Repentance From Dead Works: Part 1 - Dr John Joseph [ENG]

three days in the presence of God for those of us that were able to make it to the to the church retreat and it was so wonderful to see people just rejoice together and and as a family just love God and know God and for those of you it I do I do believe God has also so much in store for all of you even this morning through God's Word and so let's just pray father we just ask in Jesus name that you will speak to our hearts O God but your word will come alive o God bringing into our spirits a joy of the Holy Spirit thank you for everyone that is gathered here this morning what a thank you for your love speak right into our spirit to God in Jesus mighty name amen if you're Tony Bibles with me to the book of Romans start the book of Hebrews in chapter 6 Hebrews in chapter 6 in the last week you heard a message upon being built and established upon the rock a wise man builds his house on the rock and a foolish man builds his house upon the sand and indeed the wise and the foolish are around all all around in the land and it is so important for us to understand that when we build something it is important for us to build something upon right of foundations that is why Paul or the writer of Hebrews as he writes in the book of Hebrews in chapter 6 the Bible talks about therefore leaving the elementary principals teaching about Christ in Hebrews chapter 6 verse 1 therefore leaving the elementary teaching about Christ let us press on to maturity not laying again a foundation now he goes on Paul is writing I'm gonna start a series I want to talk about today he's talking about let us begin and let us begin to move on from some of the foundations and yet when we ask the Christians what is the basic function of our faith many people do not know or understand what are some of the foundations of the Christian faith and Paul goes on to say here in Hebrews six let it keep on laying the foundation again and again and again let us move on to maturity which means if you are dealing with foundations again and again you've not really come to a place of maturity but when we look at much of the Christian Church around the world around the world people are again and again and again talking about a few of the foundation primarily the first three they visit the first three foundations again and again and again now what does he say here I want you to leave these elementary teachings what does it mean to be what is elementary teaching those of you are teachers will understand what is elementary teaching basic baby stuff baby elementary school you think of big kids or small kids baby kids elementary things and he says not laying a foundation of these elementary things let us move on to maturity and that is the heart of God God child of God God wants the Christian God wants the Christian to be mature and complete not lacking anything he says so going on to lay on the foundation let's not keep on doing this elementary things by laying foundations of some of the basics and it starts with six basics when I want to enumerate these six basics that I want to talk about the first one today the six basics he says is not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works I'll talk about a little detail the first thing he says is the basic of Christian life is that you are not saved by your works that you're doing again and again and again and again then he says the second foundation he talks about is his faith towards God he said that walking in the faith with God is a foundation of our Christian faith that if you don't have that relationship of God you will not be able to walk in a proper foundation with God so the third thing he goes on to say first one is his righteousness the second when he talks about is faith towards God the third foundation he talks about is the instructions of baptism now when you look in the Bible these three things the first three things are commonly spoken in the world in the churches of the Living God you hear the people talk about you you hear people talk about faith you hear people talk about you know you hear people talk about different aspects of baptism but when it comes to the deeper foundations or the next three things you don't see people really talk about these things then the next three things it talks about is the laying on of hands and I will talk about it in these coming weeks the laying on of hands which is godly order and the next thing next foundation is talking he's talking about is a resurrection from the dead the truth that our life is not finishing with death the death is just a passing by that there is a life that is eternal and so it's so important for us to know about the resurrection from the dead and the Bible talks about in those longings and Corinthians and different portions and then he talks about another foundation called the eternal judgment and as I've been studying some of these topics there has been a debate from the time of the New Testament church on some of these topics these debates came back again in a powerful way in the time of the you know in the time of the the Reformation where people begin to come back and talk about is it by works that you're saying is it by faith you're saved and they begin to debate and talk about all about it even today after many hundreds of years of debate because of different verses in the Bible that are showing or throwing light on different aspects of truth people tend to take one or the other side when it comes to understanding some of these foundational truths and based on what aspect or stand you take on being righteous beings right with God it will also reflect on your Under standing on of the eternal judgment what you the light in which you look at the first foundation is going to affect how you're going to look at all the other foundations now I must tell you that different men of God hold different positions on these things but it's so important for every one of you to look into the scripture and not go by big names it's important for you to study scripture for yourself because the Bible says all Scripture is god-breathed and it is for every child of God this is the constitution of heaven for us a man this is God's law this is God's constitution for us so let's look at that first one when the Bible says let us not lay a grain of foundation of repentance from dead works let me title this first foundation of the Christian faith let me title it righteousness to really understand righteousness you cannot start studying righteousness by studying what Christ did for us listen to me carefully all right listen to this carefully you cannot start studying righteousness by studying what Christ did for us I thought for a long time if I really want to study righteousness where do I start and I concluded that if I really wanted to study righteousness I needed to start with is God a righteous God I needed to start with understanding if God was a righteous God because what what difference does it make to anybody whether you're righteous or not if somebody is not the absolute sitting person giving some righteous requirements of the law so the first thing I found out when I began to study about righteousness is that our God the Bible declares him to be a righteous God the Bible says in Zephaniah 3:5 the Lord within her is righteous he does no injustice righteousness hell is connected with justice justice and mercy comes from love so why is God a right God or a righteous God he cannot do in justice because God is love the need for God to be right the need for God's righteousness the need for God to have some things right that he called some things right and something's wrong is not from the power that he that he holds the righteousness comes from love so when God begin to begin to reveal himself who he was when God began to reveal if he had to put all of God meaning explain all of God the one word that God found is that God is love and then when he looked at an authoritative word of revealing love he found the one word that God is a good father hallelujah that this father was a loving father this father was a good father and so this good father who is love is also righteous because love cannot be unrighteous love cannot do wrong love cannot do injustice love has to do right that is the innate need of love that love calls on if I love you that I want to do right towards you you cannot say I love somebody and violate them you cannot say I love somebody and manipulate them so many people say oh I love him so much that's why I'm bugging you can't bug him love doesn't cost you to manipulate somebody love causes you to be do right with somebody love causes you to be right with somebody but yet our understanding of righteousness seems to be only of what Jesus has given to us in a forgiveness of sin we have to understand righteousness from a position of love everybody say righteousness comes from love so if I am saying that today I am the righteousness of God in Christ I'm actually saying that I am encountering the love of God hallelujah how can I say that I am righteous in Christ and not have encountered the love of God amazingly upon my life so when we say that's that that somebody is a righteous child of God different people have different understandings now Oh all through history mankind has a sincere desire to be right with God who wants to be on the wrong side of God nobody wants to be on the wrong side of God some people say there is no God very very good not even those who say there is no God they they curse God or their swear against God sincerely because they actually believe there is no god but if somebody really believed there was a god and knew that he is a righteous God and knew that there is a day of reckoning which one of those people will stand up to god oh yeah you think you you want to mess around with me no because we know that we can't stand up his righteousness everything about him is so holy that somebody who would believe in God would not stand up to God so what did this what did it mean righteousness somehow becoming right with God what did it mean to the Gentile for a Gentile who never knew God his desire for righteousness was not get in trouble with God that was his mindset I shouldn't get in God's Way so what would the Gentile do they would do those sacrifices or different kinds of worships or or they'll do different things somehow to stay out of God's bad books and you know they will they will do donations or they will do you know any form of their their own understanding of worship or something why because I want to keep God happy so that he will not hurt me the Gentile understanding of righteousness is stay away from trouble with God but that's not God's heart of righteousness imagine if if you had a child and your child's understanding or being right with you was don't get in trouble with Daddy I mean that's all he knew that Daddy Mummy is trouble you mess around with them you're in trouble if that's the only understanding of being right with a parent they had oh what a poor understanding of righteousness even if your understanding of righteousness listen to me even if your understanding of righteousness is that now that I have been made righteous in Christ therefore I have free access to God so I have the inheritance of God on my life and I am NOT interested in a relationship with Jesus Christ then that understanding of righteousness is the faulty understanding of righteousness the only right understanding of righteousness what Christ has ever done for us can only be understood in the light of an encounter with the love of God you cannot understand what way that is why a Gentile tried his best not to get into trouble he tried to by God some of us still Gentile in our methods live how we want give God an offering to a religious body and we think that we have got God we try to buy by by God Drive God but everything they try to do for God to keep him happy is because they are serving an unknown God if they had known God they would have taken it to another level what does a righteous righteousness mean for a Jew for a Jew righteousness according to the Jewish ways was to keep the Ten Commandments if you kept the Ten Commandments you'd be right a rich young ruler one day came to Jesus and asked Jesus what do I do to get eternal life Jesus that you know the rules you know honor your father and mother love the Lord your God do not break that oh oh those ten things hallelujah I have kept all of them suddenly this rich young ruler was feeling very righteous he was feeling very righteous that he did everything right and he was going everything was going right and he can't do anything wrong and the Bible says that even though he was feeling that he was doing everything right Jesus looked at him and he said he said you have this one more thing so he said what's that go and sell everything that you have and give it to the poor and follow me now this man Bible says was exceedingly rich and so his heart was broken he went away very sad now I was wondering what is the connection between selling everything and you know and and righteousness what is everything what happened was Jesus was inviting from a Jewish righteousness of keeping the law was now inviting him into a new Kingdom righteousness if any man wants to follow him follow me let him deny himself let him take up the cross and let him follow me so if we say that righteousness upon my life is only by what I believe that Jesus is the Son of God that is not righteousness because that is only part of righteousness righteousness is far far far more and I'm going to talk to you a little about it so the Bible says that the Jewish guys the for them Deuteronomy 6 25 the Bible says and it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God as he has commanded us for the Jew it was obey the law obey the Bible obey the Bible obey the Bible do that do that but and they suddenly felt the more they did it the more they felt all righteous now many of us we get into this trap we get into the trap of saying I go to church every Sunday I give offering to the church I'm blessing the people I pray for you know I pray for some people that I remain or I remember and suddenly everything they're doing we are beginning to feel righteous some of us feel righteous we went for the camp meaning and we're looking at the other unrighteous people who didn't show up for the camp meaning you should have seen the look at some people you know that from the corner of your eye use you know you Gentile you didn't make it to heaven because of your unrighteousness no see sometimes we suddenly feel very righteous because we've done some things right and for God God what the the law was was not sufficient for Jesus to make righteous in the kingdom the law was good enough for the kingdom of Israel but it was not good enough for the Jew and the Gentile within the kingdom of God because the righteousness within the kingdom of God was going to come from a new level of righteousness and so for a child of God what did it mean to be righteous for a child of God for a child of God to be righteous meant to love God that is why the Bible says in Matthew's Gospel 6 33 who knows that scripture Sikhi first his kingdom and his righteousness now this is a very important words I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna establish a righteousness from this angle and I think it's so important seek first the kingdom and his righteousness for a child of God righteousness is to love God is to is to is to have to have to have no nothing in your heart that comes between you and loving God to send those things that aside and to receive his finished work evenness to receive to be justified to be sanctified and thereby to be walking in the love of God the righteousness for a child of God is not keeping the commandments the righteousness of the child of God is not in in keeping God in your good books and bribing him and buying him buying yourself a ticket to heaven and even if you take a membership in a church or even if you walk by the rules of the things that your pastors tell you that does not make you righteous righteousness begins at the foot of the cross amen that is the be-all and end-all of righteousness in Christ righteousness to understand it you cannot understand righteousness without understanding the law and the fact that gir Christ is a lawgiver many people say that now that I'm righteous it's the end of the law no no no it's not the end of the law it is fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law that's what the Bible says that you cannot stand see the world righteous what would it mean to an average person righteous what would it mean to an average person sorry good correct to be right to be right with God so if I have to be right with God there has to be a right and a wrong how can there be a right and wrong without there being a law now God told Adam and Eve you can eat of all the other trees but you can't eat of this tree which means new study righteousness it began because of the commandment given in the garden it began because God who is love put Commandments because of love he didn't put the commandment to restrain the Adam and Eve he in fact many people like I shared the other day many people think Adam and Eve were created to stay within the confines of the garden Adam and Eve were given a responsibility to tend the garden but they were given an anointing to have dominion over the whole earth so they were not limited to the garden they were called to have dominion over the whole earth and to rule and to name the fish and the birds of the sky and the animals and and everything so God had given them authority because he had first given them a law he give them he gave them a law and he gave them authority you never have listened to me carefully you've got to understand this you can never have authority without having a law come on when we use the word well don't get into trouble with the authorities what do we mean which means the authorities are the law keepers they are the ones who are what we call the law enforcement officers how can one say I have authority without there being a law and therefore law in itself is not a bad thing but the understanding of it that the law if you understand that law comes from a God who wants to punish you have a wrong understanding of God law is given by a God who loves us how every parent how many of you given laws to your children if you've ever given laws is because of love because of love righteousness cannot exist without a law and a lawgiver this is why if you understudy righteousness in a New Testament you have to studied in the perspective of the kingdom righteousness begins with the kingdom of God story what is the Bible talk about the Bible says that there was a kingdom of God and in this kingdom of God God was the ruler ruler rules he rules with Commandments and the Bible says one day Satan who was one of his angels he was a covering cherub he would he was who was he was leading worship and all of those things and he saw God's glory and he saw in fact the Bible the name of God that is used the most in the Old Testament is the name called is the name called the Lord of Hosts so the concept of God in the Bible is the God of hosts the word host actually means the armies so the moment you call God the God of the armies of heaven you are not really talking about you know a nice roly-poly Santa Claus God sitting in heaven and licking that Santa Claus that was happening there or not is everybody happy there you know keep everyone happy everywhere little boys that's not the concept the concept he's the commander of the armies of heaven a man he's the commander-in-chief so you cannot study righteousness without first studying who God is that he's a commander-in-chief and this commander-in-chief had given commandments here on the earth and told all the angelic hosts you shall you stand in place Lucifer now wanted to take that place so he arose and he begin to stand in that place and he begin to tell himself I'm going to rule and God said I want him out of heaven and he because Lucifer sinned he was asked to leave the domains of heaven and when he broke righteousness with God the first thing he lost was Authority are you listening to me you and I can never have a delegated authority without having a right standing with the authority I've had seen people you look at the book of Acts and you see that some some of the Jews they came from Jerusalem and they came there and started teaching wrong doctrine among the Antioch people and then they went on to say you know we've come from Jerusalem and I want you to know we Jews like that have done it that you gotta do Gentiles have to also be circumcised and all of that and it gets referred back to Jerusalem and the people in Jerusalem say the Apostles say we have not seen anyone like that they are just coming in they're using her name what are they trying to do they were trying to enforce their own authority without having a righteousness a right standing with the leaders many times we try to execute Authority without having a right standing with the authorities God has placed upon our life so when it comes to righteousness it begins with authority righteousness cannot be taught starting grace it has to start with a God that has the rules so this God laid the rules Satan rebelled he and his hosts were thrown out and he came to earth and the first thing he wanted to do is that he wanted God's prized creation to rebel against God he wanted to start a mutiny in every part of the kingdom this is the concept of the kingdom it doesn't start with a cross it doesn't start with the Jewish Israel it doesn't start with Abraham it doesn't start even with Adam it starts with a mutiny that happened on a cosmic level that it happens started with a mutiny that happened in the heavens that God had thrown Satan down and now Satan he wanted Adam to sing and that coming in was not because he didn't like Adam it came in because now he didn't like God a man to understand righteousness you have to begin in the beginning and it has been always a battle of the kingdoms so when Jesus what was Jesus message he said the kingdom of God has come so Jesus's message about a cross and somehow taking a few of us not so rebellious people to heaven you know we don't consider ourselves rebellious we consider ourselves relatively not so rebellious compared to others our righteousness is constantly comparing to the to the other Christian in town or the other believer that is there and compared to him I'm much better compared to her of course she's a she's a mess and so we're constantly we're constantly trying to think what is the righteousness of God so the righteousness of God has to be understood in the concept of the kingdom this is why Jesus said seek first his kingdom and his this is the connection between righteousness and the kingdom you can never understand righteousness unless you understand the kingdom why righteousness is connected to the kingdom because we must understand listen I made a statement one day a few days ago when I was teaching in a Bible School you know I made a statement this was powerful and just a smart suppose I said God is not giving us an invitation into eternal life let's look at me carefully God is not giving us an invitation into eternal life he's giving us an invitation to return back to his kingdom and one of the privileges of repentance and returning back to the kingdom of God is eternal life oh come on now amen he is not inviting us into a war or into a good life a comfortable life he's inviting us back into his kingdom the moment is inviting you and me back into his kingdom he's inviting you and me back into godly order but he's going on to say now don't be proud about you being in the kingdom because of what you're doing because that is like filthy rags before me God is saying you know that that the best righteousness of God of man is like filthy rags God desires us to have righteousness Matthew 5:6 says blessed are those who hunger and thirst for a right standing with God it is not enough to receive the finished work of the cross by faith alone but I think it's important to hunger for righteousness everybody say hunger do you see that verse blessed are those who now I know the context he was speaking to the Old Testament Jewish people but he was telling them I want you to hunger to be right for with God he was introducing a kingdom and he was saying unless your righteousness becomes more than the pastors and the prophets and all these people the priests and the Levites you will never see the kingdom of God which means you are saying by keeping the 10 commandments alone you're not going to see the kingdom of God God wants us to be more righteous than all those religious people that we see in front of us God wants us to be more righteous how is that again he was saying so even he was telling them this blessed those who hunger for righteousness he was not saying I want you to be more holy that or if they fast one time a day you must fast three times said you know one time a week you must fast three times a week yeah if they pray one hour you must pray three hours is that how you become more righteous than the priest he said no that is not what I'm telling you what he said is the only way your righteousness can become more than the priests and all his Levites are always saying is by entering into the kingdom of God there was no other way by which we could become more righteous other than the kingdom of God so the foundation of our faith is to become right with God we need to become right with God and when we see in the Bible we see that Paul preached about getting right with God he preached about getting right with God we see that in acts 24 25 the Bible says as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment if we you know if we had an opportunity to stand before a king how would we present the gospel we would say your majesty thank you so much it's been so exciting - you know I have this great opportunity your majesty to stand before you I've been preparing for this all my life I knew I will stand one day before kings and rulers and and all of that you know your majesty I just want to tell you that you know that that Jesus loves you and you know it's exciting - you know if you will end on midst of your busy schedule if you can just you know consider Jesus it will be great and then we will have all the meal in front of us if you are a man we will not miss the meal and then we would just probably walk out here is Paul standing before before Herod and Festus and and all these great people he's standing there and he's telling them Felix I have something to tell you he said what is it he says I want you to know get right with God get right with God and it is not enough for you to bribe God with religious offerings turn away from sin get right with God now you might say oh is it the my works of turning away from cinders oh he that for that answer he answered to the Jews he told them before you Jews I want you to know the way of righteousness is receiving G the finished work of Jesus is by the kingdom of God but to the Gentile he constantly said you also come to the kingdom get right with God Paul spoke three things righteousness he said self-control which means get a grip boy get a grip of how you're living because one day the third thing it reaches one day you and I are going to stand before the eternal throne of God and then we're going to have to give an answer for the way we have lived every one of us is going to have to give an answer for the way we have lived and so as we consider this whole concept of righteousness I want to today I want to just bring in this understanding that God's righteousness is not like a man's righteousness and if we don't understand that righteousness is beginning from the kingdom of God if you don't understand that when we say I am righteous before God we are saying I'm righteous before a king a king is a standard setter I am being set right now much we might say I have my own rules I decide how I live now all that is true until the day we die you can't even decide the day you die or the day you're born you can't decide which family you're born into because God has sent us into this world to be part of this world so that we can be a light in the darkness if we will align ourselves back to the righteousness of God so when you come to understanding of righteousness the Bible says that there you know when you look in the Bible there were different dispensations the first dispensation you see was probably the time of the garden when God created everything and put adam and eve in the garden everything was good and there was authority given to man he was right with god he represented god he carried the blessing of god in fact it was cool he could name everything he could name everybody he said hey you animal come here and he says he what do you think what name shall we give and it would say oh this pussycat we'll call him lion alright hi LAN you'd be lying you know I mean there was a thority those authority upon Adam and Eve and so that was a dispensation after that when they had to leave the garden they went into another dispensation and that particular season was called a season of the conscience Romans in Chapter 1 talks about it says that everybody had decided to you know live however they wanted but the things of God was not secret God heads begin to speak to them in their conscience that is why even though we were know when we were not saved our conscience pricked us until we harden our conscience you know conscience bothers that's not right I shouldn't do that even children they have a conscience you never see a child come into this world with a hardened conscience you know that you never see a child come into the world of the hardened conscience that is why God gives everybody a chance to respond to their conscience but through the years our conscience gets hardened our conscience gets so hardened that we're thinking in a heart or you know I because I don't understand that I don't believe in that anything I don't understand I don't believe in I only believe in what I understand and what we what we don't understand is that the conscience is insufficient because my conscience tells me I'm okay does not mean I'm okay who has to declare me okay the righteous judge who is the righteous judge Jesus who is Jesus the one who is our righteousness so when I come into a New Testament faith I can't come into the kingdom of God and say okay I received Jesus as my savior but you know what Bible and all that stuff you know I don't know about all that you know I think it's an old book written by how many people wrote that book well I don't know I think there's some human factor in there I think some divine factor in that now I think some you know writers error is there in and there are a hundred thousand mistakes in the Bible but I believe in Jesus you see what in Jesus are you believing that he can't even put a book together hey man that's like believing in your teacher who doesn't know a subject you can't put an article together and the Bible talks about and Bible talks about the look even now some people come across and interpret different things in different ways that I understand but the Bible says all Scripture is god-breathed you can't say I am righteousness without righteousness of God without acknowledging that the scripture is god bread hallelujah so then there was the there was the after the conscience Abraham came and through Isaac and Jacob and then Moses came and from the Bible says that that there was the era of the law the Ten Commandments and God told his arise I want you to form a nation the children of Abraham through Isaac and to Jacob I want you to form a nation and this nation I'm gonna give some laws and he gave that nation laws on top of the mountain on Mount Sinai in Arabia and those laws were the Ten Commandments and now the Bible says God said I want you to walk in these laws I want you to honor God I want you to honor your father and mother I don't want you to commit adultery I don't want you to murder anybody I don't want you to covet anything from anybody desire anybody's things I don't want you to you know I don't want you to worship anything that is not God I want you to know he's so he gave Commandments to Israel he gave the Ten Commandments to Israel and now all this nation was trying to somehow please God by keeping these Ten Commandments we have got our own version of Christian Ten Commandments from our childhood in Sunday school and from our parents and our and some of our teachers who said the do's and there don't do and even though we are not Jews we are in some way become like the Jews because we have our own version of the Ten Commandments and then we go into the world we're going to school a little of evolution and a little of you know mythology and everything together and it forms this own own own concept after the Jewish season of the law the Bible says in the fullness of time Christ sent his son in the fullness of time Christ sent his son I'm gonna stop today's teaching introducing this concept of righteousness I want you to know something the righteousness finally made sense for a fallen and broken mankind when God sent His Son Jesus Christ but you will never understand the righteousness that comes from Christ unless you understand the kingdom of God that Christ is king and that God had a right standing with himself God Himself is righteous and because he is righteous he says I am holy and when he says I'm holy means I am the one that sits that standard and now he's saying I want all of you to be holy which means said the same standards like I am or live like I'm living and in the New Covenant he said because I know you're struggling to live like I'm living I want to give you the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit is a guarantee of the righteousness that comes from God he's a guarantee that now you are right with God and the Holy Spirit upon your life is a guarantee that now you are going to stand before God and there is a great and powerful inheritance that comes from God Bible says in John 1:14 in and this word became flesh and dwelt among us this righteousness of God this righteousness of God there was an introduction and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory as the only begotten from the father full of grace and truth the righteousness of God was revealed through Christ and we're going to look at that you know in the coming days we're gonna look at what it really means but today I want you to know as we are getting into this understanding of these foundations I want you to keep in your heart God is saying I want you to move on from just these foundations and the first foundation he said I want you to repent from dead works which means you're saying I want you to stop feeling great about the fact that you went to some pretty much place and I believe you're gonna get into the season of understanding the power of being righteous in Jesus Christ it is not by our works it is by faith in Christ Jesus

Channel: World Impact Community Church

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Keywords: WICC India, WICC Media, World Impact Community Church, Dr John Joseph, Dr John WICC, TROTB, Trivandrum English Church, English Sermons, WICC English, Repentance from dead works, Foundation series, Righteousness

Id: pXSywXSYBaY

Length: 40min 12sec (2412 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 28 2018