says, is but dung.

35:42 You've seen that you must be right with God on a basis that He Himself dictates and He Himself provides. And you've been brought to the place where tonight you can say from the heart, you gladly rest in that righteousness which God provides. Which is set forth in the Gospel. So that when you pick up your hymn book and you read a hymn like this or sing it, it's not the mere mouthing of words.

36:11 You enter in not only to the words of the hymn writer but to his very spirit. Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are my glorious dress. Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head. Bold shall I stand in thy great day.

36:32 For who ought to my charge, shall I? What makes a man look up into the face of God with that kind of confidence? Well, that hymn writer tells us. It's Jesus, His blood, His righteousness.

The Prodigal Son: An Analogy of God's Acceptance

36:44 And the acknowledgement or the recognition that the Father now, looking to His own dear Son, into that perfect righteousness wrought in Him, can look upon me as in Him and can smile. I think we see a beautiful analogy of it in the prodigal. I wouldn't say that this was one of the things our Lord intended to teach in this parable, but it is a beautiful analogy or illustration of the principle. We turn to Luke 15 for just a moment and then I want to show a statement of it in the life of the Apostle Paul himself.

37:21 Remember the effect of the prodigal sin was such as to stamp in his very physical appearance what sin does to a man. He's wasted his substance in riotous living, spent his time feeding the hogs, and the whole implication of the passage is that his sin was written in his tattered clothes and in his very visage. And when the Father runs out to meet him, for remember it was the Father who ran to meet him and throws His arms around him. Well, you'll notice what he says here in Luke 15 and in verse 22.

38:05 But the Father said to His servants, Bring forth quickly the best robe and put it on him. Bring forth the best robe and put it on him. I'm so glad He didn't save the prodigal. Now, when you go home, back in the house, take a bath, clean yourself up, and put on some decent underclothing, then you'll be fit to wear the best robe.

38:29 I mean, we don't want to defile that robe by putting it on the likes of you, you stinky, smelly hog feeder. No, no. He stood there with all the visible evidences of the effect of his sin. And the Father didn't say, Now, you go clean yourself up and then we'll put the robe on you.

38:47 That robe was put upon him to cover all the effects, the visible effects. It's a beautiful analogy. I'm not saying it was here in the intention of our Lord when He gave it. I want to repeat that.

39:02 You can prove all kinds of fanciful things. It's just a beautiful analogy, a picture, an illustration. It could be taken from human experience. But we have the analogy here in Scripture.

39:10 When you and I come as guilty sinners saying, Oh, God, I've been indifferent to having a right standing with you, but your law has awakened my conscience and I see that your frown is upon me and I cannot rest, I cannot eat, sleep until that frown is gone. Father, how can I have your smile? God didn't say, Now, look, here's a list. Here's ten things.

39:32 You get these things all straightened up and cleaned up. Then you come on back again and I'll put a robe on you. No, no. He takes us in all of our sin and uncleanness.

39:41 When he himself has worked in us that disposition that says, God, I want to be done with that which produced this. You see, the Father didn't go to the Son in the hog pens and in the whorehouses. When the Son got sick enough to leave them and turned his face to the Father, the Father ran to meet him. And the seeking God always produces in men that disposition.

40:06 They're ready to leave the hog pens and return into the way of the Father's face and fellowship. But when they do, there is no thought of self-reformation and cleaning up themselves and lopping this off and lopping that off until finally the Father will say, You're clean enough now. Come and we'll put a robe upon you. No, no.

40:28 We come as the hymn. And I'm amazed. I don't know why. Maybe it's just the tune.

40:33 My kids love it. We've been learning it at family devotions. And every night little Beth will sing, Daddy, can we sing just as I am? That says it beautifully.

40:40 Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, just as I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come, just as I am, poor, wretched, blind, sight, healing, riches of the mind, all I need in thee I find, O Lamb of God, I come, just as I am, thou wilt receive, wilt welcome,

41:24 pardon, cleanse, relieve, because thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come. Wasn't that stated scripturally, simply, in language that all of us can grasp? That's that repentance wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit. When God in the depths of a man's being regenerates and quickens him to life, that work comes to expression in that repentance which is not only a change of mind about God, a change of mind about sin, a change of mind about myself, but a change of mind about righteousness.

42:02 I now see it's the one thing I must have above all else, and seeing God's way of providing it, I'm willing, I'm willing to accept of that way, to rest in it, and be satisfied with the righteousness with which God himself is satisfied. If the prodigal had stood there and said, but Dad, it's unthinkable that that beautiful robe should be defiled by being placed upon the likes of me, he never would have known the joy of full acceptance. And so we must not, under a guise of humility, show the pride of our hearts by saying, God, that's not the right way. It's the most humbling way in all the world, for when that robe has been placed upon you

42:47 just as you are, from then on you have but one song, free grace, free grace. You can't sing about anything you did to make yourself fit for the robe. You've got to sing about him and all that he's done to clothe you in that perfect righteousness. So you have this analogy in the prodigal.

Paul's Testimony: Abandoning Self-Righteousness

43:06 Then you have the beautiful statement of it in the testimony of the apostle. Will you turn, and this will be our last passage we'll look at tonight, to Philippians chapter 3. How does true repentance affect a man's attitude to this whole issue of righteousness, a right standing with God? Well, let's listen to a man who was no stranger to true Bible repentance.

43:29 Here's his statement. I alluded to it earlier this evening. He's warning them about these Judaizers, those who would come and mix the freeness of the gospel with some legalistic trappings. And he's going to use his own life as an example of how foolish it is to think they can add anything to Christ.

43:50 Beginning now with verse 4. Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if any other man thinks to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more. Is there anybody who thinks he can, because of what he is and what he's done, look up to God and say, now God, look at your standard, look at your law, and then look at me, and then accept me. I measure up.

44:11 If anyone can be accepted on that basis, any of these people come along to you, Philippians, saying, look, we've got a better way of acceptance with God. Paul says, I could outstrip them on their grounds. He said, I'll tell you why. And then he gives some of the specifics.

44:23 Here they are. Verse 5. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee, the strictest sect of Judaism, as touching zeal, persecuting the church, as touching the righteousness which is in the law, and which is in the power of the one God, watch down, check and bear, to verify good things. He said, now am I in the house of my beloved God?

44:52 And there was no one and nobody as to love as I love. And he said, look, this shall pass with you. You both shall teach as you like. Yes.

45:00 Hold on. He says, let the holy book of will protect your disciples. With no other way. No other way.

45:14 Now. Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own. That was my great deception. I was concerned about a right standing, but I had my own. I was ignorant of God's, but

45:29 there's been a true work of repentance. I've had a change of mind about this whole matter of righteousness. I openly and gladly affirm I make no claims to a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. You see, he had come to understand that the central blessing of the gospel was the pronouncement of a way of right standing with God that had nothing to do with what I am or what I've done, but rested solely on who Jesus is and what He has done.

46:09 And he had such a change of mind that everything else that he counted dear, the whole structure of a lifetime of praying and thinking, he says it's nothing but rubble, and he turns his back upon it and he boasts to the whole world. You people ask me why Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, ever hopes to have the smile of God now or in eternity. I'll give you one simple answer. It's because of who Jesus is and what He did.

46:37 Oh, but what about all your great zeal? What about all your great zeal? What about all your great zeal? What about all your great attainments?

46:41 He says, dung. What about this? Dung. What about that?

46:44 Dung. What about this? Dung. Refuse one thing alone.

Call to Examine Your Heart

46:49 God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. Oh, my friend, tonight does your heart answer to that? Does it answer to that? Are you concerned about having God smile?

47:01 Do you want God to be able to look at His law and then look at you and smile? That's the simplest way I know to describe this whole matter of righteousness. One simple to get it down to that simple concept and still be biblical. But I believe it's the biblical concept.

47:16 Do you want God to be able to look at His law, which demands absolute, perfect, perpetual obedience to all His precepts, and look at you and smile? Do you want that?

47:27 Or don't you care whether He frowns? Do you care if God looks at His law and then looks at you and frowns? And says, not measure it up.

47:37 Word, thought, deed, attitude. Do you care whether God frowns or smiles as He looks at His law tonight and then looks at you? If you can say, meh. All I can say is that may God be pleased to begin to apply His law to your conscience and hold before you the terrors and the horrors of His wrath and His frown until you begin to be shaken from that stupor and spiritual lethargy.

48:07 Perhaps I'm talking to someone tonight who says, yes, I do want to know that God smiles. I do want Him to be able to look full in the face of His law and look at me and smile, my friend. Let me save you a lot of trouble of trying a thousand ways to gain that smile. Now, there's but one way.

48:22 And that's as you repent and believe the gospel. Cast yourself upon the mercy of God in Christ and say, God, I don't plead anything but who He is and what He did. Lord, I want to be found in Christ and Christ alone. Have you had that change of mind about righteousness?

48:45 Where you've really been concerned about a right standing with God and then you've been brought to a wholehearted, reliant upon God's way of righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ plus nothing.

The Nature of Repentance and Its Ongoing Reality

49:01 Have you? That's what it's all about. And when the Bible says, God commands all men everywhere to repent, that's part of that repentance.

49:11 When the scripture says, He's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, that's part of that repentance. When He says, except you repent, you'll perish, this is part of that repentance. And for us who by God's grace, can answer and say, yes, God has brought me to that place. We shall see in the subsequent study on the fruits of repentance.

49:33 That's not a once for all of the heart and of the soul. It's the continuous going out of the heart of the child of God. Every time He's made conscious of His sin and He knows that that sin of itself should incur God's frown. Sin is no less ugly in the Christian than it is in the non-Christian.

49:52 What does it do? It dries Him afresh to find His rest. To find refuge in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. To find cleansing in His precious blood.

50:03 To find recourse again and again to that fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. Repentance is a change of mind about righteousness. If you're a stranger to it, may God give you no rest until you know by experience the things of which we've spoken. Let us unite in prayer.