June 7th - "The Breastplate of Righteousness" - Ephesians 6:10-14

You can't lose what you did not earn. Jesus gave it to you. And Jesus said, no one can pluck you from my hand. And so maybe you're here this morning and you're going, that's too good to believe. Isn't there something I have to do? There's nothing you can do. You've gotta get rid of the pride that says I've gotta bring something to the table. And you've gotta sit in the reality that your righteousness apart from Jesus is filthy rags and that Jesus has to do all of the work. Amen. There's a righteousness that's required. It's the holy righteousness of God. [00:46:14] (41 seconds)  #RighteousnessByGrace

Jesus stands up and he rebukes the accuser even when the accuser is speaking truth. He says, no. No. No. No. No. This one's been plucked by the from the fire by me. This one belongs to me. There's now no longer condemnation in this one's life. And listen, this is where the enemy doesn't want you to believe. The enemy wants to show up in your life, and he wants to accuse you, and accuse you, and accuse you to the point where you finally stop believing the truth that there's no condemnation. [00:37:35] (30 seconds)  #NoCondemnation

When we nurse bitterness, we give the enemy a handle. When we hide sexual sin, we give the enemy a handle. When we keep lying to everybody around us to protect our image, we're giving the enemy a handle. When we refuse to forgive those who have hurt us, we give the enemy a handle. The list goes on and on. Satan knows that he cannot take away your justification. He can't take away your positional righteousness. But what he wants to do is to keep you from living righteously. We're at war, And the easiest way for the enemy to exploit us in battle is through the very gaps that exist between our positional and practical righteousness. [00:55:03] (53 seconds)  #CloseTheGaps

The enemy wants to come in your life and go look at the sin yesterday. Look at the sin the day before. Look at all of your track record. You are not righteous in Christ. What God has said, what God has done, none of that matters. All that matters is your filthy rags. The enemy wants to keep you in that cycle so that you'll just continue to act out of that identity that no longer belongs to you. If you're in Christ, you are a new creation. There's a righteousness that's required, and there is a righteousness that is received in and through Christ. [00:44:51] (44 seconds)  #NewCreationInChrist

How many of you have ever felt that accusation before? How many of you have felt the enemy accuse you and often for the very things that you've done? You you know you've done them. It's not as if he's showing up and telling a lie about the reality of your sin. You know you've sinned. He's accusing you for it. And so, here's the reality of the spiritual warfare in which we find ourselves right now. The enemy wants you to have gospel amnesia. He wants you to forget who you really He wants you to forget that if you're in Christ today, you have been declared righteous. [00:24:19] (46 seconds)  #RememberYourRighteousness

I've told the church in Chelsea last night as well as our our first gathering this morning, that if you don't know how to share the gospel, just invite people to change their clothes. And then tell them that they can't change them. They're gonna go, what? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah. You need new clothes. And God can remove those filthy clothes and put on you brand new ones. You see, those of us who have experienced the grace of God in transforming our lives ought to be those who invite others to experience the same grace. The gospel is such good news that we get to go out and tell everybody how they can stand before a holy God with confident assurance because they can be clothed in the very righteousness of Jesus. [00:58:29] (51 seconds)  #ClothedInChrist

And so just as you stood before god recognizing that you were clothed in filthy rags and needed his righteousness, we need to take every gap in our lives to god. We need to say, lord, I can't, but you can. And, lord, I don't believe for a minute that you expect that I can. lord, I don't believe for a minute that you ever have thought that I could do this on my own. And Jesus stands ready to close the gaps in our lives. Listen. The gaps in our lives is where the enemy loves to bring about destruction. There's no gap in your life as it relates to the positional righteousness you've received. That's done. [00:54:06] (47 seconds)  #JesusClosesGaps

And here's what we tend to do. The enemy who wants to show up and lie, here's what he wants to do. He wants to show up where the gap is in your life. Not only does he want to enlarge it, he wants you to try and work on it all by yourself. I'm just gonna bootstrap my way in to closing the gaps in my life. I know that's what God wants for me, and so I'm just gonna try harder. That means I'm gonna I'm just gonna go ahead and in my own strength, do everything I can in order to close the gap. But friend, here's the reality. You did nothing to bring about your salvation. [00:52:59] (31 seconds)  #NotByWorks