So Romans 1 verse number 16. It says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed, from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Father, we thank you and praise you, God, for what you do. We thank you, Lord, for your blessings. Pray that you just work in this message, stir in the hearts of each person. I pray that you'd help us to glorify you, God, in what we say and do. We thank you for all of this, and we ask it in your Son, Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so we've been through verse 16. I give it to you, though, because it is the context. When he says in verse number 17, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed, he's pointing back to what you've read in verse number 16. And in honesty, he's pointing you back to the gospel. He's pointing you back to the gospel that he is not ashamed of. The last part of verse 16 is an explanation to why he's not ashamed of the gospel. It's not the explanation to verse 17 necessarily. However, there are things that are applicable in that last part of verse 16, such as the statement to the Jew first and also to the Greek, as we saw last week, that pertains to God's righteousness. And so I want to give you two ways you look at God's righteousness. The first one, I can just more or less throw it at you and move on with our lives. The other one, we need to turn and look at some passages. So the first one is to understand this. When we talk about seeing God's righteousness, because he says it's revealed to us through the gospel, The first way you and I have to understand and see God's righteousness is on the level of understanding that God does everything right. God has never done anything wrong. He's never done something where the timing was off, where the motivation was wrong, where He had the wrong idea and so He produced the wrong outcome. God has literally never been wrong about anything He has ever done. Now, when there is wrong, it's because of man. It's because we bring something to the equation that messes it up. You know, God made a perfect creation, we sinned and broke it. When God works in our lives, it's us who mess that up with different things that we do. And so, regardless of what you may think, you have to understand the Bible is very clear that God's ways are right, all of His ways are right. And so Psalm 145, I'll give you a couple of psalms, that's why I say I can throw them out there to you quickly. Psalm 145 verse 17 says, So you understand righteous means that it's right, it's correct, that what God has done is right. There's nothing you can raise against it to say that He didn't fulfill His obligations. He didn't do something that He should have done. Everything God has ever done, He's did exactly what He should. He's never come short. He's never messed up. He always does what is right, what is proper. And then we see all His works to be holy according to the same verse, meaning that they are holy is, that they are sacred, that they are, you know, they're above the ways of men and so forth. There's a lot of things there we can unpack, which goes very well with what we talked about on Wednesday night. I will avoid getting into those some today. Psalm 119 verse 137 says, Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy judgments. So you have to understand that God is righteous, it's His nature, just like He is holy, just like He is loved, just like He is jealous, just like He's all these things, God is righteous. And because He is righteous, that means every judgment, every decision He ever makes is also upright, meaning it's right, it's held in righteousness. So when we look at our God, we have to understand that there's a lot of unjust things in the universe. There's a lot of things in the world around us that are not right, but it's not God who is the author of those things. And that's the fallacy of any religion you have, such as most forms of Calvinism, I acknowledge there's different forms of it, wherein free will gets stripped away and God's the author of everything because that puts God as the author of some pretty awful things. That puts God as the author of sin and all kinds of stuff that God's very clear that He's not the author of. that He didn't create it, He didn't put it in the heart of man to do it, He forbid it from the beginning, and He's done everything necessary to justify us and make us right with Him since we fell. So when we look at God, you have to understand on the most simple part of this. When we consider what it means that God is righteous or when we look at His righteousness, it's just to understand that God is right in all that He does. There's nothing that God does that He does it wrong or messes it up. And for us as Christians, that should be a great thing to trust Him because while you don't like everything that He does, you don't enjoy everything that He does, you know it's right. You know that it's the correct thing to have done at that time, that He's not short in any of His decisions, that all His decisions are exactly what they ought to be. And then I want to turn to you, because I don't actually have anything written down for this verse, but I wrote it down as a reference like it was very important. I want to turn to Hebrews chapter 1, verse 8 and verse 9. Hebrews 1, verse 8 and verse 9. It says, But unto the Son, he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. So this is talking about Christ, of course. You don't, I mean, we don't have to have any notes to figure that out. He's talking about Christ. We even quoted this verse about Him in the park this morning, that when it comes to Christ, when He rules His kingdom upon the earth, He will rule with a scepter of righteousness. You know, He will rule and every decision He has to make will be done in what's right. And it says that He has loved righteousness, that God loves what is right. So that's, I mean, I'm trying to move through this quickly because it's late in the day. You've been here very long. But just I want you to understand on a very simplistic level here. This is not deep theology. It's something that helps you, though, if you get this. God is always right in everything he does. He does it with purpose and meaning because he's trying to do what is right. I think one of the prime examples I can give you of that sounds silly, maybe on the surface, but it's the baptism of Jesus. Jesus, when He went to John the Baptist, John said, you know, you shouldn't baptize me. I have need that I should be baptized of you. And Jesus said, suffer to be so, for it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. When you think about that statement, God himself looked John the Baptist in the eye and said, it's proper that you let me to be baptized of you because it fulfills everything that's right. If we do this, it fulfills righteousness. And you notice he doesn't just say it becometh me to fulfill all righteousness. He said it becometh us, meaning it's a statement that's broader than that. At the very least, it applies to him and John the Baptist, but it could very well apply beyond that, especially given what the Bible teaches about baptism. And so what I'm saying, the reason why I'm giving you this as the example is because Jesus says, I did this. I'm doing this right now because it's necessary to do everything that's right for me to do. So why did Jesus get baptized? And why was it right? Why was it necessary if He wanted to fulfill all righteousness? Because He doesn't have any sin, so He's not there to wash His sin away, which we know baptism doesn't do, but that's one of the great testimonies of it, because Jesus got baptized and He had no sin. He's not there for many of the same reasons that people go. He's not there because He thinks He needs it if He wants to return to the Father and go to heaven. So why does Jesus say it's right that I get baptized? If I want to do everything right, I need to do this. And we see, very simply, He's setting the standard that if somebody is going to serve the Father, this is expected of them, that they dedicate their life to Him in this act of baptism. That began with John. We understand that. It didn't exist before then. Otherwise, Jesus would not have asked who created this, John or somebody else. He wouldn't have asked it if it existed before. But from the time that God instituted this in the time of John the Baptist until now, God expects everyone who gets saved to follow Him in baptism. But it's not just that, because Jesus didn't get saved, right? So that's not all there is to it. He expects everybody who wants to serve Him to follow Him in baptism. That's the point that Jesus is showing. Jesus didn't get saved, so it's not that He had to be saved and then He could follow in baptism. He's right with God already. But if he's going to begin his earthly ministry, that's immediately what he does after this. After the baptism, he goes out and he goes and he fasts. He spends that time there and then he starts his earthly ministry. He goes out and begins these things. So what he's showing is before he would go out, I mean, just imagine this for a minute. You telling me that as a preacher that if I'm going to get up in this pulpit and preach that I need to be baptized first doesn't sound like a big deal that you tell me that. You tell any other pastor that they need to be baptized before they go into the ministry and they get a church and they start preaching, that just makes sense. It's proper, it's logical. If not, they'd be living in disobedience to God's command because God said, you know, to be baptized. But just imagine that God Himself humbled Himself and said, if I'm going to put this standard on everyone else, that baptism precedes service. This act of obedience precedes all other acts of obedience, that this must come first or else you can give the gospel, but you're doing it disobediently. You can go and preach, but you're doing it rebelliously. You can go do whatever you want, but you're doing it as a rebel and not as a servant. If Jesus humbles Himself to let John the Baptist baptize Him, He sets the standard for everybody that this is what is expected of us, that we follow Him in believers' baptism before we get involved in His work because it's supposed to be the first thing we do after we get saved. In our cases, He never had to be saved, so you have to be careful that you're not reading the wrong thing into that. The fact is, Jesus getting baptized is proof that it's not a requirement for salvation. It's something that follows after you have that relationship with God. In His case, He already had that because He lived the sinless perfect life. He was God in human flesh. And so, I don't want you to read the wrong idea that He's washing away sin or anything like that, or He's trying to be saved or any of these things that these false religions will put for baptism. Instead, He's showing you why this is important to God, because God does all things decently and in order. God has an order. He says, you want to go serve Me? Commit your life first. That's why you think about his preaching, you want to follow me, die to self first. So you want to follow the father, die to yourself first, and then go see what you can do for him and serve him. That's why somebody who's not following and taking these steps, they can do many great things, but they're doing it as a rebel and not as a servant. They're doing it in disobedience and not as someone who's obeying their father. And don't get me wrong, I understand there's a lot of things that can be considered in all of this. I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings by using that example. I'm just saying that if you want an example of how God is so particular in doing things decently in order and wanting it done right, God was so sincere about that that He was willing to humble Himself to the point where He told John, no, this has to be done. It's not right for me to go out and start my ministry. It's not right for me to go out and start preaching until I commit myself to the Father, until I commit to die to self to live for Him. And that's the example that He set for everybody else as well. So if you want to know what it means to fulfill all righteousness, that's part of it. There's some other stuff you could read into it as well. But just in the context we're looking at right now, that's part of what we would see. But that's where I say it's a simple idea, it's easy to understand, but it's not at all what really is the focus of this verse. The focus of this verse is on something entirely different. It's on how the gospel shows you God's righteousness. It's not on the fact that, yes, we as believers can read Psalms and say God does everything right. That's not the focus of the verse. The focus of the verse is not even necessarily on the fact that God fulfilled every obligation He had to the Jew before giving the gospel through the apostles to the Gentiles. Like, He didn't send out preachers to the Gentiles until He fulfilled His commitments and obligations to the Jews. So that's what we're talking about. You know, God has an order, He does things decently, He does it correct, so He does what's right. He doesn't just do what He wants to or what feels right. but that's not what he's looking at in the verse. In the verse, he's telling you that we see the righteousness of God so as to go from one faith to the next, to go from this idea of casually believing in a God or to go from this thing of being religious and trusting our good works or whatever it is you're putting your faith in at that point to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. How do you go from A to B? How do you jump from this faith to that faith? How do you go from the point of, Maybe you don't believe anything. You believe the universe created itself to believing that there is a God in heaven. What reveals to you the righteousness of God to make you believe Him? That's what verse 17 is saying. He's saying that there's something in verse 16 that you can see this, and this is what helps you to see how right God is. And once you see this, you can't unsee it. Once you see this and you truly understand it, then you will come from the point of, I believe there's many gods to, I believe that Jesus Christ is God. If you can get this in your heart, you'll come from the place of, I believe that, oh yeah, this way is also a way to heaven, or that's also a way, or it doesn't really matter, you just be a good person to a faith in Jesus Christ. You will move from whatever you're trusting into trusting in him if you can actually get this. And what you have to get is super simple. We've already explained it over and over again. It's the gospel. But how does the gospel show us God's righteousness? And there's one passage that explains this better than any, probably. It's Romans chapter 3. So it's here within the book we're already in. Romans chapter 3, verse 21 through verse 26. Romans chapter 3 verse number 21 says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath sent forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness. that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. You want to see God's righteousness and how you see it in the gospel? Think about this. There's no greater testimony. Like, I used baptism a minute ago, but there's no greater testimony of how God is not willing to break the rules. There's no greater testimony of how he's not willing to change or cheat or anything else to get ahead. He always does what is right than the gospel. And what I mean by that is this, who set the rule that the wages of sin is death? God did. Why did He set the rule? Because, well, that's how disgusting sin is to Him. And you and I can easily set a rule and say that, well, in my opinion, this thing is so bad that anybody who does this should have their hand cut off. But then when it's me that did it or somebody in my family that did it, well, you know, there's room for mercy. We have to forgive. You know, we can't just go around cutting people's hands off after all. And we already cut off five other people for doing it, but, you know, that was before I did it. And you and I can do that because we're not righteous in all that we do. And our judgments are not always holy, they're not always pure, they're not always correct. And so many times we will apply one judgment to ourself and a different one to someone else. And when God says, thou shalt not judge, this is what he's talking about. God is not against you looking at sin and saying sin is sin. God is not against you looking at a matter and saying that's not correct, you should do this instead. God wants you to use wisdom and judgment. He says it throughout the Bible over and over again. The verses where God says, judge not lest you be judged, always are followed by telling you about how it's a sin to be a hypocrite when you're judging. And his example typically is, he says, you look at your brother who has a splinter stuck in his eye, and you have the rest of the board stuck in your eye, and you're critical of him, and how foolish he must be to walk around all day with that splinter stuck in his eye, that little piece of wood, and he's not gonna do anything about it, when you have the rest of the board, and you're not doing anything about that. That's the judgment he's against, is that we're so critical and so down and so quick to attack somebody for something until we do it. And then once we do it, well, you know, it's understandable. You have to realize that somebody in the right circumstances, they can do that. Anybody could do that. That's the way we change when it's us. And I'm going to be honest with you, no matter how good you try to be and no matter how right your heart is, you are guilty of this. Everybody is guilty of this. That's why God says so much about it in the Bible, is that all of us have a standard that we're very quick to apply when it doesn't affect our household. But God doesn't have that. God is so righteous and so perfect that if He tells you the wages of sin is death, the wages of sin is death even if it affects Him. There's nothing that's going to change that. He's not going to bend. He's not going to bow. He's not going to break. He's not going to give in because you told Him a sob story that hurt His feelings. What is right will be right tomorrow and the next day and the next day. It's not going to change because it cost Him something. And this is where the gospel shows you this better than anything. is that you and I can realize at times, well, I was wrong, I was too harsh about that. Because right now I'm presenting it in the negative where you're twisting it for yourself, but also there's times where you'll realize in life that you were far too quick to judge something because you had never experienced it. that I'm critical of somebody who did something wrong because I've never done that wrong thing. And I didn't realize what it was like. I didn't realize what the temptation was for them. And so I'm telling you, you and I will change our judgment, good or bad, because life and experience show us that things are not exactly the way we thought they were. But God set a standard. And God knew that before He ever set that standard, that He would have to die on the cross if He said it. And He still said it anyways. He still said, knowing that it's going to affect my home when I do this, that I'm going to have to live up to the standard that I am setting, the wages of sin is death, the soul that sin is that shall die. He said, I know that. Jesus Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. I already know that if I set this standard, man is going to sin, and I'm going to take on human flesh, and I'm going to die on that cross, and all of mankind's sin will be placed upon my soul, and I'll bear the weight and the burden of all of it. So as bad as it may sound to you, it's going to be much worse to him. And that's where the righteousness of God is revealed to you. is that think about what you just read here in Romans 3. He says it's revealed to you, it's manifest, it means it's made real, and that He is just and the justifier. At verse 26, we'll read it again. What does that mean? It means if you go back and read everything before it, that Jesus Christ set a rule, the Father set a rule, that God agreed upon this rule, this is the rule. And if at any point it was possible to say, maybe we're a little too harsh on that one, we should walk that back a little bit, there should be a different way to pay for sin, then God would have been the only person who could have done that. If there was anybody who could have said, you know, you owe the debt to me, like it's my law you broke, so we'll just count this free, like we'll write this off, I'll eat the loss, it's done, nobody has to pay this debt. God's the only one who could have done that, but He would have been an unjust judge if He did that. because the job of a judge is to protect and enforce the law. His job is not to have mercy on you. In fact, that's honestly one thing that I appreciate, even though it costs me more money than it should have in things, is that at least here it's not like the U.S. where you go in and you tell a sob story about how This week my car broke and I didn't go to work all week and all this kind of stuff. And the judge is like, oh, you murdered someone, but this week you had a bad week. OK, well, we'll just give you like two weeks in jail and you'll be fine. In the US, it's about that way. It's to the point where emotions dictate and govern everything. And what is legal and what is correct doesn't really matter anymore. Now, admittedly, most of what you see of that is civil cases and not legal cases where people agreeing amongst each other to settle something in court. It's not the government punishing you for a crime. And so I'll give an example. There's a judge in the U.S. that I think now his fame has come and gone, but he's an older man who is famous in the U.S. because they would put all these clips of him on social media where somebody would come before him And they would start crying about how, I didn't know that it was a no parking zone. I know there was 10 signs on the same street that said don't park, but I didn't see any of them. I saw everything else on the street, but not that. And they'll come through and give this story. And sometimes it's stuff that has nothing to do with anything. Sometimes, like they're explaining why they ran a red light, and it's because a week ago I was sick, and so I ran a red light the week later. And it's just sometimes the most ridiculous stories you can imagine. But the thing with this guy is, and again, understand, this is all civil things. It's like maybe small violations and stuff is what he's judging. It's not major crimes. So he has a lot of leeway to make up whatever he wants and do whatever he wants. And he has a TV show. And mercy gets more ratings than punishment most times on judicial TV shows. So he'll have people come up who are not sorry. They're laughing at him. And he'll come up with some sob story. He'll push them and push them until he gets a sob story. And then he'll forgive them. and he's an unjust judge. It doesn't matter how nice it seems. It's like, oh, that guy's really nice. He cares about people. He's trying to help the community. No, he's a terrible, awful judge. He does not deserve to have his job. He should be immediately fired from it because he doesn't care what the law says. He cares about what gets people to like him. And don't get me wrong, it's nice when you see him actually help somebody because sometimes he does, and it's encouraging. And you wish when you're the one standing before the judge that you could have a judge like that. But I'm just going to be honest with you, most of the time, that's a poor judge. There are times where mercy is the right answer. There are times where it's proper to give somebody a chance, and I'm not going to dispute that. There's times where a judge can do that because the law affords them the ability to do that. But when you have to throw the laws out the window to do it, you're a terrible judge. And God's proof of that. Because when God was faced with, if you want to forgive these people, somebody has to pay the debt, He didn't throw the laws out the window. He said, I'll pay it for you. And that judge I'm using as the example, when it comes time for somebody to pay the debt, he just says, we're going to rip that up. You owe 700 euros to the city of so-and-so because you drove your car through a window. But we're going to rip it up, and the city's going to pay for it. And so the taxpayers are going to pay for it. So that me, who did not drive his car through the window, now I have to pay for it because he wanted to get a better rating on his TV show. You understand, somebody has to pay the debt. No debt just gets erased. Somebody took that debt upon themselves when something like that happens. And God said that the cost, the debt that would be owed is so great that He'd have to go to the cross to die for our sins. It's the only way it could be paid other than you going to hell and paying it for eternity yourself. That's how great it is. I mean, this is the judge. This is the lawmaker. If anybody wanted to write a loophole in there where it's like, yeah, I could just go and they could slap me on the back a few times with the whip and we're done. He could have done that. But his nature, his holy nature says the sin costs more than that. That sin, I cannot just write off the debt and say, it's not a big deal and I'm just going to let you whip my back a few times and it's done. No, that sin is so vile, so evil, so disgusting that the debt is death. That is the punishment. And he says, if I have to pay it, it's still death. If it's going to cost me my own life and my own sacrifice upon the cross, the punishment, the wages of that sin is still death. I'm not going to change the rules just because I'm the one who has to bear the consequences. No. So that I can still be just, so that I can still be correct, so I can still be right according to my own law and justify you, meaning I can make you right in the eyes of the law, I'll go pay the debt. Somebody has to pay it. It can't just be wiped away. It can't just pretend like it's not there. The debt exists. And an unjust judge will say, wipe it away. A righteous judge will say, no, somebody has to pay that debt. But you want to see how loving, how kind, how amazing our God is. He said, there's a debt. I'm too holy to just pretend like it doesn't exist. I'm too holy to change the rules and say that some sins are not a big deal. We'll just pretend like those didn't need to be died for. No, we're going to keep the rules. We're going to keep the law. We're going to keep the debt, but I'll go pay it. I will go to the cross and I will die for you. There is no greater testimony of someone who's willing to do right and to be just than that. Because I'm going to tell you something, if you had to give your only begotten Son, you had to send your child to die because you made a rule, and this is what you honestly believe it's worth. I mean, God didn't just make up an arbitrary rule. He believes this. His holy nature says this is what sin costs. And I cannot deny that. I cannot change that because He's too holy to do something wrong. He's too righteous to do something that is not correct. So this is the cost. If you were in that situation, you would find a reason why it doesn't actually cost that much. You know, you send on a Tuesday and on Tuesday it's half price. So we're just going to beat you and you can go home and it's okay. If it's your child that has to die, if it's you that has to take the beating and the suffering and the punishment, then the rules are going to be a lot more flexible. But God is not so. God is not unrighteous to change the rules when He has to pay the cost. If He's going to let sinners go to hell because that's what the cost of sin is, then He's sure going to take the punishment upon Himself and bear the weight of every sin so that when He offers you eternal life, it's not a cheap gift that He's offering you. It's not a scapegoat to get out of it that didn't cost anything. It's a gift that He paid for and He has every right to give it to you. He's not lying and cheating to give this to you. He's not getting around the system and manipulating it. No, it's in the rules. It's right. It's proper what he did. He is a kinsman redeemer who came and became as one of us so that he could take on that human flesh and be of our kin. That's why he didn't just make a body and jump into it. He was born of a virgin so that he would actually be part of the Adamic race and he could go and die for our sins so that he have the legal right to do that. He was born of a virgin. so that he'd have the ability to die. He was born into human flesh, because you can't crucify God unless he puts on human flesh. Because he was willing to pay the ultimate cost, he let the Father pour the weight of the sin on him as everything we've ever done wrong was poured out on him and he was judged as he that knew no sin became sin for us. You understand, that's what he was willing to do. You want the testimony that God does all things right? That's the testimony. Where is the righteousness of God revealed? How do you see it? that He wasn't willing to break the rules to get out of the cross. He said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But it wasn't possible. So He said, if this is what it costs, I have to bear the weight of all the sins of the world, I'll go to the cross. It's not a problem. I'll do what I was told. Everything that was set before me for the joy that is set before me, I will endure the cross, despising the shame. That's what He said of it. I'm not going to change the rules just because it hurts me. You want to see the righteousness of God. That's the righteousness of God. And when you begin to see and understand that, it's a little bit hard to pretend like you don't see that anymore. That there's nobody like that. There's never been anybody like that. I'm going to tell you, every religious leader who ever stepped foot upon this earth, when the rules needed to be changed in their favor, they did it. And I'm talking about even men. We would count as good men. You talk about men like Moses that made everybody else circumcise their children, but yet when it came time for his children, my wife doesn't really like circumcision. You know, she's not really a Jew. She doesn't really understand that stuff. So God had to get him so sick he almost died before he finally gave in and said, OK, OK, my kids are not above the law. You understand that's why God got so upset with him about all of that. And that's one of the best leaders you could ever find. And that's the way he's willing to bend the rules and twist them for him. You have a man like David, who when he's looking at what happened with Bathsheba and the stories brought before him, and Nathan says there was a man who took this other man's lamb, it's the most precious thing he had in the world, he raised it like his own child, and he offered it up to somebody else as his friend. When he had a multitude of lambs, he could have given of his own. And David says that man needs to be killed, he needs to be destroyed, there should be no mercy for a man like that. Until Nathan pointed at him and said, David, thou art the man. You see, when the rules had to be equally applied to David, David didn't feel that way anymore. And I'm going to tell you what David did was far less than what Nathan said in that illustration. What David did was far, I'm sorry, not less, far worse than what Nathan said in that illustration. What David did was a far greater sin than a man taking another man's lamb that's precious and dear to him. But when it came time for David to be held to the standard he set and to his words, he fell on his face and begged for mercy because he wasn't ready to have that standard applied to him. And I'm telling you that every one of us are guilty of this. And sometimes it's good because we have to step back and realize we were too hard on things. We had way too high of a standard simply because we had never been in that situation and we didn't realize how hard it is in that situation. And we held people to standards that weren't right. And sometimes it's good for us to sit back and realize that deep down in our heart, we were hypocritical because the moment we get put in that situation, we wouldn't feel that way anymore. because we're not looking at it from somebody else's view. That's good. Sometimes it's bad for us, though, because we get put to the test and we fail, that we're not just. But God, to be just, to be legally correct and justify you, to make you legally correct, took every cost upon Himself, because He wasn't willing to bend the law. He wasn't willing to break it. He wasn't willing to twist it or lie about it. He wasn't going to change it. He was only willing to say, this is what it costs, and I will pay the debt. I'm going to tell you, I have a lot more verses to show you this throughout the Bible, but I'm not going to take your time to go through them today. I'll throw some of them out to you as best as I can. Romans chapter 4 verse 1 through 8. You can look at it. It's the next chapter over. God continues this thought by showing us that when you look at men like Abraham, you look at men like David, that righteousness was given to them not because of anything that they did, but because of Christ's righteousness being applied to them, even that far back. They didn't understand. The Bible says that David understood some stuff as a prophet. We read that this morning. But for the most part, I can't believe that they fully understood what was going to happen with Christ going to the cross. Maybe God told them some stuff He didn't tell us He told them. But with what information we're given, I don't believe that they had it all. In fact, with Abraham, Abraham was told that God was going to do something, and he believed God, and that was counted to him for righteousness. It doesn't say that he believed everything there was to know, that he knew everything about God's plan. It says when God made a promise to Abraham, Abraham said, God, I trust you. And that's what counted for righteousness through Abraham. And you see that this is what it's teaching to us is that God's righteousness was applied to them because they put their faith and trust in Him. And I want you to see that this is, once you get what I'm telling you, that God does everything right and He's willing to save you but it has to be His way, then you can start to appreciate why Abraham couldn't be saved by good works and David couldn't be saved by good works. It's the whole point he's making in Romans chapter 4. He builds it up all the way to Romans chapter 10 verse 3 and 4. I'll read that one to you. Romans chapter 10 verse 3 and verse 4, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. What he said to us in Romans 3 was that all of us have already sinned and come short of the glory of God. He says here the Jews are trying to establish their own righteousness and they're ignoring God's righteousness. And so therefore they are not saved. They need salvation just like you and I do. He told us in Romans 4 that righteousness that God has brought into this world that He's willing to give you the free gift of salvation is available but you need Christ's righteousness because yours is not sufficient. Isaiah says, all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in the eyes of God. That means whatever you tried to cover yourself with to make you right before God, God says it's like the filthy, broken clothing that you would see the beggar wear on the street. That's how well you've covered yourself. The spots are showing, the nakedness is still there, and it's not something that pleases God. That's what He's saying to you. He's saying, you're like Adam and Eve in the garden trying to cover themselves with aprons. And God says, no, you need to cover yourself a little bit better. So He brings that sacrifice of the animal, probably a lamb, and He covers them with clothing of skins. You understand that that's what God is showing us from the beginning till now. And that's why I'm giving you this. I want you to understand something. Everywhere you look in the Bible, Everything's pointing you to the gospel and all of it showing you just how righteous God is. That all the way back in the garden when man sinned, he told them wages of sin is death. And without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. They understood some of that. Like I said, I don't know how much they understood, but they understood some of that. Abel was a prophet and God says he understood some of these things. That's why he offered up his lamb. But all the way back to Adam and Eve, God said, OK, you know, these are the rules. You broke them. I cannot change them for you. I can't undo what you did in the garden. I can't put the fruit back on the tree. I can't take it out of your belly. You shall surely die. But there's going to be a seed that comes from this woman. There's going to be a son who's going to come from her. And this son, he's going to step on the serpent's head and he's going to crush it. And he's going to bring salvation to all of you. You understand that, that I can't undo what you did, but I can take all the right and necessary steps, so that it's going to take time, but one day the Savior is going to come and He's going to die for your sins. And right now you try to cover yourselves and your righteousness, you try to put on the apron of fig leaves, you try to do whatever you can to make yourself feel like you've done good enough, but just understand that's never going to be good enough. You have to be covered in something else. And as a picture of Christ's righteousness, He puts upon them the clothing of skin, something that required the death of that animal. Somebody had to die so that you could be covered with this, as a picture of how one day Christ is going to die on the cross so that you and I can be covered in His righteousness. And that's why Philippians chapter 3 tells us that we must be found in Him, not having our own righteousness by the law, but His righteousness, which is by faith. Today, God's righteousness is very evidently seen to you because of the fact that from the foundation of the world till now, He has demonstrated over and over again, He's not willing to bend the rules for Him. He's always going to do what's right. And if that means going to the cross, that means going to the cross. He cannot change the things you've done wrong, but He can do His part to give you a way to buy you out of this, to fix it, to help you, to heal it, to do whatever He can to make it better. but you have to come to Him and trust Him. You can't keep trying to do it your way. The same is true of salvation, but the same is true of other stuff. I don't know what you've done to your life, I don't know how much you've maybe broken or messed it up, but you're not gonna fix it trying to get ahead your way. At some point, you have to bow down in faith and trust that God does everything right, so I should live it His way. I should trust Him and do it the way that He said. That's how you and I can see God's righteousness in the gospel, and that's how we can take and apply it to our lives, that we know God is right, And we need to stop trying to establish our righteousness, do it our way, all these things, and simply let Christ's righteousness cover us and follow and do things according to His righteousness. Like I said, I have many verses to bring that out to you. I tried to pick just a few I could say it quickly with so we can close. I just want to make sure you understand that Christ's righteousness is best seen in the gospel because it's a proof that He'll never change the rules just for His profit. He's always willing to do what's right, to do what's necessary for you and I so that He could save us from our sins. Father, we thank You and praise You, God, for what You do. We pray that You watch over us, help us to serve You. Thank You, God, for all Your blessings. Pray that You just work in all these things. I pray, God, that You'd be glorified. I pray that You would help us, Lord, to never cease in appreciating Your righteousness, never take it for granted. but God, to see just how incredible it is what you've done for us. We thank you, God, and praise you for all these things, and we ask it in your son Jesus' name. Amen. I'm gonna ask everybody to stand. We're gonna sing page 332, My Jesus, I Love Thee, as they close the live stream. We're gonna sing this as a song of invitation. I'm gonna give you an opportunity. I know it's a long day. I know it's longer than I meant for it to be. I didn't mean for the song service to go on as long as it did, but I do appreciate your patience and all of it. We're gonna sing page, I got the wrong page number for you. I was guessing off the top of my head, that's why. Huh? 322? My Jesus, I love thee, 322 you said? 32.