Redemption – Part 9 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Redemption Part 9 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace For Today you’ll learn about how the revelation of righteousness is the revelation of the Gospel.

Redemption Part 9 Transcription

Welcome, friends, to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you tuned in. We’re gonna be talking about a couple of things. We’re gonna be talking about the revelation of righteousness, which is the revelation of the gospel. And I’m gonna be talking about amazing aspects of the righteousness of God that you’ve probably never even heard of, in the first part of the broadcast. And in the last half of the broadcast, we’re gonna be talking about this. We’re gonna be talking about how I received a revelation of grace, and that revelation will revolutionize your life. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. We’re sharing on redemption, and we said, redemption is the result of the gospel, and righteousness is the condition of the gospel. And really, when you begin to understand it, redemption made righteousness a reality. And so, we’re gonna share a little bit about righteousness. And you know, in Romans chapter one, two, and three, Paul really lays out man’s need for righteousness. That the gospel is the revelation of righteousness. He says that Gentiles or unbelievers. The, you know, unbelieving world, the world, really, the unchurched world really needs righteousness. And the reason they need righteousness, they’re caught up in philosophy, idolatry, lust, all kinds of ungodliness. But then, he says in Romans 2, Jewish people, or he’s talking about, you know, church-going people, religious people, they need righteousness too. And they’re caught up in performance. And he says, “Even though they make their boast in the law, or in right ways of living and being, they, through breaking the law, dishonor God.” So, he says, and then he says in Romans 3:10, “There’s none righteous, no, not one.” We all need righteousness. And Jesus made righteousness available to every person when He died and rose again. So, the way that we receive it is by faith in His grace, and that’s what He begins to talk about in Romans 4. We’re gonna look about, and talk about this a little bit of righteousness being the condition. Redemption, praise God, was the result of the gospel, but righteousness is the condition. Redemption made righteousness a reality. So, he says in Romans 4:3, that “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” And that word, Aaron, counted is the Greek word . Now, what does that mean?

Yeah. It’s .

Okay.

And it’s an accounting term, and it’s kind of where we get the term. You know, if you’ve taken advanced mathematics, you know the term, logarithms. It’s kind of a calculus type thing, but it’s an accounting term. So, it’s used several times throughout Romans 4. So whenever you see counted, accounted, credited.

Reckoned, imputed.

Reckoned, imputed, it’s all that same word. It’s that same word, , it’s just kind of translated slightly different.

So, God counted us righteous, right?

Yeah. Because he believed God. And this is really important to understanding verse four. It says, “Now, to him who works.” So this means to him, who thinks he has to perform, or it’s about him and his actions when he comes to God. It says, “The wages.” Again, it’s a wage, it’s something that’s earned. The wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. So, if you think you have to earn, you know, your right standing before God based upon what you do, it’s actually counted against you. It’s counted as debt. So, if you think, you know, in accounting, there are two columns. There’s a debit column and a credit column.

Right.

And you want your credit column to be bigger than your debit column. And if your debit column is bigger, then you’re in the hole, you’re in the red. And you know, so, maybe some of you are watching this right now, you know, if you went out bought gas, you know that that’d go to $50 on the debit column. If you bought Starbucks, that’d be $5 on the debit column. But if you got a paycheck, that’d be on the credit column, you’re given, you know, a couple thousand dollars or something. So, it’s saying here, if you think you have to work to get to God, work to be right before God. If you come before God and say, “God, You owe me something, ’cause look at everything I’ve done,” that’s actually debited, that’s placed on the debit column of righteousness, so it’s counted against you. And the reason for this is, because you’re basically saying that Jesus isn’t enough.

Right.

And when you say that Jesus isn’t enough, you are hardcore on the debit.

That’s exact. That’s legalism.

Yeah.

That’s what Galatians 5 talks about. He says, “If you be justified by the law, you’d be fallen from grace.” And the term fallen from grace, I believe it’s Galatians 4, or Galatians 5:4, actually is not talking about losing your salvation, it’s talking about legalism. And legalism will make you crazy, and you’re gonna miss out on the blessings of God is what he’s talking about.

When he’s talking about falling from grace, you know, there’s a system of grace. And when you start tampering with legalism, it just opens. It’s like opening a can of worms. Well, if Jesus isn’t enough, you know, in this area, then it just spirals out of control.

I mean, he’s, you know, if you have to add circumcision to Jesus, or law keeping to Jesus, or church going, or Bible reading, or prayer, or giving, or, you know, people try to add all kinds of things.

They’re good things to do, but it doesn’t–

Or not doing something. Jesus, plus, not dancing. Jesus, plus, not drinking. Jesus, plus, not playing cards. There’s all kinds of rules. Jesus, plus, not watching television. Now, that seems crazy to most of us in today. I’ve actually, you know, looked at the membership requirements for certain full gospel churches, Pentecostal holiness type churches years ago, that if you went to a movie, you had to tell them if you’re gonna be a member of the church, you wouldn’t go to the movies. Well, that’s just ludicrous, you know? And there’s good and bad, actually heard about this. There was a pastor that had a dishwasher installed after his kitchen was built, but in the dining room, right? And they had this dishwasher that was put in the dining room, it across the wall from the kitchen. And later, you know, they redid the kitchen, so they put the dishwasher back in the kitchen. But they took a TV, right? This is in a legalistic setting, and they hid the TV in this old thing that was for the dishwasher. So people didn’t know that they were watching TV, because people tend to enforce rules on you. “And the kingdom of God,” Romans 14:17, “is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” It’s right standing with God. It’s peace with God, it’s living in joy, but it’s not about a bunch of religious rules. And saying that you need to be circumcised or keep the law, or go to church, or give, or pray, or read your Bible, or, you know, do anything to be saved, or you can’t, you know, dance, or you can’t play cards, God, they just, legalism just goes crazy.

Well, it takes the focus off of Jesus, and puts it on the individual.

And there are some people that are teaching, that are very popular in the body of Christ today, and they use this Scripture. And I’ll go over there and read this Scripture, since we’re talking about it in Galatians 5:4, where Paul says, “If you be circumcised.” He says, what’s he say in Galatians 5:4, “Christ has become of no effect to you. Whoever of you are justified by the law, you are fallen from grace.” So he is plainly not talking about, you know, like committing adultery and cussing or whatever you wanna put in there. He’s talking about legalism. Legalism is deadly. You’re gonna miss out on the blessing of God, if you’re trying to get it by your performance. And that’s exactly what you’re saying, Romans 4 says. You’re gonna miss out on the blessing. He says this, in Galatians 5:2, “If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.” You’re gonna miss out on the blessing of God, if you’re trusting your performance. So, quit trusting your performance and trust Jesus.

I love, you know, throughout Romans, you know, justice is a big theme. And God is just, you know, so someone had to take the penalty for your sin, and Jesus took it all. He took the ultimate penalty.

You know it.

So He became both the just and the justifier. You know, there’s a lot of debate, and a lot of these big social justice movements. And you know, I believe in justice, and I believe that God wants to make things right, but there is no true justice apart from Jesus.

Right, if we go back to Romans 3:25-26. Well, actually, we’ll start in verse 24. We’re talking about redemption. “Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Jesus paid with His blood for our forgiveness and for our redemption, for our justification. In speaking about Jesus, he says, “Whom God has set forth to be the propitiation, through faith in His blood,” or the covering. Jesus covered our sins, he covered our debt. You know, if I had a debt of $10 million dollars and someone had $100 million dollars, and they came and paid $12 million dollars on my account, they not only paid my debt, they overpaid my debt. And that’s what God did with the blood of Jesus, He overpaid our debt. He says, “To declare, God sent Jesus to cover our sins.” He covered the sin, “That through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission.” We see that word again? “Remission of sins that are passed. The absolute forgiveness of our sins, as if they were never committed, through the forbearance of God.” In other words, forbearance means that God knew we would do it and forgave us anyway. Now, look at verse 26 and 27. This is where you were, Aaron. “To declare, God sent Jesus to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.” So, the only way God could play fair and not play favorites, is God based everything on Jesus. And therefore, God was just. So, Jesus is the only one who satisfied the righteous requirement of the holiness of God. So to be just, and the justifier of him who believes it. When you believe on Jesus, right, He became a sin offering for you. You were given the righteousness of God as a gift in Him. So, Jesus took your sin at the cross and paid for it, and you were given His righteousness again, so that he might be just, and the justifier of him. So he says, “Who can boast? Who can boast?”

Well, then.

No one.

Yeah, and whatever–

No one can boast.

Actions you’ve done, like, it’s good to do good things, but you can’t boast about them.

Right. So, if I receive anything good from God, it’s because I’m in Christ, right? And I’m covered by His blood. Think of the blood of Jesus is being like a red tent, and you’re in it, you get the blessing, because you’re under the blood. But if Christ, if I’m doing anything good, right? Put a green cross in you, it’s because Jesus is living His life through you.

And when a debt has been paid in full, it’s foolish to continue making payments.

Right!

To think you have to make payments.

Glory to God, I’m excited. I’m believing God to pay off some debt this year. You gave a good word.

Yeah.

At the first of the year, and I’m believing God to pay off some debt this year. And in the next year, I’m believing God to pay off more debt.

Yeah, God helped me supernaturally pay off, you know, student loans. You know, when I finished my master’s degree, I had about $30,000 in student loans from my undergrad at Carnegie Mellon that I had to pay off. And I believed God, and he helped me big time pay it off within one year. But, you know, when I saw that notice, paid in full, I don’t send payments there anymore. I don’t send payments.

Glory to God.

You know, it. And some people have that mentality, even though like, their debt has been paid in full, they still feel like they’re indebted, and are still trying to make payments. They’re still trying to.

But we have been redeemed.

Yeah.

We have been purchased, we have been free, we’ve been liberated, and we’re no longer under that debt system. We’re under a grace system, and we receive what Jesus deserved. What did we deserve?

We deserved death. The penalty for sin is death.

Right. We deserve death and hell, right? But what did we get?

We got life in heaven.

Yeah, and righteousness.

Yeah.

And we got that, because Jesus paid the price.

Amen.

So we’re gonna take a short break. We’re gonna be back right after this. You don’t want to miss what we’re sharing about. We’re gonna talk about some amazing revelation in Romans 4, as we go forward. So stay tuned. We love you. God bless you. We’ll be right back. Friends, I’m so glad you’ve been watching. Today, we’ve been teaching on the subject of redemption and who we are in Christ. This is some of my best teaching. In fact, I got a revelation of this over 40 years ago in Andrew Womack’s meetings when I was just a child, and it revolutionized my life. And I believe if you get a revelation of who you are in Christ and what happened in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, it will literally transform your life. And so, we have a lot of great teaching on redemption, what Jesus did for us in His death, burial, and resurrection, and who we are in Christ. I encourage you to get this teaching. I believe, just like it transformed my life, it will transform your life. So, get on the internet, give us a call. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you so much, and God bless you richly, as you lie His Word, first place. Now, we are right here in Romans 4, and we’ve been talking about this, but we’re gonna move into verse five. And we talked about how God counted Abraham’s faith to him for righteousness. So He imputed righteousness to him. He put righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus in Him, because he believed. But we go on, and he says this in verse five, “But to him who works not, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly God.” God only justifies one kind of people, ungodly people. I can say I qualify and so do you, because we’re all ungodly without Jesus. And he says this, “His faith is counted, or his faith is imputed to him for righteousness.” So when you believe, you receive righteousness, not by what you did, but because you believe. When are you righteous?

When you believed.

The moment that you believed. The moment you believe on Jesus, you were made righteous. “Even,” now, look at this, “as David,” in verse six, “describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness.” He puts righteousness, accounts him righteous, without works. So God imputed, He put the righteousness of Jesus on our account, before we ever did anything right. Just, we believed right, right, we believed Jesus. So, the way you receive righteousness is you hear about Jesus, right? That He never sinned, that He lived a sinless, holy, perfect, pure life, died on the cross for your sins, and then God raised Him from the dead, and you believe on Jesus and God imputes the righteousness of Jesus to you. Praise God. So he, look at the. “He imputes the righteousness of Jesus to us, apart from our works.” Apart from our works. So, it’s not about what we did, it’s about who we believed. He says, saying, “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven,” and he’s quoting Psalm 32, “and whose sins are covered.” Our iniquities, our rebellion has been forgiven, our sins been covered, already paid for, praise God. So if you had a terrible debt you were struggling with, God came and paid for it, overpaid says, “It’s taken care of,” amen. He says, “But not only did he stop there,” so he says in verse six, that “He imputed the righteousness of Jesus to us without works, saying that we’re blessed, because our sins are forgiven,” right? “Our sins are covered, our rebellions forgiven.” But then he says in verse eight, and this is that wow verse, this is that, I mean. “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” So, God’s not imputing sin. Hallelujah! You know, one person says this, “God’s not mad at you. He’s not even upset.” Wow! He’s not imputing sin to you. He’s not keeping a record. He’s not totaling it up. You know, Aaron, when I grew up in Sunday school, my Sunday school teacher said, “God’s in heaven with this big video camera, and He’s gonna play your life back to you in slow motion.” And I wasn’t really an ornery child, you know, they’re trying to scare the hell out me. But that is completely against the gospel. That is religion, and that does not help people get free. I just think about it, it’s just crazy. And I just thought, that’s interesting. But praise God, I’ve been forgiven. Not only have I been forgiven, He has imputed the righteousness of Jesus to me. And it says, “And He’s not imputing sin to me.” So He’s not even keeping track.

A lot of people don’t understand that. You know, I saw a video of a street evangelist, just, someone came up and was kind of debating, talking to the street evangelist. And this person asked the evangelist, you know, “What’s the qualification for going to heaven?” And he said, “Absolute perfection.”

Oh, Jesus.

No, but she asked, “Well, are there gonna be people in heaven?” And he said, “Yes.”

Okay.

And she asked, “Well, are they perfect?” And he said, “No.”

Oh, I see.

Yeah. He said, “You’re made perfect through believing on Jesus.”

You’re complete in Him who is the head of all principality and authority.

Yeah.

Colossians 2:9-10 talks about that. So, yeah, I see where you’re going. But absolute perfection. That’s a great answer really, because it makes people think, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

Well, most people think, most people, I’ve even heard a statistic, that even 50% of Evangelical Christians believe you just get to heaven through good works. Like, you can get to heaven apart from believing on Jesus.

And that’s totally against the Scripture.

Yeah.

The Bible says, “By the mercy of God, He saved us and washed us with the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.

You’re not good enough.

No.

Only Jesus is good. Only Jesus is absolutely.

It says, “For by grace you’ve been saved through faith in that not of yourselves, it’s a gift of God. Not by works, lest any man should boast.” Nobody can boast. That’s what we read here in Romans 3:27. Nobody can boast, in the first part of the broadcast. Nobody can boast. Nobody can say, “I’m better than you are.” I’m better than anybody, because the only one’s good enough is Jesus.

With righteousness, you’re either 100% righteous or you’re not.

Yeah, your spirit.

Absolute perfection or not, there is no.

I’m talking about, you’re talking about the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

You’re either saved or you’re not.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of people think you can be 70% good, 30% bad. It’s kinda yin yang. There’s a little white in the black and a little black in the white.

50%, 50%, 30% good, 70% evil, 90% good, 10% evil, 99% good, 1% evil. Listen, 1% of sin won’t make it into heaven. It’s not about our righteousness. It’s not about our. Our spirit is either 100% lost or 100% saved. We’re either 100% a child of God, or we’re 100% lost.

It’s like drinking water. You know, if you drink some water, you want it to be 100% purified water. You don’t want–

And you don’t want any strict nine in there whatsoever, it’ll kill you.

Yeah. 1% of.

1% of strict nine in that glass of water right there, ‘ll kill you deader than the hammer.

So, it’s either, it’s either drinkable or it’s not. You’re either saved or you’re not. You’re either righteous or you’re not.

Amen. And how’d you get righteous?

By believing on Jesus.

By believing Jesus. You heard the gospel and believed it. And that’s what Paul’s talking about. And so, he says, “When you believed on Jesus, God’s righteousness was imputed to you.” And not only that, now, He’s not imputing sin to you. Your spirit is 100% righteous, clean, justified, sanctified. Amen. You have been redeemed. How does this blessedness come? Does it come because you were circumcised? Does it come because you believed, you know, or you kept the law? No, it came because you believed. And so, he says, “Abraham received a sign of circumcision.” It showed that he had faith, but it was not. It’s like today, we’re baptized because we are saved, but baptism doesn’t save us, not the act of baptism. Not unless you believe and confess Christ while you’re under the water.

I love Abraham as an example of faith. You know, because he did do good works, but he also did some bad things too.

Stupid.

But he, the blessing came to him, because of his faith in God, his faith in God’s promise, his faith in the person.

Yeah. Let’s read this. This talks about this in Romans 4:13. It says, “For the promise that he would be heir of the world was not to Abraham or his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” It wasn’t to the natural seed, it wasn’t to the Jewish people through the law. It was through the righteousness of faith. “For if they be law,” this is verse 14, “or heirs, faith is owed and the promise is ineffective.” It’s not because of our performance. So many people think that we receive because of our performance, but it’s because of His grace, because the law works wrath. The problem with law keeping, is everybody breaks it. And you know what? If you break the law in one point, James 2:10 says, “You’re guilty of it all, for where no law is, there’s no transgression.” This is how I got a revelation of righteousness and a revelation of the gospel, a revelation of grace. Andrew Womack was preaching, and he said, and this was in 1994, I’d been pastoring six years. I’d been born again, at that point in time, for 22 years. I’d been baptized in the Holy Spirit for 16 years. I’d been pastoring for six years. But he made a statement. He said, “It doesn’t matter how much you break God’s law. It’s like a plate glass window. It doesn’t matter whether you shot a BB through it or you drove a Mack truck through it, it’s broken. And the only way you can make it perfect, how can you get to heaven? You gotta be perfect.” Well, everybody knows nobody’s perfect, right? Only Jesus was perfect. Well, that’s right. He said, “To make that thing perfect, you’ve gotta replace it.” And that’s what the gospel is really talking about. He says, “Because where the law is, it works wrath, and the law will judge you.” The law will show you your sin. The law will show you your shortcoming. The law will show you your failure. Before I got a revelation of grace, I was a very legalistic person, but thank God I got a hold of grace. I mean, I really got a revelation of it, and it transformed my life. He says, “But where no law is, there’s no transgression.” You cannot break the speed limit on the Audubon, because there is no speed limit. Praise God. But then he goes on to say this. “Therefore,” he’s still talking about the promise in verse 16, “it, the promises of faith, that it might be by grace.” Man, grace provided it all, but it takes faith to receive it. It takes faith to open the door. It takes faith to unlock it. You gotta believe it. We just read something by Jesse Duplantis yesterday, and he said, “Man, faith isn’t just for a little momentary thing, faith is a lifestyle.” You just continue to live by faith. Praise God. Never quit believing. Hallelujah! This is a great article. It says, “It, the promise is of faith, that it might be grace to the end, that it would be sure or secure to all that see, not only to those who are of the law, but those that are the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”

Awesome.

Praise God. If you’ll read the end of Galatians 3, we’re the seed of Abraham. And we’ve talked about in redemption, we’re redeemed from all the curses. All the promises are ours, all the blessings are ours, and it’s because of Jesus. It’s because of Jesus. Jesus did it all. And we believe Jesus. And when we believe Jesus, everything is ours. We’re not trying to get it, it’s already ours. So many people are trying to get what they’ve already been given. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for its written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Man, the blessing is that the Spirit of Christ lives on the inside of us. We’re already blessed. We’re not trying to get blessed.

That’s crazy to try to chase after something that you already have.

Yeah.

I have a dog named Willie. He’s trying to chase his tail all the time.

You never get it, do you?

Nope. It’s a little foolish to chase after what you already got.

Praise God. So it was given to you. You have the Spirit of Christ in you. If you need prayer and need somebody to agree with you for forgiveness, healing, peace, protection, provision, whatever it is, give us a call today. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you, and God bless you.

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