The Crown of Righteousness

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthfortheworld.org I invite you to turn with me to 2 Timothy and 2 chapter 4 and once again we'll read the first eight verses I think most of us almost have these verses off by heart by now I won't put it to the test 2 Timothy 4 verse 1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom preach the word be ready in season and out of season reprove rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths as for you always be sober minded endure suffering do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry for I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come I have fought the good fight I have finished the race I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing thanks be to God for his word father now with our Bibles open we pray that you will take my words and speak through them take our minds and help us to think sensibly take our hearts and lives and bring them into line with your truth may our study of the Bible be a life shaping encounter with you the Living God for this we humbly pray in Christ's name Amen well our text is verse 8 and I want you to notice that this opening word which is here in the ESV henceforth should not be overlooked the reason I say that is because when you read verse six and verse seven it may appear that verse seven will be a far more suitable ending after all Paul has already identified the fact that he is about to die in verse 6 then in verse 7 he tells Timothy that he has completed his assignment as we saw last time it was mission accomplished and we might expect then that at end of verse 7 there would just be a big full stop a period or perhaps a big exclamation mark the fight I have fought the race I have run the faith I have kept exclamation mark finished but no it actually says hence forth in other words he wants Timothy and all of us to know that there is more that is still to come when JB Phillips paraphrase is 7 into 8 he puts it like this the glorious fight that God gave me I have fought the course that I was said I have finished and I have kept the faith the future for me the future for you I I thought you just said you were dying you mean you were dying and you still have a future well yes of course but you see unless we're paying attention we'll just skip over something like that the last days of my life have come he says but there is a future for me incidentally remember we said last Sunday about taking out little pieces of foundational truth and finding that the the superstructure will eventually collapse if you think about it in these terms just as it occurs to me as I'm speaking to you now the the death of Jesus as an atonement for sin is ends in a Palestinian tomb unless you have the resurrection but the resurrection by itself a risen Christ who hasn't died an atoning death means nothing either by itself and the father Jesus rose if he is not ascended means that we're missing a piece and the fact that he is ascended it means that it is from there that he will return and all of this we get from the Bible and were studying the Bible and we're studying the Bible in the New Testament in particular in the awareness of the fact that either this is the most elaborate fabrication that the world has ever seen or it actually is true that either these people have cobbled this together because they wanted us to have this story or these things unfold it as they did for myself I have concluded long ago that there is not one page of the New Testament that was ever written apart from the conviction that all these pieces hold together that Jesus was the Incarnate God that Jesus died an atoning death that Jesus was raised for our justification that Jesus has ascended to the right hand of God where he intercedes for us and from there he will come as Paul has said twice now in these eight verses that have been our focus and this stands of course in direct contrast to many of the cliches that are part and parcel of our everyday life the late George Carlin who was a cynical comedian and I don't think a guard theater is credited with the line life is tough and then you die and every so often you hear people say just that as if somehow or another that's the end of the story but in actual fact Paul would be prepared to say life is tough and then you die henceforth there is still more to come now you see this is very important for us to reckon with because Nero who was in charge of Paul's earthly circumstances would be I think justifiably regarded as an unrighteous judge he had pronounced the guilty sentence on Paul unjustifiably and he had ordered Paul's execution and here now Paul in the prospect of his execution he's writing to Timothy to say you know there is a higher throne and there is another judge and he is a just and a righteous judge and although Nero may be the one who condemns me to death henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will grant to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing in other words he's essentially saying that his execution was the pathway to his graduation or we could say his consummation or his vindication but let's use graduation because graduation is in the air at least it seems to be in the air so the idea is that although his death was going to come and incidentally the chronology here when he says that day towards the end of the verse that day with a capital D is not a reference to the day of his death but is a reference to the day of the return of Jesus Christ he's always been looking forward to the day the day will bring it to light remember he says a man's ministry may be wood hay and stubble it may be precious stones and gold and silver but the day will bring a delight what day the day when Jesus Christ the righteous judge brings everything to a consummation and Paul's leaders were very familiar with the crowns and the wreaths that were given out as a result of athletic prowess whether it was in physical combat or whether it was in the running of a race they were familiar with the fact that somebody would reach the finish line or be victorious in the competition and they would be awarded they would be crowned on that day and everybody would be aware of the fact that they had completed their journey now I want you to notice just two things in relationship to this first of all that this crown of righteousness is an emblem of victory it is an emblem of victory I take it that when Paul uses this terminology he's referring to the moment when having been faithful unto death he is then given the crown of life that's the quote revelation chapter 2 and verse 10 he uses this terminology all the way through his letters he anticipates as it where the moment in the graduation ceremony where you move the tassel on your mortar board from one side to the other it's always a big question that these graduations that the students are always asking when do we move the tassel or what site is the tassel supposed to be on of all the things to be concerned about but I know they are i watch them the other weekend when I was there some of them were very particular after the shook hands received the plummet and then whoop off it went on whatever site it was supposed to go it's not as if they got their grade by moving the tassel or they move the tassel and that graduated them or animate it didn't do anything at all they just moved the tassel but it did say to themselves and to those watching I have completed my course I have achieved my results and this is an indication of all that has been awarded to me and that's the language of Paul here it's a symbol of success a confirmation of his completed course well then so somebody is it is it what is he saying here that he that he is being awarded something on account of his own good efforts oh yes but isn't he actually saying that his award is an undeserved award well yes well make up your mind well no why not because both are true remember when he writes to the Philippians and he says to them I want you to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling in other words you do what you're supposed to do then what does he immediately say for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure there are some people whose perspective of the Christian life as this you don't do anything the key to success is you do nothing you just sit back and let God do everything so apparently you don't run the race he does you don't fight the fight he fights it you don't keep the faith he keeps it for you nothing could be more ridiculous then there's another group of people who are just perspiring horribly trying to do everything on their own I got to fight this fight I got to run this race I gotta keep this faith and the answer is that we work out what he works in so he looks forward to a crown that will be given to him and he knows that any race that he's run any fight that he's fought any victory that is is is ultimately solely a result of the grace of God to him in him and through him that's why the crown is an emblem of victory second thing to notice is that he uses in describing it what we might refer to as the language of certainty the language of certainty if your Bible is open you will notice is the way in which he puts it henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day it's laid up for him if you like it has his name on it it has his size it's not just he's not just gonna have half God look around and say hey find a crown there be one there that you can wear now I said I have your crown I have your crown for you it's already sized for you it's it's it's been kept for you really yeah really I remember when I came here at first and I was introduced to a strange place they told me to go to pick up tickets they told me got a we'll call I said pardon they said God will call I said no you're gonna have to slow that down what are you saying who is Wilco no they said no it's will call I said well why didn't you say that then I would have understood and then I got it okay so there's a place you go and if you tell him hey it's me then they'll give you what is there for you which is distinct from another thing that I discovered which is called layaway which was which was at jcpenney where you could lay stuff away you put a little down payment then you add a little bit more and eventually if you've laid enough cash away to get what you laid away then you can finally get it at the end of the long journey some people's Christian life is a kind of layaway thing there's trying to layaway a little bit of this a little bit of merit a little bit of church attendance a little bit of good works a little bit of self effort and when they finally get enough and maybe they'll get up there and get crown well no it's not layaway as we'll call and and and the best will call visit for a Scotsman it's when you say to the fellow what do I need when I get there and he says you need nothing it's all paid for just give him your name oh what a feeling this is what a feeling this is you mean all I have to do is say my name and they hand it over that's exactly right Paul is going to stand before the bar of God's judgment he's going to say I was once Saul of Tarsus I am Paul I believe you've kept something here for me and the righteous judge will say I have it exactly for you and Paul is saying this is not unique to me he says I'm in a large graduating class and those other graduates were mentioned in a moment or two you see Paul's confidence lay in the fact that God had begun the work in his life God was sustaining the work in his life and God was going to bring to completion the work in his life that's what he said when he wrote to the Philippians for their encouragement he says I am convinced of this or being confident of this that God who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ it's that same notion which runs through all of Paul's letters when he writes to the Galatian believers at one point he says to them for through the spirit that's by the enabling of God through the spirit by faith we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness he's not saying we wait there for the possibility of it but the certainty of it for them as we've discovered so many times hope is used in that way of something that is not yet realized but it is absolutely guaranteed we're not gonna go up to will call and say and they're gonna go oh no we don't have anything here for you no it is actually there and we eagerly await the hope of righteousness because when you think about it the work of God's Spirit is not perfected in us until we are actually raised from the dead the work of God within us is not perfected and as it is not brought to completion until we're raised from the dead that's why we teach our children isn't it we teach one another the three tenses of salvation so that we're able to put it very straightforwardly that in Jesus we have been saved past tense from sins penalty we are being saved present tense from sins power and one day we will be saved future tense from sins presence but in the meantime in Christ we're still sinners we're still sinful and there's not a day goes by without the fact that we are aware of that and the evil one comes to accuse us and said well you know if you really were a proper believing person surely you would have thought that surely would have said that I thought you would have done that and you've left it undone what is the answer to that well the answer is that we have been saved from the penalty of sin and one day we will be saved from the presence of sin but in the meantime we are wrestling with the power of sin there's not a question about ultimate victory but it is a question about the ongoing battle that's why Paul elsewhere says we're not wrestling against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places that's why he says for the Ephesian Church they've got to make sure they have a whole armor of God that their head is secured by the helmet of salvation that the breastplate of righteousness is protecting them from the attacks of the evil one there's nothing for your back it's all for the front the belt of truth and the sword of the Spirit and prayer and so on all of that is necessary it's not calling in question the crown that is there but it is acknowledging the reality of what it's like to get there now let me come back to this George Carlin thing if I may life is tough and then you die she usually said in a way that's that sort of defines life in that way you know you die and there's nothing more to be concerned about you know m---eleven mmm Shakespeare wasn't so convinced you know he said you know we may go to sleep but if we sleep we dream if we dream we may dream of things that unsettle us and the Bible says that we are put together in such a way that it is impossible for us not to imagine beyond the limits of our timeframe that's why even if you imagine yourself dead you're actually alive imagining yourself dead you can't you can't be dead and imagine yourself dead at least not as far as I know but why can we get check on that later but for the time being we know intuitively that there is something beyond death and every religious experience in the world has come up with some mechanism to try and make sense of it whether it is reincarnation or whatever it might be what the Bible says and this is what is so striking is that it is appointed unto man once to die and after this comes judgment comes judgment now you see this is how Paul has framed this exhortation to Timothy you'll notice what he says I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus notice the next phrase who is to judge the living and the dead the reason he says it's so important to me.they that you tell people this good news is because there is a judgment that's going to come Jesus himself has said that he will separate the sheep from the goats we didn't invent this this is the words of the loving Shepherd the warning that is inherent in it the loving wooing and urgency that is inherent in it it is because of the reality of that that the charge that is given to Timothy and to all contemporary Timothy's is so urgent and now he comes back to it he's back again at the righteous judge now to talk like this is to make oneself immediately vulnerable and whether you're in a pulpit as I am now or kind of one or whether you're talking with somebody on the bus or on the train or whatever else it is there's a great there's a great temptation there's no just a drawback just to just to pull out a couple of the little blocks just not to just not just say at all because it's very unappealing to people and especially to our intelligent friends they want you to be as intelligent as they are and they've decided that if you're going to be as intelligent as they are you're gonna have to give up on some of this silly stuff why don't you do why don't you take a couple of those breaks out well because you can't when Paul who wasn't exactly a dunce was invited to address the intelligentsia in Athens he didn't pull any punches he was very skillful he was gracious you remember what he did I kept her 17 you can read it for yourself he said to them well I am delighted the opportunity to speak to you and as I was wandering around the place this afternoon I noticed that you are a very religious group of people and that you have various altars in shrines and statues to all kinds of gods and goddesses and I noticed that you have one that you've actually made to cover your bases to the unknown God that's pretty clever you don't want to miss out then he said I'm glad you have that one because it gives me an introduction to my talk the God that you don't know I want to tell you about I want to tell you about the unknown God you can imagine their ears growing up they thought they knew everything whoa it's going to tell us about the unknown God and then what does he do he starts with the doctrine of creation the God who made the world and everything in it so we are created by God yes and you are accountable to God he's not accountable to you he's in charge of geography establishing the parameters of the world he's sovereignly in charge of history and as he moves towards his conclusion quoting the poets and drawing them in he finally ends in this way I can just imagine him pausing taking a breath and saying so let me just wrap this up by pointing out quote God commands all people everywhere to repent how comprehensive is that exactly God commands all people everywhere to repent and I'll tell you why he says because he has fixed a day when he would judge the world in righteousness by a man he has appointed so in other words he doesn't back off from the reality of this because he realizes that a world that does not ultimately reckon with the execution of justice is a meaningless world when when when things are broken they need to be fixed and to get them fixed somebody has to pay they do not give fixed without payment coming from somewhere and our broken world is not going to be repaired apart from a payment the execution of that which is necessary in order to restore that which is broken which is dysfunctional which is warped and so he says he has established this day and it is this day that he's referring to here the day when he appears verse 8 of chapter 4 and this righteous judge will judge the living and the dead verse 1 now just in case you think it is going to be very you know you'll be able to slide by or I'll be able to slide by no it's it's much worse than that remember - Cleatus the Old Testament book which probably is you know the Old Testament equivalent in a longer version of Paul speech - the areopagus in Acts chapter 17 insofar as it begins with secular man and says he would probably tempted to explain yourself in terms of intellect or in terms of of your physical prowess or by growing plants and establishing gardens and wine women and song and and he goes down all those avenues he says it's a dead end down there and a dead end down there and a dead end there he gets to chapter 12 and he says so you better remember your Creator before everything falls apart do you remember how he finishes that the close to the book is what he says okay here's the end of it all he says let me give it to you in a nutshell fear God and keep his commandments fear God and keep his commandments and then he explains why quote for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing whether good or evil God will bring every deed into judgment including every secret thing whether good or evil Wow and who's going to do this the righteous judge when is he gonna do this when he appears so it's a day that is fixed yes will he do it fairly absolutely he's righteous will there be any second chances no its final well who is who is gonna love his appearing are gonna love his appearing the righteous judge is gonna come it's going to execute judgment it be completely fair they won't get anything wrong be absolutely final and he can't fiddle with it well unless there's a way to deal with this we are without exception completely busted every one of us agreed so you have to find some way of dealing this one way to deal with is I don't believe it I just don't believe it there isn't gonna be one thank you have a great afternoon Nana Nana talk to the hand talk to the hand talk then it's not gonna happen well I couldn't convince you but the Spirit of God can convince you the Spirit of God will say to you in your heart you better listen to this now because of the person speaking but because of the truth is conveyed have you followed that silk road trial as I have done with that young man raus you'll Brett who built as a result of his amazing genius a billion plus marketing strategy throughout the world to sell to drugs and they caught him and Friday or Thursday they sentenced them they found him guilty as charged 31 years old clever from a privileged background with all of his life in front of him took all of his genius and applied it in this way his parents were present for the sentencing let me ask you a question do you think that he was sitting out in the anteroom waiting to be brought back into the dog and he was saying to himself you know I'm really looking forward to the reappearing of the judge I can't wait till she comes in now of course not because the sentence said that that the guilty verdict had already been determined only the sentencing remained and he bowed his head and listened as judge Katherine Forrest gave him a life sentence without the possibility of parole okay so that's it but without any desire for rhetoric or emotional manipulation may I say to you on the authority of the Bible that that is nothing compared to the right execution of the judgment of God upon sin that will bear punishment that lasts eternally my loved ones that is why this is so crucial that is why the urgency of it is so real this is why Paul says listen I am going to die Timothy you must tell these people tell them the amazing good news what is the amazing good news the amazing good news is this that the judge the righteous judged Jesus has come from the bench and has taken off his robe and has put himself in the place of the one judged and has borne the punishment that the judge deserved and has paid the debt that the judge cannot possibly pay that's the story of the gospel that it is a story of first of all realizing the predicament in which I find myself and then the amazing news that God loves sinners that in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us only bad people go to heaven only bad people go to heaven if you think you're going to heaven because you're good which is the standard pebble I think I'm probably good enough you ain't going I can tell you but if you know you're bad there's a chance provided you look to the righteous judge who has done for you well you can't do for yourself I mean you've got to come up with something what are you gonna say well I've always done my best I've never really harmed anybody at all as if any of us could reach a standard whereby we could seriously argue before you could argue our goodness before God how could you argue your goodness before God even your spouse knows you're not that good you you know you're not that good goodness gracious how many times a day do we do we realize how messed up we are and then we go to somehow or another face the barbs doesn't go well I think I can plead in my defense no the wonder of the good news is the wonder of good news if I had time and I don't I'll take you all the way through Paul and show you the radical transformation in Saul of Tarsus who was so stuck on his own righteousness he regarded himself in relationship to law keeping as blameless that's what he said so he was right up there in the in the high high 90% he was doing a really good job and then he says but I'd regard that as a load of trash now why for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ as my lord I suddenly he says I suddenly got it that although my righteousness could never be put together in a way that I would be acceptable to God a righteousness from God Romans 3:21 has now been granted to us by faith for all who believe he does it again in Philippians 3 he get to Titus it's the same story when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness but according to his own Narsee you see in the starkest of terms the reason that we may look forward to a crown is because Jesus had a crown his crown was a crown of thorns in order that we might have a crown of righteousness he bears our punishment as Isaiah puts it he was crushed for our iniquities he was bruised because we were the bruised ones the thieves on the cross I'm I'm not sure there's many a day goes by I don't think about these two men three men Jesus in the middle and the other two the one fellow giving Jesus a bad time if you really are who you say you are come down off the cross and get me off a cross if you're a messiah and that'll be a good time to show up and so on that's the kind of thing people say to me all the time if you want me to believe in Jesus let him do a miracle for me have him come down and do something he comes down to shiver and falls I'll believe on Tuesday let me tell you something no you wouldn't you wouldn't and the other fellow says to his friend he says hey hey hey wait a minute we are up here getting what our sins deserve we are justifiably up here on this cross but this man has done nothing wrong why is he up here because he who knew no sin became sin for us in order that in him we might become the righteousness of God that God pardons in Jesus all our sins accepts us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and receive by faith if you're a believer today your righteousness is not a wee bit of you it's not like a file in the computer of your existence whereby you open a particular file called the righteousness file and you see how much righteousness you've got in there you don't have righteousness Jesus is your righteousness he's all your righteousness that's where we started singing this morning my one defense my righteousness I don't have any other righteousness except the righteousness which is mine in Christ that's why Paul says is such an amazing thing If any man be in Christ he is a new creation the old has gone the new has come he comes with all of this debt in the column that debt is canceled as a result of the credit of Christ it's an amazing story and actually this story unlike most religious stories because most religious stories most religions are either proud or they're despairing if you meet people are into religion you will find they're one of the two they're either going around going well and pretty confident I've done such a great job and so on or you will find that people are in absolute despair I could never live up to it I could never do it I don't know what I'm going to do the gospel deals with with our pride and with our despair to us in our pride it says both morally and intellectually you're gonna have to rely on Jesus that's gonna take a humbling isn't it and to our despair when we say I think I'm so bad there's no possibility it says did you ever hear about the thief on the cross I'm ending this way we'll sing a song imagine that we go to Niagara Falls together and we go on the Canadian site because as much nicer over there and well as this it is nicer over there everyone knows that the flowers and everything are nicer I don't know why we don't clean our site up but that's that's another story for another day and as we go up there together I noticed that you are standing perilously close to the edge and as I look at where you're standing I realize that you're standing on us on a shaky foundation and so I say to you hey don't stand there that won't hold you and you say I'll take my chances or maybe you're offended and you say hey don't tell me where to stand it's no reach for me to apply the analogy by Nature we are standing close to the precipice on a rickety foundation and the Bible says that will not hold you here is solid ground on which to stand are you gonna say I'll take my chances are you gonna say I don't tell me where to stand are you gonna say hey thank you so much I didn't realize you've saved my life that's the story that's were so wrapped up in this crown and this day it's a victory it's a certainty for those who come to him in believing faith well I wonder have you done that I was at a wedding last night and you know they got married that we usually do they did the do do do you do do you take him I do do you take her I do and they doodled and that was it they're all married up the whole the whole it was a great to do actually it was a to do right now and I like that analogy because I often use it don't I I spoke to somebody after the second service about it it just seemed to dawn on this man but you know to finally close with Christ's offer of salvation you have to do something it's not enough simply to process intellectually what I'm saying to you you've got to finally come down on one side or another and if you imagine the father it's a strange picture but imagine if the father God looking down on Christ and you standing beside him and he says to his son son do you take this sinner and Christ says father I died for her and then he says and you do you take this Savior I'll do you have you will you get off your rickety foundation I'm telling you it will not hold you up neither in time and definitely not in eternity I'm telling you this because I have to because I want to let's pray father thank you dad we are ultimately shut up to your word that none of us invented this it's not necessarily easy to say certainly it doesn't hold mass appeal in our contemporary culture but we know that you are the God who opens blind eyes shows us that if we are standing on rickety foundations you soften our hearts if we are tempted to say I don't want you telling me what to do or where to stand you are pursuing God so pursue as Lord like the Hound of heaven some of us in our intellect pursued like Luis others of us in our despair pursued like the woman of the well but pursuers and bring us to yourself we pray so that we may rest in the assurance that one day when we stand before you we may do so unashamed and all of our answer will be away from ourselves in Christ in whose name we pray amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 10,687

Rating: 4.8947368 out of 5

Keywords: Alistair Begg, Death, Glorification, Grace, Heaven, Imputation of Righteousness, Jesus Christ, Salvation, Second Coming of Christ, 2 Timothy

Id: CsJLM9EyZeY

Length: 40min 11sec (2411 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2015