WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.740 This is the way I default into thinking. 00:00:06.799 --> 00:00:11.960 And so Paul's reminding the Corinthians and us what his singular purpose is. 00:00:12.019 --> 00:00:14.179 He says, I'm an ambassador of Christ. 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:19.480 And my sole aim, my sole purpose is to implore you and convince you, 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:22.699 by whatever means necessary, be reconciled to God. 00:00:23.879 --> 00:00:25.780 And then he says this, for your sake, 00:00:25.780 --> 00:00:30.980 he, God, made him, Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin, 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:36.120 so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:00:36.160 --> 00:00:37.480 Now that's a huge phrase. 00:00:37.579 --> 00:00:40.740 We don't have time this morning to unpack all of that. 00:00:45.020 --> 00:00:50.500 But when Paul says that Jesus became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God, 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:56.759 he's saying the entire reason Jesus came, the entire project of redemption, 00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:01.120 the entire reason that an innocent man was willing to become sin, 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:05.120 is so that we would become righteous. 00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:14.540 And what we need to understand is this means not only a transactional righteousness, 00:01:14.880 --> 00:01:18.680 where Jesus pays the debt and God says, 00:01:18.800 --> 00:01:22.600 well, now that the debt is paid, I'm going to from now on consider you righteous. 00:01:23.100 --> 00:01:25.700 Regardless of what you do, you're going to be righteous to me. 00:01:26.180 --> 00:01:27.120 Yes, that's true. 00:01:27.560 --> 00:01:28.260 That is true. 00:01:28.260 --> 00:01:33.780 But it's more than that, because God has initiated in Jesus 00:01:33.780 --> 00:01:37.600 a project of restoration and renewal of the heavens and the earth, 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:39.359 a project of which we're a part. 00:01:39.640 --> 00:01:41.859 And that grace that is gained through Jesus, 00:01:42.080 --> 00:01:45.600 that is what gains us entry into that redemption project, 00:01:45.820 --> 00:01:47.060 that renewal project. 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:49.160 That's what includes us in that. 00:01:49.820 --> 00:01:51.420 But it includes us. 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:55.160 And what that means is that not only does God, through Jesus, 00:01:55.160 --> 00:01:56.400 declare us righteous, 00:01:56.400 --> 00:02:02.680 but then He begins to work in our lives to form and to shape and to transform us 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:07.560 so that we become more and more and more righteous in our lives 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:14.860 in ways that reflect the righteousness that has been declared over us. 00:02:18.740 --> 00:02:20.040 That's a lot of theology. 00:02:21.259 --> 00:02:22.460 We'll state it simply. 00:02:22.460 --> 00:02:28.700 God's singular primary purpose in your life 00:02:28.700 --> 00:02:32.120 is to make you holy and righteous. 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:41.939 He is unceasingly, tirelessly, continually working to forge you 00:02:41.939 --> 00:02:46.580 into the righteous men and women that He desires you to be, 00:02:46.580 --> 00:02:50.520 that He sees you to be in Jesus. 00:02:53.740 --> 00:02:56.980 That is His singular goal in your life, 00:02:57.220 --> 00:02:58.920 is to make you holy and righteous. 00:03:02.640 --> 00:03:05.320 Holiness, not safety, is the end of our calling. 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:07.780 You know, as I've been thinking about that phrase, 00:03:07.860 --> 00:03:09.680 you could swap any number of words out, 00:03:09.860 --> 00:03:11.180 and it would still be true. 00:03:11.180 --> 00:03:13.460 You know, holiness, not happiness, 00:03:13.540 --> 00:03:15.900 holiness, not happiness, is the end of our calling. 00:03:17.260 --> 00:03:19.140 Holiness, not comfort, 00:03:19.780 --> 00:03:21.460 is the end of our calling. 00:03:22.819 --> 00:03:26.640 Holiness, not companionship, is the end of our calling. 00:03:27.980 --> 00:03:31.800 Holiness, not successfulness, is the end of our calling. 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:35.140 Holiness, not affirmation, is the end of our calling. 00:03:35.139 --> 00:03:44.119 You should spend a little while, as I have done, thinking about what words you might substitute in. 00:03:45.699 --> 00:03:58.599 Chances are, whatever word you put in that blank, that has probably taken such hold in your life that it is actually hindering your progress toward righteousness. 00:03:58.779 --> 00:04:01.299 It's become what we call in the Christian church a kind of idol. 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:09.839 There's so much that we can't know about God's purposes in our lives. 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:16.599 But the one thing that we do know is that he is relentlessly and unceasingly working to make us holy and righteous. 00:04:17.399 --> 00:04:21.459 So God uses everything in our lives toward that end. 00:04:22.659 --> 00:04:24.060 So look at Paul's life. 00:04:24.139 --> 00:04:27.839 He says in verse 4, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. 00:04:28.339 --> 00:04:29.639 And then listen to what he's endured. 00:04:29.639 --> 00:04:37.219 By great endurance and afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, purity, understanding. 00:04:37.919 --> 00:04:44.139 But then he goes on and he says, in truthful speech and in the power of God, with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and the left. 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:45.219 Through glory. 00:04:46.180 --> 00:04:46.979 Through good report. 00:04:47.819 --> 00:04:48.219 Genuine. 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:50.959 Living on. 00:04:50.959 --> 00:05:02.359 So if you look at this list, you see that all of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unmentionable, Paul sees as being a part of God's old folding purpose in his life. 00:05:03.959 --> 00:05:06.319 And here's the hard truth for us today. 00:05:06.479 --> 00:05:13.699 That for most of us, it is the hard stuff that is actually doing the most in us. 00:05:13.699 --> 00:05:15.899 It's the suffering. 00:05:16.420 --> 00:05:17.740 It's the struggling. 00:05:18.139 --> 00:05:19.479 It's the grief. 00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:25.500 That is what is forging in us the righteousness of God. 00:05:28.599 --> 00:05:30.279 That's what's doing the work. 00:05:32.279 --> 00:05:33.959 One of the implications is this. 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:36.439 There is no such thing as unanswered prayer. 00:05:38.079 --> 00:05:40.779 You know, people say, well, I've been praying and God just hasn't answered my prayer. 00:05:41.139 --> 00:05:41.919 That's not true. 00:05:42.520 --> 00:05:43.840 God always answers prayer. 00:05:46.020 --> 00:05:53.460 You know, our kids recently have wanted to jump out a second story window with a bed sheet to use as a parachute. 00:05:54.480 --> 00:06:00.259 And they want to climb out that window and they want to grab an umbrella or a bed sheet and they want to dive off the roof. 00:06:01.860 --> 00:06:03.680 Laura and I talked about it, considered it. 00:06:05.400 --> 00:06:09.580 And despite the convincing case that they made, we said no. 00:06:09.579 --> 00:06:13.620 And it's because we love them and we would love them to live a little longer. 00:06:13.620 --> 00:06:24.819 God looks at us and he looks at the prayers that we pray and many, many, many, many times, if you're anything like me, God loves us so much that he says no. 00:06:24.819 --> 00:06:38.199 Likewise, have you ever considered that the good stuff in your life, the stuff that Christians very, very quickly say, what a blessing. 00:06:38.939 --> 00:06:43.079 Have you ever considered that that might be the form that spiritual attack takes in your life? 00:06:43.079 --> 00:06:50.939 That those might not be the evidence of God's blessing, but rather a spiritual attack. 00:06:50.939 --> 00:07:00.639 Because if you're anything like me, when I look at the things that I very quickly call blessings in my life, a lot of them have the primary effect of making me less dependent on God. 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:08.079 So I'm not sure that God would bless me in that way if he really loved me and believed that I needed him. 00:07:08.079 --> 00:07:18.759 So it makes us reevaluate what do we consider blessing and what do we consider a lack of blessing. 00:07:18.759 --> 00:07:34.659 So as we enter this season of Lent together, I suppose I'm encouraging us to look at our own lives, to examine our hearts, to see how and where God might be at work, realizing that it's probably not in the ways that we expect. 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:42.699 Recognizing that in all things he's forging in us the righteousness and holiness that he has pronounced over us in Jesus Christ. 00:07:42.699 --> 00:07:55.060 So if you are fasting this Lent, I encourage you to fast from the good things that may actually be drawing you away from God. 00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:05.699 And even more challenging, and I know it's easier said than done, to consider embracing those places of great struggle and great hardship. 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:10.139 Understanding that those may indeed be the blessings. 00:08:10.139 --> 00:08:19.479 Because they're changing you and forging you into the very image of Jesus Christ. 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:26.099 And in all things may we remember that holiness, not safety, is the end of our calling.