Living for a Righteous World

here's the promise that Jesus secured for us by running the ultimate race of redemption on the cross. As our substitute in your place, he secured your eternal prize so that our running after the Lord, our hasting isn't driven by anxious striving, but by perfectly guaranteed, fully supplied grace. Just go back and read the first few verses of this letter. He endured the horrifying judgment day, darkness, separation that we deserved so that we wouldn't have to. [00:34:44] (55 seconds)  #SecuredByTheCross

But what if there's a different way? Rather than running on a treadmill, getting exhausted and going nowhere, nowhere of eternal value anyway, anxiously trying to run, anxiously trying to build your own temporary kingdoms. What if you could run a race with joyful, open handed freedom knowing that your ultimate finish line has already been secured. And so you just get to run the race with joy. [00:05:07] (41 seconds)  #RunWithJoy

On the cross, Jesus crossed the finish line of completing the work that God the father ordained for him. And in his glorious resurrection, he turns and hands us the victory, which is why in Romans chapter six, the first 10 verses all declared things to be true. Verse 11 says, so consider yourselves dead to sin and alive in Christ. He purchased that for us so that we could live in that way. Listen. We're no longer running the race on the wrong track for a prize that's plastic, fake, for a prize that's a lie. [00:35:39] (56 seconds)  #AliveInChrist

we talk the language of grace here a lot, and we must and we will and we continue, but grace never alleviates striving for godliness. We are called right here to put in a spiritual sweat, not in order to be accepted, but flowing from the reality that you already are accepted if you've repented of your sins and trusted in Jesus Christ alone to be the savior of your soul. It's his righteousness that purchases our salvation. [00:26:06] (44 seconds)  #GraceAndDiscipline

What if we went before the Lord and we said, Lord, my heart's in the wrong right now. I know I need to be doing these things. And and, honestly, in the grand scheme of things, Lord, I I really do want that to be the posture of my heart and the direction of my life. But I just acknowledge to you, right now, it's not. It's just not. I acknowledge that to you, Lord. Cleanse me. I repent. [00:21:16] (36 seconds)  #HumbleRepentance

More than that, how wonderful it will be to live life in righteousness, to interact with people, to worship our savior with our whole hearts, without the being held back by sin and our own deceitfulness and our own struggles. We'll be free. We get to live for all of eternity. We can't even calculate that. Can't even understand that. It's coming. It's coming. Are you excited about it or you kinda you're dreading it because you kinda like this? [00:33:14] (35 seconds)  #EternalFreedom

When you think about living with right focus on the right relationships and in the right way, do you think have to or get to? When you get when you think about expending your resources that God has given you through your work, godly work, working in godly ways, do you think I get to represent my Lord at work or have to put up with this? Do you get to continually train yourself for godliness, or is it something you have to do for others' expectations? Peter says we get to. That's our focus. [00:17:38] (45 seconds)  #WeGetToServe

But the things that the world values most, wealth and status and earthly power, relationships according to the way that you want them, they all have an expiration date, and they're not gonna survive this ultimate fire, which brings us to the core truth of our passage this morning, which is that God's guaranteed promise of a coming new creation gives us the ultimate finish line, which gives profound eternal purpose to our present hastening or running with fervor. [00:07:23] (38 seconds)  #NewCreationHope