Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Breastplate of Righteousness (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

If you’re on your back and you’re a Christian, it’s because there are resources in your faith that you’re not using. Paul exhorts Christians to take the benefits and resources in the gospel, and to not just believe in them but to use them—so that in day-to-day challenges you’re able to stand. Each piece of the armor of God is one of those benefits, and we’re looking now at the breastplate of righteousness. In this series, we’ve talked about what this righteousness is not. Let’s continue our inquiry now and ask two questions: 1) what is this righteousness? and 2) how do you put it on as a breastplate?  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 9, 1992. Series: Spiritual Warfare – The Armor of God. Scripture: Ephesians 6:10-20. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Each year we make a special free resource available during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel in Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelinlife.com slash Lent. Now, here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching. I want to do one more week on the breastplate of righteousness. We're looking at the armor of God. Let me read you the same passage we've been looking at,

Ephesians 6, 10 to 18. This is about Paul's exhortation to Christians to take the various benefits, the various resources you have in the gospel, and not just believe in them, but use them. That's what he means by putting on the armor. So that in your day-to-day battles and day-to-day challenges, you're able to stand.

And if you're on your back, and you are a Christian, it's because there's resources in your faith that you're not using. And each piece of the armor is one of those benefits. Now let's look at them, and tonight we're just going to look one more time at what he means by the breastplate of righteousness. Finally, verse 10 of chapter 6 of Ephesians, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers and authorities and powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and having after having done everything, to stand. Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all of the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Tonight, put on the breastplate of righteousness. Now, last week we spent most of our time talking about that this righteousness that we're supposed to put on is not our own. But tonight, we talked more in the negative sense. Tonight I'd like to talk positively, and I'd like to address two questions.

The one is, what is this righteousness? And secondly, then how do you put it on as a breastplate? What is it? What does the Bible mean? What's really helpful about this, if any of you came to an earlier service, you'll know that we preached today on John 16, where it says that the Holy Spirit convicts us of righteousness. So I've actually touched on the subject, and if you came to an earlier service, you'll now have a chance to hear an elaboration. What's righteousness? Now, in the Bible, the word righteousness means something very different than what it means now. In fact, in despair, I realized that the word righteousness today, in English, you see it used in a magazine or a newspaper article or hear it somewhere.

The word righteousness is almost always used negatively. Someone who is righteous is almost always condescending or rigid. Isn't that right? Has the word righteous ever used positively? Ever? Almost never. So we have to completely abandon, you might say, the modern usage of the word if you're going to understand the etymology of the word in the Bible. And there are actually a few Hebrew and Greek words that are translated righteousness. One of them means to be straight as opposed to crooked. And it literally means to pass inspection, to be up to specs,

to be approved, to pass muster, to be up to standards. All right? The other word, another word that's translated righteous, usually means to be right with, and it actually has a relational side that the English word almost never has.

To be righteous means to be right with somebody. Therefore, if you stick it together, the best way, though I know the word righteousness, like any word in the Bible, can have different nuances to it, and in certain contexts it really might have more of a force in one direction, certain contexts another direction. But in general, here's what I think it means to be righteous. Righteousness means, and I touched on it earlier today, it means to be presentable. You see, to be righteous means that I have passed inspection in the eyes of a significant other.

You see, to be righteous means that I have passed inspection in the eyes of a significant other. I have been found pleasing to someone that I want to please. That's what righteous means. You see, it has none of that connotation of being self-righteous or being proud or cocky or condescending or holier than thou. The word righteous means to be right with. It means to be reconciled to somebody. It means to be well-pleasing in someone's sight. It means to be presentable.

Now let's think about this. This is extremely important to you. It's extremely important to everybody. Suddenly, if you understand this, you realize that righteousness is not an abstract thing, but it's something that is a struggle for every one of us every day. If it's true that righteousness is being up to specs, passing muster, being up to standards in order to please somebody that we want to please,

you'll see that actually every one of us finds our lives really driven by this. Now think what it means for men to be presentable. Every one of us needs to be presentable to somebody. Every one of us is concerned not to be ashamed. To be ashamed means not presentable. So for a minute, let's try to work this out. Imagine that you've been asked, one way or another, you're going out on a date with somebody that you really, really like. What is your concern? Your concern is to be presentable.

And let's admit what that means. It means you need to do everything you possibly can to cover your flaws. Now, we're talking about every part of you. So, for example, what if you're the kind of person that you know you talk too much? So your concern as you prepare for this date is to get yourself ready and prepare yourself to try to not talk so much and to draw the other person out and not look like you talk as much as you really do.

What if, on the other hand, you don't talk enough? What if people are always kind of feeling very, very uncomfortable around you because all you ever do is seem to have a know, just have a kind of deadpan face and nobody knows what you're thinking and you just don't know what to say. And you always, you know, what if you don't talk enough? Well, what you do is you're going to try to cover that flaw. You're going to do everything you possibly can.

You're going to rehearse things to say. You're going to write them down. You're going to have crib sheets, you know. And you're going to have them around so that you know what to say. You're going to try to cover your flaws physically. Because unless you really are perfect, which means you're making, you know, physically, which means you're making a lot of money.

And there's not that many of us around who can do that. You're not perfect physically, so you're going to actually wear either, you're going to wear clothing or in some cases makeup and so forth, to cover the flaws. either you're going to wear clothing or in some cases makeup and so forth to cover the flaws. See what it means to be presentable is I've got to be covered. My nakedness has got to be covered. Now nakedness doesn't just mean the physical at all. It means there's parts of my body that don't look good but if I wear a particular kind of article around or over it, it can kind of minimize it. There's parts of my

personality that I know are very flawed, and I've got to do something to cover it over. So I'm presentable. So I'm well-pleasing in the eyes of this person. This is righteousness. This is a struggle for righteousness. I want to be right with that person. I want to be accepted. I want to be approved. Extremely important. And therefore, what we're really saying is that though I use that as an illustration, and it's a funny illustration, the feeling of not being presentable, to know that after the date the person wasn't particularly impressed with you, is a feeling of tremendous shame. I'm not presentable. I'm not acceptable. One of the great nightmares that many of us have, one of the bad dreams we have, is being invited to some kind of setting, some kind of party, some kind of social event, and we're completely inappropriately dressed. We're not presentable, and it's awful. Another example of feeling not

presentable is to show up at a class that you think is going to be a lecture that day and find out it's a test, and you are not prepared, and the flaws in your natural understanding of the subject have not been artificially covered by an all-night set of studies, which, as you all know, does not change your character or really change what you learn. It just makes you able to take a test the next day. We all know what all-nighters do. I used to do it all the time, constantly. So I got too old for it. You stay in graduate school long enough, you finally can't do it anymore because you think, gosh, I'm 50 years old and i'm still in grad school but uh you see in a sense what you what are you doing you want to be presentable but you're covering over your flaws now this those are all

cute and they're funny examples but i'm telling you that the struggle to be presentable in the eyes of the significant people or the significant persons, the people that you need to please, is something that really is at the center of all of our souls. There's an infinite variety of eyes that we're trying to please. And there's an infinite variety of specs and standards that we're trying to live up to. But I'm telling you, you're a human being

and that means you are struggling like crazy to be up to specs of some sort to be well-pleased in the eyes of somebody. Now, who are the eyes? It could be anybody. I mean, you know, for example, some of us just cannot get away from the eyes of our parents. We've, you know, been in counseling about the whole thing, and there they are. It's the eyes of our parents. We know what they expect. We know what they want of us. And we haven't been able to give it.

Or maybe we have. But in that case, we've been run by those, you see. We've given them what they want, but that's because we had to. Some of us, it's the other way around. Some of us, our children. What our parents think

doesn't seem to matter, but what our children think seems to make all the difference in the world. In some cases, it's your peer groups. In some cases, it's the opposite sex.

In some cases, it's the particular field. In some cases, it's just peer groups. In some cases, it's the opposite sex. In some cases, it's the particular field. In some cases, it's just people in general. I need to know that I've pleased them. In some cases, it's just a little clique of people that you desperately, desperately want to break in on and break into. But there's somebody. In some cases, in very rare cases, I know you tell yourself this, cases, in very rare cases, I know you tell yourself this, an awful lot of people who know they're being run by what other people think of them say, well, all I care about is myself. My own eyes, my own standards, my own, they're the only ones that I care about. It's what I think of myself, by the way. Hardly any of you get there. I mean,

you just tell yourself that as a sort of a way of... We tell ourselves that because we think that makes us independent just to say it. The fact is that most of us never get there. But even if you do, it doesn't help much. Because who the heck can live up to your own standards unless your standards are just wonderfully low? Who in the world can say,

well, the only person I have to please is me, and I'm pretty pleased with me, and I look at you and I say, well, you've got pretty low standards, I guess. There's an infinite number of I's. On the other hand, there's an infinite number of specs. That means it depends, you see. You might have certain parents who wanted this out of you, but not this. You might have children who want this out of you, but not this. You might have children who want this out of you, but not this. You might be surrounded by peers, or you might be in a culture, you might be living in a society that wants this out of you than this. And therefore, there's an infinite number of these things.

In other words, we all are desperately afraid of being unpresentable, and therefore we're all out to cover our blemishes and to cover our spots. But it's all different. See, for some of you, blemishes on the face mean practically nothing. So what? I've got them tough. Why? Because, you see, there's a different set of specks, and there's a different set of blemishes that are your horror. For some of the rest of you, it's the blemishes here that make a tremendous difference, or the blemishes here that make a tremendous difference. It all depends, but the fact is we're all struggling for righteousness. We all want to be presentable. We all need to be righteous. And all of us are wearing a breastplate of

righteousness. Now, where does that come from? You know, psychologically, it's very deep. Sociologically, it's very deep. I could go into that, but I'm watching my time. It's sort of a tangent. The Bible continually says that there's no solution for the problem. There are psychological therapies that say, you've got to stop trying to live up to what other people think and just be concerned about what you think. And I tried to show you that that only works if you keep your standards awfully low and then you don't respect yourself for the low standards.

It's a conundrum. It goes around forever. Sociologically, I was reading an interesting article this week in the Village Voice about the men's movement. And what's interesting is, in the men's movement, the writer was defending the men's movement in a way. He says, you see, women and homosexuals and people of color are real upset with white heterosexual males. Why? Because they have all the power. And therefore, if you're not a white heterosexual male, you have lots of trouble feeling presentable.

Because they have the power, and it's their standards that are ruling things, and therefore we're all unhappy because we've got to live up to your standards, and we don't like that. That makes us oppressed. And the whole problem with that entire analysis, according to this article, is why is it that the white heterosexual males are sitting there saying, if we're so powerful, why do we feel so powerless? And if the reason that you don't know who you are is because of me, how come I don't know who I am? And the reason you

feel so crummy about yourself is me, why do I feel so crummy about myself? The whole article's about that. In other words, what's really wrong with us? You know, if you blame your parents, then you've got somebody else over there who's had a wonderful relationship with their parents, and on the other hand, they're driven by somebody else's eyes. And over here, you've got somebody who's in a minority group,

and they're saying the real problem is you guys over there. The trouble is that you guys are feeling just as powerless. What's the answer? Now, as always, the Bible says the answer is theological. Psychology is important, sociology is important, but underneath it is theology. And the theological reason, we're told, it goes back to Genesis 2. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they were naked. And what? Before sin came on, they were naked and what? Unashamed. Sure. They were naked and unashamed. In other words, they were completely presentable. In other words, they were completely presentable.

They knew who they were. They knew who God was. They were in a perfect relationship with God. Everything was fine. They were presentable. They were proud of God's pride in them. You know, there's a place where Esau Dennison says, good pride, not bad pride, good pride is faith in the idea that God had when he made you. There's a healthy kind of pride to know that you are

bringing delight to the eyes of the only person that counts. You see, that's presentability. That's real righteousness. I am well-pleasing in the eyes of the only person whose eyes count. I bring delight and joy to the heart, the only heart that counts. I am loved with the only love that will really last forever. And that's what they had, and then they sinned. What they decided was they listened to the serpent. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. The serpent came along and said, you know, if you obey God, you'll miss out.

God does not really want your best. And when they decided to be their own masters, as soon as they decided to be their own masters, it says they were immediately ashamed of being naked. They felt exposed. They had to hide. They had to cover themselves up. And they had to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. They had to cover themselves up, and they had to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. We're talking a lot more than physical here, a lot deeper than that. They immediately, and for the first time, realized they weren't presentable to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. And when that happened, a shame was inflicted on us that's deeper than any other kind of shame, and a feeling of

unrighteousness was inflicted on us in a way that's deeper than any other kind of unrighteousness. Romans 1 tells us that we have actually repressed that. The shame we have before God, the sense of not being presentable to him, is so traumatic that we have done what all the psychologists tell us you do with traumatic material, and you have repressed it. You've denied it. In Romans 1, it says, we hold down the truth in unrighteousness.

You hear that? We hold down the truth in unrighteousness. The shame we experience, the sense of not being presentable to God, is something that we actually push out so that we cannot admit the depth of our sense of being unpresentable to God. And as a result, in order to try to please God, and yet on the other hand to try to keep that repressed material, that painful material away, we now work furiously to please anybody else. We latch on to other eyes. We latch on to other people. We say, if I can please him or her or that, if I can be presentable

to that, if I can live up to specs, then maybe I can do something about this deep, difficult to understand, mainly unconscious sense that I am unacceptable. And what's so tragic is, sometimes it surfaces, I mean, it's very normal, and I know now, and for the last ten years there's been a tremendous amount of effort put into and analysis put into how many of our problems come because of the shame that we have because of or before our parents. Biblically, that's very, very powerful

and very traumatic. Yes, on the other hand, the Bible says you've got a deeper kind of shame than that, and a deeper kind of unpresentability than the one you feel before your parents. And in a certain sense, you've just actually locked it onto your parents. You've transferred it to your parents. But even if you could deal with it, there's a deeper one than that. And that's the reason why the Bible says everybody goes around to patch up a righteousness of their own. Romans 10.3 talks about that. Romans 1.18 says we hold down the truth in unrighteousness. And Romans 10 says everybody, everybody, everybody's after righteousness.

Everybody's out to patch up one of their own. Patch it up. That means to put fig leaves over themselves like Adam and Eve needed to. To cover themselves with a breastplate so they can say, I am acceptable. I am acceptable. And yet underneath, you know you're not. Success, true love, and the life you've always wanted.

Many of us have made these good things into ultimate things. We've put our faith in them when deep down we know that they cannot satisfy our longings. The truth is that we've made lesser gods of good things, gods that can't give us what we really need. In his book, Counterfeit Gods, Dr. Keller shows us how a proper understanding of the Bible reveals the truth about societal ideals and our own hearts, and that there is only one God who can wholly satisfy our desires. Dr. Keller's book is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the power of the gospel. So request your copy of Counterfeit Gods at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give.

Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. We're all radically insecure. You know, one of the most interesting examples of that, some of you might remember, I forget when it was now, but it was about back in November. In one of the morning services, if you were remember, I forget when it was now, but it was about back in November. In one of the morning services, if you were here, I briefly referred to Death of a Salesman. Now, in Death of a Salesman, there's this passage that still grips me. I'll just read you a little piece of it. It's Willie Loman. Now, get this. Willie Loman, who's the seedy salesman, has got one thing in his life that gives him joy. It is one of his sons, Biff,

because Biff is an athlete. And because of his prowess on the field, Willie is getting a feeling that he's presentable. He lives vicariously through his son. When his son does well, he feels like he's done well because that's my boy. And so, of course, he dotes on him. He prefers him over the rest of his family. So the rest of his family, you know, is full of resentment and falls apart. And it even hurts Biff that he idolizes Biff because he puts so much emphasis on his practice and being a good athlete that Biff's grades get worse and worse. And Biff's got a scholarship to go to University of Virginia, but he has to pass high school. And the scene happens when Biff finds out

that he can't get a passing grade on the last exam in math on the last day of class from his math teacher. His name is Birnbaum. And his father is on the road up in Massachusetts, so Biff gets in the car and says, Dad can do it. Dad's for me. Dad will talk this guy into giving me the passing grade so I can go to college. Gets in the car, runs up to Massachusetts, comes to the door, and as he knocks on the door,

Willie is in the apartment sleeping with a woman, not Biff's mother, not his wife, just somebody he met on the road. He pushes her into the bathroom. And Biff comes on in and sits down and says, Dad, I got a problem. This is somebody he met on the road. He pushes her into the bathroom. And Biff comes on in and sits down and says, Dad, I've got a problem. I'm not going to get into you. And Dad says, Willie says, I can handle it. I will do it. Biff says, I know you can do it, Dad. I know you're for me.

And they're both sort of doting on each other. You see, they live up to the other person's eyes. They're getting their sense of being presentable. Each one is the other one's righteousness. Then all of a sudden, out comes the woman, in just a slip, asking for her stockings back, coming out of the bathroom,

saying goodbye to Biff and walks down the hall. And of course, Willie, immediately, in a panic, sees this incredible look on Biff's eyes. And he says to Biff, Well, better be going. I want to get to the school first thing in the morning, get my suits out of the closet. I'll get my valise.

Biff doesn't move. What's the matter? Biff just sits there, motionless, tears going down his face. Now listen. Listen. It's the matter? Biff just sits there, motionless, tears going down his face. Now listen. Listen. It's not what it looks like. She's just a buyer. She's a buyer for J.H. Simmons, and I'm a salesman, and she lives just down the hall, and they're painting, and she had to come down here. You don't imagine, and he breaks off. Biff just sits there, motionless. Now listen, pal.

She's just a buyer. She sees merchandise in her room, and they have to keep it coming. Then he pauses. He assumes a command. All right, all right. Get my suits. Biff doesn't move.

Now stop crying, Biff, and do as I say. I gave you an order. Biff, I gave you an order. Is that what you do when I give you an order? How dare you cry? Then he softens, puts his arm around Biff. Now look, son, when you grow up, you're going to understand these things. You mustn't overemphasize a thing like this.

I'll see your teacher first thing in the morning. Biff says, never mind. Willie says, never mind? He's going to give you those points back. You're going to get into college. Biff says, he wouldn't listen to you. He certainly will listen to me. You need those points for the University of Virginia. I'm not going to the University of Virginia. What do you mean? I can get him to change that mark. You'll see. Or you can make out in summer school. Biff turns away. Dad. Willie says, she's nothing to me, Biff. I was lonely. I was terribly lonely. You gave her mama's stockings. I gave you an order, Biff. Get my suitcase. Don't you touch me, you liar.

Apologize for that, he says to Biff. Biff turns around. You fake. You phony little fake. And he runs out of the room. And what does Biff, what does Willey do? Down on his knees. I gave you an order, Biff. Come back here or I'll beat you. Come here or I'll whip you. What happened was this.

The speediness of Willey's life suddenly crumbled. All of his excuses, did you hear them? Oh, it means nothing. When you get older, you'll understand. She means nothing to me. I was just lonely. Before the eyes, the honest and fair

and absolutely impartial eyes of Biff, all of his excuses crumbled and he suddenly felt absolutely naked and exposed. And the reason when you read this sort of thing you get a chill, the reason I get a chill, and the reason I'm trying to give you a chill, is because first of all, every one of us has got eyes that we are trying to live up to, a righteousness we're trying to patch together, a way of feeling presentable to please somebody. And yet behind those eyes, there are a set of eyes like this.

And we know that they are absolutely pure. They're God's eyes. They're absolutely impartial. They're God's eyes. They're absolutely impartial. They're absolutely honest. And before those eyes, we are absolutely unacceptable and unpresentable. We don't love our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We don't love our neighbor as ourselves. We know those eyes are out there. Everybody in this room knows these eyes are out there. You know why? If there isn't a God with eyes like that, what hope is there for the universe?

On the other hand, if there is a God with eyes like that, what hope is there for you? We're caught. What hope is there for us? The answer is, the gospel says that there is a righteousness, a thing that you can use to cover yourself. And it's not a righteousness that you have developed. It's a righteousness that God develops and gives to you. Now, I especially try to put this out in the 4 o'clock service. There are two kinds of people sitting in the pews of Christendom, in the pews of the churches.

There are a group of people who say, I know what Christianity is. I'm going to emulate the Lord. I'm going to believe everything. I'm going to believe the doctrines. I'm going to study the Bible. I'm going to be a good person. I'm going to have faith. I'm going to seek all these things. And in other words, I'm going to put together a righteousness and give it to God, and that will be salvation. And there's other people who know that the Bible teaches the exact opposite. The essence of Christianity is not you putting together a righteousness and giving it to God, but God putting together a righteousness and giving it to you. Those are two utterly opposed religions. They are diametrically opposed. The dynamics are totally different, completely different from one another.

And they result in two completely different kinds of feelings and sensations. If you understand that it's your job to be righteous, you know, see, the worst kind of guilt is not trying to live up to what your parents say and not trying to live up to what your children say, not trying to live up to what your peer group says. parents say, and not trying to live up to what your children say, not trying to live up to what your peer group says, the worst kind of guilt is to be religious without actually being a Christian. To be reading the Bible, to be listening to sermons, to be hearing what you're supposed to be in Christ, to hear how you have to be so honest and how you have

to be so loving and have to be so unselfish, and yet miss the main point, and that is that Jesus Christ has created a righteousness for you. He lived for you. He died for you. And that there is a righteousness that comes from him and is to be received by faith. Now the only possible way I can get that across in a way that's decent is to read you a couple of quotes to show you this is not my idea. I'm watching my time and what I'm going to do is I'm going to read you a couple of quotes from people who are a lot smarter than me. For example, Martin Luther, in his commentary on the Galatians, says this, just listen. This sort of thing has changed my life at least three or four

times. All right? Each time in the same direction. Paul sets down the biblical teachings so that we can know without a doubt the difference between Christian righteousness and all other kinds. First, there's political righteousness. That's what world leaders, diplomats, and civic leaders and lawyers must try to teach. Second, there's political righteousness. That's what world leaders, diplomats, and civic leaders and lawyers must try to teach. Second, there's social righteousness, which is acting, speaking, dressing, and carrying oneself correctly according to the traditions and mores of a particular culture or vocation or field. That's what parents and families and schools try to teach. Third, there's moral righteousness.

That is the righteousness that comes from obeying the Ten Commandments. And then there's moral righteousness. That is the righteousness that comes from obeying the Ten Commandments. And then there are other types. There's the righteousness that comes from relationships, feeling attractive and feeling accepted and loved by people of both sexes. There's the righteousness that comes from career achievement, becoming successful or respected or moneyed through your labor and talent and work. But there is another, a far better righteousness, which Paul calls the righteousness of faith, Christian righteousness. This one we must distinguish from the rest because

it works in a completely different way from the others. The other kinds of righteousness, we can work at ourselves by our own strength, but this righteousness is the greatest of all. God puts it on us without our lifting a finger. It has nothing to do with our obeying God's law. It has nothing to do with what we do or how hard we work. It's given to us and we do nothing for it. It's a passive righteousness. While the others we have to work for, it's perfect righteousness because it's the perfect record of all Christ did in living and dying, while the other kinds are partial and imperfect. And it's free righteousness, for we don't do anything or give anything to God to get it, but we receive it, because someone else

has done all the work for it in our place, therefore it is passive righteousness. This passive righteousness is a mystery that someone who doesn't know Jesus cannot understand. Listen, as a matter of fact, Christians never completely understand it themselves and do not take advantage of it when they are tried and tempted. In other words, he says, you're not putting it on as a breastplate. So we have to constantly teach it to others over and over, and we have to repeat it to ourselves every day. For anyone who does not understand this righteousness and fails to cherish it in the heart will continually be buffeted by fears and depression. Nothing gives peace like this passive righteousness.

For human beings by nature, when they get near danger or death, do not see anything by what they have done to be righteous. How worthy we have made ourselves, we defend ourselves by recounting our good deeds. He's talking about your deathbed. He says on the deathbed, you start to turn to the breastplate of your own righteousness and you say, well, I recount your good deeds and moral efforts. But then suddenly when you do that, the remembrance of our sins and flaws come to mind and this tears us apart. And we think, how many errors and sins and wrongs have I done? Please, God, let me live so I can fix and amend things. Is that how you pray? Is that how you repent?

But the real evil here is that we are obsessed with our own power to be righteous and will not lift up our eyes to see that Christ has done for us to prepare righteousness to be received. So the troubled conscience has no cure for its desperation and its feeling of unworthiness. So the troubled conscience has no cure for its desperation and its feeling of unworthiness. When the person finally realizes and puts on this path of righteousness every day, here she says, quote,

Even if I could work ten times better at righteousness, starting today, I could not atone for my past wrongs, nor would it make me perfect before the judge. So I cast away not my efforts to be good, but my trust in those efforts before the Father and before my conscience. Did you hear that? I do not cast away my efforts to be good, but I cast away my trust in those efforts before the Father and before my conscience. Instead, I trust in the righteousness of Christ only to please the Father and the law and the conscience. So have we nothing to do to obtain this righteousness?

No, nothing at all. For Christ's righteousness comes when we know and believe this only, that he has gone to the Father, sits at the right hand, and sits not as our judge, but that Christ has now become for us our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, and sits not as our judge, but that Christ has now become for us our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption. God sees no sin in us, for in this heavenly righteousness, sin has no place. So now we may certainly think, although I still sin, I don't despair because

Christ lives, who is my righteousness and my eternal life. Listen, this is the last thing I'll read out of here. If we cannot see the difference between the two kinds of righteousness and if we don't take hold of Christ by faith, sitting at the right hand of God, who pleads our case to the Father, then we are under the law, not under grace. And Christ is no savior but a lawgiver

and he is no longer our salvation, but he will be in eternal despair. What does it mean to put on a breastplate of righteousness? Here, look, tomorrow your conscience accuses you, we got to sum up, what does it mean to put it on practically? Your conscience accuses you and comes to you and says, why don't you have any desire to pray anymore? Remember when you did? Why is it that you've really been so lax in your Christian duties? Remember when you did? How do you even know if you're a Christian? Feel bad. And what do you usually say? Okay, okay.

You can put on the breastplate of righteousness and say, wait a minute. My good feelings and my prayerfulness and my duties before God have never been the basis under which I've been accepted. Remember that hymn? My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame. That's an emotional feeling. I dare not trust the sweetest frame of heart, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

Somebody came up to me after last week and said, but what if you've continued to sin again and again? What if you find yourself sinning? Shouldn't you feel bad about that? I mean, shouldn't you feel bad about that? How can I turn and say, well, I don't need to feel guilty about this sin? The answer is this. The devil will always tell you, look at your guilt.

This is a sin, and therefore God wants nothing to do with you. The Holy Spirit would never say that. The Holy Spirit says the opposite. You want to know the difference between demonic accusation? You want to know the difference between a pathological conscience and the conviction of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit will say, this is sin, so you need to get to him. The devil will always say, this is sin, so you need to leave. He doesn't want to see you. The Holy Spirit will always say, you have sinned, and therefore he wants to see you. And so what you have to do, it's fairly simple.

When you hear the voice, who knows what it is? Isn't it the devil? Isn't it your pathological conscience? When you hear the voice saying, look at all these things you've done, what do you do? You turn around and you say, all right, I don't argue. These things are wrong. These things are bad. These things are sins. Yes, of course, on the basis that I deserve to be cast out. I don't argue with you a bit, but I'll tell you where I do argue with you. When you say, therefore, God will have nothing to do with you, I refuse to listen to you blaspheming the mercy of my God. Of course, my sins make me worthy of being cast out, but what he has done for me covers that. And if I would believe for a minute that I am unworthy and that God has nothing to do

with me, at that moment I have started to trust myself. If you feel too bad to go before God, if you beat yourself up, if you feel too unworthy that God could never forgive your sins, do you know what that is? You are failing to believe in Jesus. You're still believing in yourself. You cannot put on the righteousness of Christ. You have to turn around and say, yes, of course I'm as bad as that. But the point is, my Savior has done something about it, completely covered it, and I will not take, I will not sit here and listen to you blaspheme the extent and the power of his mercy. here and listen to you blaspheme the extent and the power of his mercy. So the old hymn goes, well made the accuser roar of sins that I have done. I know them all and thousands more. Jehovah knoweth none. Remember that? Or John Newton says, a debtor to mercy alone. Of covenant mercy I sing,

nor fear with thy righteousness on my person or offering to bring. The terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do. My Savior's obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from you. You know how to put that on? Look, in summary, a moralizing Christian, In summary, a moralizing Christian, a legalistic Christian, says, you're depressed? That's probably because you're a wicked sinner. Repent. Okay? Then you've got another kind of Christian, not the moralizing Christian. I don't know what I want to call him.

I guess I'd call him the psychologizing Christian, not that I don't like psychology. The psychologizing Christian says, you're depressed? You need to see that God loves you just as you are. Which is actually a subtle denial of the gospel. It's a way of saying, what Christ did doesn't matter. You're fine the way you are.

If you're depressed, the Christian, the gospelizing approach, says, if you're depressed, something Christian, the gospelizing approach, says if you're depressed, something in your life is serving as your righteousness, and you've got to replace it with Jesus. If you're cast down, it's because there's somebody else's eyes that are more important to you, somebody else's specs that are more important to you

than what he has done for you before the Father. Do you have to repent? Yes. Maybe not of the thing that cast you down. You know, here's a person that says, ah, yes, I'm a failure because my parents always wanted me to be, to get into this particular field and I didn't do it

because I was lazy, because I was bad, I feel terrible. See, the moralizing Christian says, well, repent of your laziness. The psychologizing Christian says, ah, well, there's nothing wrong with you. I mean, you need to accept yourself for what you are. God does. But the gospelizing Christian says, the real problem is you have to repent of making something a righteousness besides what Jesus has done

for you. The real sin is the sin of being discouraged by your sin. You have got to see that you have to replace the righteousness that you're basing your life on with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So you see, the gospelizing Christian does call you to repent, but repent for the right thing. Put on the breastplate of righteousness. There's another hymn that goes,

lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus' feet, stand in him, in him alone, gloriously complete. Let's pray. Father, as we listen to the music during the offering, help us not to think what we're going to do in five minutes,

where we're going to go, because the service will be over in just a couple moments, but instead help us to take these two or three or four moments to consider ways in which we are refusing to put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Help us to see ways in which we're being defeated now. Enable us to see that your eyes are the only ones that count, that your son's righteousness is the only thing that we can really be clothed in and need to be clothed in. Now I ask that you grant this to us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching by Tim Keller here at Gospel in Life. We want to share a special free resource with you that we provide during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel in Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelinlife.com slash Lent.

That's gospelinlife.com slash Lent. This month's sermons were recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.