Ken and Deb, thank you for having on this morning. This is a great privilege.

Let me ask you a question: How important is the mission of Jesus…to Jesus? Have you ever considered that?

Yesterday I shared that I know my son and the things that are important to him because I love him and I care about our relationship. If that weren’t the case, technically our relationship would be intact, but it would be distant and lack intimacy. When you are in a close relationship with someone, you know and I care about the things they care about. What matters to them matters to you. Otherwise, it may technically be a relationship, but it’s far from relational.

So, if the mission of Jesus is so important to Jesus, why is it not important to so many people in the church? Now I don’t want to shame people this morning. I want to inspire them instead. And I think the most inspiring thing is fully apprehending how great a salvation we have. When we come fully appreciate what God has done for us and who He has made us in Christ, how can we help but prioritize Jesus’ mission in our lives?

Justification by Faith

I’m preaching through Romans at Wildwood Church and we’re in it about 21 weeks now. We just finished the first major section. In romans 1-3 Paul lays out the argument that none is righteous, no not one! We’re all “under sin,” wicked and hopelessly lost. He did this that “every mouth may be stopped.” (3:19) That no one would open their mouth and claim, “but I’m a pretty good person!”

Thankfully, Paul didn’t just beat us up and leave us on the ground. No, he went straight to grace! In 3:21, “but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law…22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”

So Paul spent nearly 3 chapters laying out how we break God’s Law and are under sin. Concluding in 3:20 that “by works of the Law no human being will be justified in His sight…” Then he asserts that salvation is not something we can work to, it’s something we receive as a gift, by faith.

In 3:24, he says, “We are “justified by His grace as a gift.”

In 3:28, “We are justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

That term justification is the crux of this whole message today. Justification is a legal act in which a truly guilty person is declared by God not guilty. It’s a binding and permanent declaration by the One who sits in authority as Judge. 

And Paul is telling us here that by simply believing the Gospel, you and I are declared righteous by God. This seems too good to be true, after all nothing is free in this world.

And I know some Christians struggle with the need to justify their justification. To validate what God has done. They sense that there’s no way a person like them could just be forgiven and declared righteous simply by faith.

I think about the final scene of “Saving Private Ryan” in which the then aged Private Ryan visits the grave of his rescuer CPT John H. Miller and looks into the eyes of his wife as asks with tears, “Tell me I have led a good life. Tell me I am a good man.” Before she walked up, he said to the cross-shaped headstone of CPT Miller, “I tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that at least in your eyes I earned what you all have done for me.”

“Surely I have to do something to prove I was worthy of that.” That was such a moving scene and it strikes at the core of our sense of justice. Private Ryan, don’t waste your life. Don’t trample on what others laid down their lives to give you. Live in such a way that you earn what they did for you. Prove that you were worthy of their sacrifice.

That may be appropriate when it comes to Private Ryan and situations like his. But when it comes to Jesus, there is no earning what He did for us. We just receive it as a gift of God’s grace. I think this is the source of a lot of legalism and moralism in the church today and it does the opposite of what Jesus does on mission.

Prioritizing Jesus’ Mission

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. But many Christians in their own insecurity live as if they have to prove they’re good enough or worthy enough to justify their salvation. Even worse is they then expect other people to do the same. A friend of mine characterized it as embellishing the rode of Christ’s righteousness. What an affront to Christ to imagine we can add to His imputed righteousness with our good works. 

The mission of Jesus is to seek and to save the lost. According to Romans 1-3, you were once utterly and hopelessly lost and Jesus found you. And He declared you righteous the moment you believed. And that’s it…as far as your right standing with God goes, that’s it. There is no more to the story.

Will God graciously discipline you and shape you into the image of His Son for the rest of your life? Yes, because He loves you. But sanctification – the process of being made righteous indeed – comes after we have been declared righteous in identity.

God Made You Worthy

There is nothing you can ever say or do or think that will cause you, if you have genuinely come to faith in Christ, to be separated from God’s love. There is nothing that will cause Him to reverse the declaration of righteousness for you.

Romans 8:38-39 proves it. “ http://gregorydowling.com/chosen.php?upload 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,  http://taltybaptistchurch.org/be-a-loving-father-2/ 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The bottom line is this: just as you have nothing to boast about in your salvation because it was not in any way based on your righteousness, in the same way, you have no reason to fear losing it. And you don’t have to prove you were worthy of it. God made you worthy. God made you righteous when He declared you to be so. 

When God sees you, Ken and Deb, and me, and the people listening this morning, those who have faith in Jesus, who have called on Him for the forgiveness of their sins, God sees them draped in the untarnished, unembellished robe of Jesus’ righteousness.

Check out part two of this message “Life on Mission” here.