Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Breastplate of Righteousness (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

When you fail, when people accuse you, when people reject you, how do you defend yourself? How do you look yourself in the mirror?  We all have a problem of feeling unpresentable, of deeply seeking to be examined and approved. In Ephesians 6, Paul talks about the breastplate, about the fact that we all have to have a righteousness to cover our hearts. We have to have some way of defending ourselves against accusation.  In continuing our look at the breastplate of righteousness, let’s look at 1) the false solution that is the secular way, 2) the false solution that is the religious way, and 3) how to put on the real remedy. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 16, 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 this season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel & Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelandlife.com. Now, here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching. Finally, 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 the rulers and authorities and against powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. And therefore, put

on the full armor of God so when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and 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. This is God's word. The breastplate of righteousness. Now, you don't know it, but we've looked at it for two weeks. This is the last week we'll look at it. There's actually been an outline to this subject. I have been working you through three basic points.

The problem of righteousness, false solutions to the problem of righteousness, and taking the true solution of Christ's righteousness. Three basic points. The problem, false solutions, and the real remedy in how to take it. And up to now what we've actually been looking more about than anything else is the problem of righteousness. Just to quickly remind you and anyone who's new here tonight, to bring you up to speed, the word righteousness, though we use it in our modern usage right now, is a pretty meaningless word. It doesn't mean much of anything. But in the Bible, righteousness means to be examined and approved, to be presentable. So for example, if a girl has applied to a really exclusive school and she's taken her test and she gets a letter from this exclusive prep school and it says,

you are one of the very best. You have made it in. We can't wait to have you here. Your scores were at the top top. You're a superior student. We can't wait to have you here. She experiences a radiance. And that radiance is more than ego and pride. She's been examined and she's been found presentable.

And this is a deep human need. Or if a guy asks the girl of his dreams to marry him, and she says yes, the exhilaration is more than hormones. He has known that he's been examined. He's been examined with a fine-toothed comb. And he has been found presentable. He's been approved. That's the need for righteousness. Or if you've worked very hard to lose weight and you see some people you haven't seen in a couple years and they say, you look great. The thrill is more than just vanity. You've been examined and you've been found presentable. Now all of these things are verdicts. We didn't say this last week. Every one of these things is a verdict. Those verdicts, a verdict is your very life.

You live off of those verdicts. You basically devise a self-image by accumulating those verdicts, both good and bad. Your self-image is the accumulated set of verdicts, both good and bad, that have been passed by you over the years as you've been examined in all sorts of situations, relationships, applying to jobs, applying to schools, peer groups, things that your parents have said you've been examined, and sometimes you've been found presentable and sometimes you have not. You live for the good verdict. Now, we said that, you see, this righteousness thing is really more than just a matter of living up to some kind of moral standards.

Righteousness is the need to live up to the standards of somebody's eyes that we think is significant. We talked about that. Now, the Bible says that the reason we are so desperate to be presentable, the reason we so desperately need to be approved and to feel approval, is because in Genesis 2 and 3 we see that we were originally created by God to be presentable to Him. And originally we were. He delighted in us. We were built to delight him. And not only that, the thing you and I, more than anything else, need to sense is that God Himself, the Holy and Pure and Great God Himself, is experiencing pleasure in looking at you. You want to please Him. You want to give Him pleasure to know

that you've got that kind in a sense of significance, that kind of clout, that kind of beauty is the thing that you're built for. Ultimately, it's what is underneath every other desire to be presentable and to be approved. Originally, we were in the garden, and remember we said this last week, we were naked and unashamed. We had nothing to hide. We were accepted and unashamed. We had nothing to hide. We were accepted and

presentable to God. And when we decided to be our own masters, when we decided to live our lives the way we wanted to live them, we instantly, the Bible says, became naked and ashamed. We immediately felt naked. We felt exposed. We felt un-presentable. And the first thing the Bible says that human beings did after they decided to live their own lives and be their own kings and be their own masters and call the shots in their lives, the very first thing they did after sin was what? They covered themselves. They put together fig leaves.

They covered themselves. And ever since then, we've been doing the same thing. The Bible says if you want to understand all of your efforts to please your parents, all of your efforts to please your peer group, all of your efforts to feel like you got into the right school, all your efforts to feel that you have been examined and approved are efforts at covering up that deep sense of un-presentability we've got because we know, we know that God is not pleased with us. We know that we fall short. We know that.

You know, the most frightening passage in the whole Bible, one of the most frightening verses in the Bible, one that just came through to me like a spear one day many years ago, is Hebrews 4.13 where it says, nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is naked and uncovered before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. See, that's traumatic material. We repress it. And so what we do is we try very hard to be presentable and acceptable to other people. But underneath, we fundamentally do not feel that we're righteous. We know we're not righteous. We talked all about that last week.

The breastplate of righteousness, remember the breastplate is the part of the armor that covers the vital parts. Somebody attacks your arm or your leg, that can be very serious. Somebody cuts them off, that can be serious, but it doesn't have to be fatal. But it's your vital parts. It's your heart, in a sense, that the breastplate covers. The breastplate is Paul's way of talking about the fact that we all have to have a righteousness to cover our hearts.

We have to have some way of defending ourselves against accusation. When you fail, when people accuse you, when people reject you, how do you defend yourself? What is your breastplate? What is your fig leaf covering? How do you look yourself in the mirror? How do you convince yourself that you're presentable? What do you say? You say, well, but I'm good to my family. Well, but I've done well in my career. Well, but I'm a more moral person than most

people. I don't do this and this like most people, that's your breastplate. That's your covering of fig leaves. And that's the problem. We've all got a problem of feeling unpresentable and deeply, desperately seeking to be presentable, to be examined and approved. Now, up to now we've talked about false solutions, and tonight I'd like to tell you that there's two basic categories of false solutions. There's two basic categories of false solutions. There's two basic ways, false ways, to try to patch up your own righteousness, devise your own fig leaf cover, your own fig leaf suit, or devise your own breastplate. The one way is the secular way, and we've mentioned those.

You see, there are a myriad, there's just a multiplicity of ways for you to try to deal with this deep down sense of being unacceptable. We said some people latch on to pleasing your parents, some people latch on to careers, some people on the relationships, some on the physical attractiveness. We talked about that. Some of you know that, I think I've mentioned this actually quite a while ago. Some of you know that it's interesting to read individual psychology, which is a school of psychology that's grown out of the teachings of Alfred Adler. And Adler taught that there's four basic kinds of motivational personalities. Now, by the way, I'm not saying he's right. I'm saying that there's only four. I'm saying it's interesting in light of this particular kind of teaching.

He says, everybody has a particular motivation, something that gives you meaning, something that you've got to have. Now, in biblical terms, it means everybody has a different way of patching up his or her own righteousness. So he says, some people are motivated basically by power. He says, some by approval, some by comfort, and some by control. What do you need to find meaning? And then he says, therefore, every one of these different kinds of people will have

a different kind of horror or a different kind of nakedness. So for example, a person who says, my life is only significant if I have power. It's different than a person says, I only have significance if I have approval of somebody, that people love me. A person who wants power, his greatest heart is to lose. A person who wants love, the greatest heart is to be rejected. Person who wants power doesn't mind being rejected as long as he doesn't lose. A person who wants approval doesn't mind if he loses power as long as he's loved.

See, everybody has got a different way of patching up his or her own righteousness. And I said there's a myriad of secular ways, but the one thing I want to talk about tonight in particular is to show you that there is also religious ways of creating your own breastplate or patching up your own fig leaves or your own righteousness. This is something that is absolutely critical for you to know, whether you think you're a Christian, whether you are a Christian, or whether you're considering Christianity. There are two ways to try to be your own savior. There's two ways of trying to develop your own righteousness, trying in a sense to replace

that original holiness that Adam and Eve had that made them know that they were acceptable to God. The one is a secular way. And a lot of you, we've talked about those ways, but the other one is a religious way. You have to understand, there's a lot of people in this room who think that they tried Christianity years ago. They were raised in Christianity, they were raised in the church, they learned all those things. Then they came to New York. Then they abandoned all that because it didn't work.

They tried the Bible, they tried believing. They believed it one time, they tried living a good Christian life, it just didn't work for them. Now you're back. You're trying to figure out whether you can believe this anymore. And you're sitting there saying, well, you know, I tried it once, but maybe this is a little different kind of Christianity. No, it's a good possibility that you never really tried real Christianity at all. But instead, you try it a religious way to patch up your own righteousness. Let me give you an interesting example. Here is an account from the journal with David Brainerd.

David Brainerd was a missionary to Native Americans in Western Massachusetts in the early 1700s. He died a very young man, but he left a journal behind about his Christian pilgrimage and his Christian testimony and his works as a missionary. And Jonathan Edwards took his journals and edited them and printed them and they became a classic. They've gone through just thousands of printings over the years. This is what, this is how David Brainer talked about his conversion and listened very carefully. He says, when I was about 20 years of age, I was engaged more than ever

in the duties of religion. I became strict and watchful over my thoughts, words and actions, and I thought I must be very seriously religious because I considered even entering the ministry. I spent much time every day reading my Bible and praying, and I gave great attention to Sunday sermons. In short, I had a very good outside, and trusted entirely in my religious duties, though I was not aware of what I was doing wrong. Though I often confess to God that I, of course, deserve nothing, yet still I harbored a secret hope of recommending myself to God by all these duties and all this morality. When I prayed affectionately and felt some melting of my heart in love to him,

I hoped God would thereby be moved to care for me. So I thought that through my repenting and praising him and seeking him, I could make good steps toward heaven. And when my heart seemed full of love and faith, I felt that God would be affected by that and would hear my prayers for their sincerity. In other words, I healed myself with my duties. I told myself, God must accept you because look at how wholeheartedly you seek and serve Him. But now here we became a problem. The more I tried to love God with all my soul, the more I saw how little I loved Him. The more I saw the soft heart, the more I felt how hard my heart was.

And I suppose it must be softened before Christ would accept me. In fact, one night I remember in particular when I was walking alone, I had opened to my view such a view of my sin that I feared the ground would cleave a sunder under my feet. I saw it was impossible for me after the utmost pains to answer the demands of God's law. I saw that it condemned me for being selfish and angry and fearful and envious and lustful, and all these thoughts I could not possibly prevent. And then after a considerable time spent in such distress as one morning, I was alone,

and I saw that all my contrivances and projects to affect or procure my salvation were utterly in vain here. And I thought many times that the difficulties of attaining salvation were very great. Now I saw that the difficulties were impossible. That it was impossible for me to do anything toward delivering myself. The tumult that I had in my mind now quieted. I saw that all my prayers and repentances and feelings and obedience had not laid the least obligation upon God to bestow salvation on me.

And then I realized why they were of no avail. When I had been fasting, praying, obeying, I thought I was aiming at the glory of God. I thought that I was doing it for His glory, but now I saw that I was doing every one of my religious duties for my own glory. I was doing it to feel worthy, and as long as I was doing all this during my salvation, I was actually doing nothing for God. It was all for me.

I realized that my struggling to become worthy was an exercise in self-worship. I was actually trying to avoid God as a savior in all of my efforts to find him. I was not worshiping him, but rather I was using him. And then at that time the true way of salvation opened to my mind. I saw so much of its wisdom and suitableness and excellence that I wondered how I ever was blind to it. I wondered why everyone did not see this way of salvation. It was not by any contrivances of mine, but entirely by the righteousness of Christ.

And on that day, I felt myself into a new world, and everything about me appeared with a different aspect from before. I wonder how many of you fought through the last paragraph. I wonder how many of you went through the first and the second paragraph and the third paragraph and at a certain point you said, you know, I've tried this religion. It seems like the harder I work, the harder it is for me to really ever come through. I've tried really hard.

I've done everything I could. I've sought him and I sought him and I sought him and it didn't work. And he realized one day because all along he'd been seeking to patch up his own righteousness. There was a sense in which all along he'd been trying to be his own God, his own Savior in the most subtle way through religion. He had come to trust religion instead of Christ. He had come to trust Christianity instead of Christ. And he realized on that final day that he had actually all along been doing everything to avoid God as Savior, instead of to seek God as Savior. Is that a possibility with you?

You know, every single... You know, whatever you read, the conversions of many of the great men and women of church history, you'll see that in many cases, very similar things happen. Like when John Bunyan was converted, remember? He says, one day I was passing into a field and I suddenly felt this sentence in my soul, by righteousness is in heaven. And with the eyes of my soul, I thought,

I saw God, Jesus standing at God's right hand, and then I said, oh my, that's my righteousness. So wherever I was or whatever I was doing, God could not say to me, where is your righteousness, for it is always right before him. I saw that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor my bad frame of heart that made my righteousness worse, but my righteousness was ever before him. It was Jesus.

And now my chains fell off indeed, and my temptations fled away, and I lived sweetly at peace with God and Christ. Now I could look for myself to him, and could reckon that all my character was like the coins a rich man carries in his pocket, when his gold was safe in the trunk at home. Oh, I saw that my gold was in the trunk at home. In Christ Jesus my Lord. Now Christ was my all, my righteousness, my wisdom, my sanctification, my redemption. Remember what I read last week from Martin Luther's commentary on the Galatians?

One of John Wesley and Charles Wesley's best friends, William Holland, very religious man, very serious, thinking he was a Christian. One night, he heard someone read aloud the same section of Martin Luther's

preface to his commentary on the Galatians that I read to you last week. His name was William Holland. This is 1738. And he says, Mr. Charles Wesley read the preface aloud, and suddenly when I heard him say the words, What? Have we then nothing to do? No nothing, but only except of him who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness

and sanctification and redemption. And when I heard those words, there came over me such a power that I cannot well describe. My great burden fell off in an instant, and my heart was so filled with peace and love that I burst into tears. He got it. Dear friends, the Bible says there are really basically three ways for you to deal with the problem of righteousness. The problem that we to deal with the problem of righteousness. The problem that we all feel, the problem of being un-presentable.

The one way is finding secular ways to look ourselves in the mirror and to patch up a righteousness that hides that deep theological sense of un-presentability. The second is the religious way. And the third is Christ's way, to make Christ your righteousness. That's the only solution. A Christian is somebody who finally recognizes that the Gospel is not me giving my righteousness to him, but him, God, giving his righteousness to me. 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 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. That's gospelandlife.com. That's gospelonlife.com. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now we said that. In the scripture, there's almost no way for you to understand this particular remedy and solution unless you understand the idea of imputation. particular remedy and solution unless you understand the idea of imputation. Second Corinthians 5, 21. It says, God made him sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him. What does that mean? Very clearly, something happens. Imputation.

First of all, it says, God made him sin who knew no sin. Now here's Jesus Christ. He's on the cross. What does God do? He makes him sin. What does that mean? He knows no sin, but he makes him sin. That means, in his being, he's not sin.

He knows no sin. Actually, he's not a sinner, but legally he is. What has God done? God has transferred liability for your record to him. He now is liable for your record. That means the consequences that you deserve fall on him. And then it says, though, there's a second kind of imputation, he made him sin, who knew no sin? See, actually he's not a sinner, but legally he is.

That we might become the righteousness of God in him. Actually, you're not righteous, but legally, the day that you receive Christ's Savior, the same thing happens. You become liable for his record. That means that the consequence is the things that his record deserves fall on you. The gospel is this. God treats believing sinners as if they'd done everything Jesus had done. There's this amazing passage in Romans 4. In Romans 4 Paul says, There's this amazing passage in Romans 4. In Romans 4, Paul says, Now to him who works for his wages, his wages are not considered a gift, but their wages.

But to him who worketh not. But believeth in him who justifies the ungodly, to him his faith is credited as righteousness. Now that is one of the most stark and amazing statements in the Scripture. It's very clear. It says, the one who doesn't work, as righteousness. That is one of the most stark and amazing statements in the Scripture. It's very clear. It says, the one who doesn't work, but to the one who trusts in the God who justifies the ungodly.

Now the word justifies means to count as righteous, to make legally righteous, to make, in a sense, forensically righteous. Who does he do that to? The minute you trust in the one who justifies the ungodly, now there, is as stark and as straight and as blunt a statement as the Bible could make, as Paul could make about it. You see, Paul is not saying, well, you've got to clean your heart up. I've seen that in so many of you. Come to Christ. Well, I've got to clean your heart up. I've seen that in so many of you Come to Christ. Well, I've got to straighten my life out. I've got to get what I got to make myself presentable

You're trying to avoid your Savior if you come like that The moment you believe though in yourself you're ungodly You turn from your sin, but that doesn't mean your sins are gone. You're still a sinner You still have in your heart the same old desires you had before You turn from your sin, but that doesn't mean your sins are gone. You're still a sinner. You still have in your heart the same old desires you had before. But the moment you turn to Him, turn to the one who justifies the ungodly, at that moment it says you're credited with righteousness. That's an amazing statement, but here's what it's after.

Boy, I tell you, the Scriptures teaches us that the Christian gospel is after more than just pardon, it's after more than just forgiveness. That's great. The Christian gospel is out to get you to walk into the presence of God standing up straight, not your tail between your legs, not looking down. The Christian gospel is to, the purpose of the Gospel is to give you stand-up dignity before the Father, looking Him in the eye to walk in knowing you're presentable. In Ephesians 5, right here in the very passage we've been looking at, remember we looked at it

under marriage? It says, you see, we're talking about the fact that Christ loves the church, husband loves your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, holy and blameless, the purpose of the Gospel is to get you to walk in to the presence of God knowing that you're not liable, knowing that he finds you blameless. You see, if you don't have something

that enables you to look out in the eye, to stand on your feet and look him in the face in his presence, you still haven't gotten the Gospel. You may have religion, you may have morality, but you don't have that. But that's not the only part, by the way. Now here, this is very important. The scripture always talks about two kinds of righteousness. There's imputed righteousness and imparted righteousness. Imputed righteousness is the legal righteousness that comes to you fully and wholly the minute you believe. Then imparted righteousness is the real actual supernatural maturity that's put in your heart,

the Holy Spirit, that actually comes into your life and begins to change your heart so that you love, so that there's self-control growing, so there's courage growing, so there's gentleness growing, so there's power growing. You see, God never, never, never divides imputed from imparted righteousness. The imputed righteousness is first, and on the basis of the fact that you're legally righteous, he puts his actual Holy Spirit in you to make you actually righteous. He imparts it. A religious person bases, listen, a religious person bases your imputed righteousness on your imparted righteousness.

In other words, you say, because I'm being a pretty good person, I can stand in the presence of God. A Christian, however, bases his imparted righteousness on his imputed righteousness. He says, the reason that I'm growing in grace, the reason is because I'm already legally accepted by him. And that's the reason why it's so absolutely critical for you to realize that a Christian bases your sanctification on your justification, not your justification on your sanctification. A moralist says, the reason I'm just in God's sight is because I've had a pretty good week. And a Christian says, the reason I can have a pretty good week is because I know that he accepts me. There's a huge difference between the way a Christian repents and a moralist repents.

The moralist says, I've got to repent or he'll reject me. The Christian says, I've got to repent because he won't reject me. I can't. I am afraid of grieving a person who, at infinite cost, has put himself in a relationship with me so that he will never reject me. Anybody who's done that, I just am afraid to grieve. See, a Christian has this great desire for holiness because he's afraid of grieving the person who would never reject him. A non-Christian or a moralist, a religious person has to repent because he's afraid he will be rejected. Utterly different. Now, putting on this breastplate of righteousness in the most practical situations

is how I want to end before we go to the Lord's table. How do you actually put on the breastplate? How do you actually take up this doctrine that we're talking about and use it? Okay, I hope it's on the sheet that didn't fall on the ground. Yes, it's not. Here, look. First of all, put on the breastplate when you're bitter. Let's start here. Let me just give you a couple of examples. Put on the breastplate when you're bitter. I once knew a father who was a minister, and he had an adult son who rejected the faith and ran off with a girl and lived with her. And the father was so bitter against the boy, against his son, and against the girl.

Why? He was, he often felt guilty that he was so mad. But he all, he went back and forth between feeling guilty that he was mad and feeling like, I have a right to be mad. And one day somebody says, why do you feel like you have a right to be mad? And he says, well, look at me. I'm a minister. I'm. And one day somebody says, why do you feel like you have a right to be mad? And he says, well, look at me. I'm a minister.

I'm supposed to call people to faith. And I can't even win my son to faith. And what he realized at that moment, the day he said that, he suddenly realized the reason he couldn't forgive. Because you see, he was humiliated. When you get bitter, it's often a bitterness that you can't get rid of. It's often because you have been prevented from getting something that has become your righteousness.

You see, he suddenly realized that what he was doing was he was making his fatherly record and his ability to bring his sons to faith as being the thing through which he was recommending himself to people. He began to realize in a sense it was his breastplate, it was one of his fig leaf coverings, and he realized the reason he was so bitter that he couldn't forgive was he first, before he had a repent of his bitterness, he had a repent of making his son's salvation a way that he was actually kind of earning his own. He had to put it on.

And when he put it on, and when he finally admitted that he was relying on his record as a father and as a Christian father, as his righteousness, and he says, that is not my basis, that is not, my record is not the reason that I can look out in the face. It's Jesus' record. And when he repented of that, he found he could forgive. You might not think that you need to put on the breastplate of righteousness when you're bitter, but you may. Secondly, put on the breastplate of righteousness when you are guilty, especially when you find yourself, and some of you are going to have this problem tonight, you want to come to the Lord's table and you want to confess a sin, but you know it's a sin that you've

done many times and you have a lot of doubts whether or not it's really over. How do you confess a sin when your conscience is coming after you and saying, you call yourself a Christian? How in the world could you pick up the bread in a cup tonight? See, your conscience comes after you, as we've said before, the devil comes after you. Your low self-esteem comes after you and says, you've done this again and again and again. You're no Christian. How do you deal with that?

Now, first of all, you have to keep in mind there's a huge difference between the Holy Spirit convicting you of sin and your low self-esteem or the devil, which may be the same thing. You know what the difference is? The Holy Spirit will never argue against imputed righteousness. Never. It will always argue from imputed righteousness on the basis. Your low self-esteem hates the gospel.

It hates the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Your low self-esteem is full of pride It hates the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Your low self-esteem is full of pride, does not want God's bleeding charity. Wants you to stay in control of your life through your performance. Wants you to punish yourself and beat yourself to a pulp if you haven't been able to live up to standards. It doesn't want you off the hook. Do you see that? Wants you to stay in control of your life. It wants you to rely on your efforts and your performance. So what will it do? It will always say, because you've continued to sin, God won't see you.

You're unworthy. The Holy Spirit would never do that. The Holy Spirit would say, because of the imputed righteousness, because he loves you, because there's no condemnation for you, you must go to him. See, the Spirit would never argue against imputed righteousness. If you've got a heart that's arguing against it, if you've got a heart that says, because you've repeatedly sinned, you're unworthy, God doesn't want to see you, what do you do? You have to put on the breastplate of righteousness like this. You have to say, first of all, start like this way, first of all, talk to this little voice that's saying, get lost. Get away from him. God doesn't want to see you. You

ought to turn to the voice and you say, is it the devil? Is it your conscience that's gone awry? Whatever. You turn to it and you say this, you can't frighten me. The things you've told me about my deserving to be rejected are absolutely true. But when you say that my sins have made me unworthy of going before God, what you're really doing is insulting the magnitude of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. You're insulting the completeness of his righteousness. And I won't have it. Insult me, go ahead. Tell me that I deserve to be rejected. I already know that. But don't you dare tell me that I'm not worthy of going before the Father because what that

is doing is saying that Jesus' righteousness is really insufficient. So what do you do? You put on the righteousness of Christ. You think, Isaiah 49-15, that's where it says, can a mother forget the woman, the baby that nurses at her breast? Well, she may forget, but I will not forget you. I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. You know that tremendous hymn that says, arise my soul, arise, lay off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in thy behalf appears. Before the throne my

security stands. Before the throne my security stands. His name is written on his hands. My name is written on his hands. You think about Isaiah 49. You think about 1 John 3 21. When your heart's condemned us, God is greater than your hearts. You think about those things. Another way you can put on the breastplate of righteousness when you feel guilty is you can say, all right, what if I didn't do this thing this week? Would that qualify me to come before the presence of God? What if I didn't do this sin that my conscience is after me so bad on? Would that qualify me? Of course not. I can only come in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The only way, the only way Put on the breastplate when you're working too hard

When people are saying why don't you take some time off? You're working too hard Workaholics need to look at their work and they need to say this is not my righteousness The only reason I would be driving myself into the ground is if I was using this to make myself presentable. This is not my piece. Put on a breastplate of righteousness when you're disappointed. In many cases, the reason you're discouraged is because something that was your righteousness has been taken away from you. So many of our greatest desires for success are really ways

of trying to be for ourselves what Christ should be for us. When you're shy and self-conscious, put on the breastplate of righteousness and say, what's the matter with me? Why is it so important what these people think? Why do I need the approval of the serfs when I've got the favor of the King? Remember 1 Corinthians 3? It's a small thing of whether I'm judged by you. Yay, I don't even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It's God who judges me. See, I don't even care what my conscience says. My conscience is sometimes good, sometimes it's bad. My conscience is, Jiminy Cricket's wrong. He says, always let your conscience be your guy.

That's silly. Paul says, sometimes my conscience says I'm innocent when I'm really guilty. Sometimes it says I'm guilty when I'm innocent. He says, I don't go even on what my conscience says. I don't know what you think about me. I don't even care what I think about me, he says in 1 Corinthians 3. It's the Lord that justifies me. If there's anybody here who's never put this righteousness on, you may be time to do it

now. If there's anybody here who says, you know what, I've been leading a pretty crummy immoral life lately, and I was getting ready to be religious, but that statement by David Brainerd showed me that maybe that's all I ever was. And maybe religiousness is not the way to go. No. You know, there's a horrible passage in the Bible that says on the last day, people will stand before Jesus Christ and they will say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills

cover us, and hide us from the face of the one who's on the throne. That's what it's going to be like to realize as you stand before Him in your own wardrobe, all the things you've ever done, the pitiful fig leaves of your own righteousness will not be able to stand up to the, before the scrutiny of the eyes with whom you have to do. I don't want anybody in this room, though I fear there's going to be some. I hope there's no one in this room that on that day

will have to ask the mountains to cover them when you've got the blood of Jesus Christ and the righteousness of Jesus Christ here. Christian friends, whatever your problems are, you're timid, you're shy, you're disappointed, you're bitter, you're discouraged. Almost whatever it is, put on the breastplate of righteousness tonight. And having done it all, you'll be able to stand. Let's pray. Father, as we go to the table, we ask now that you would enable us, every one of us, to find the reasons and the reasons why we need to put on the breastplate of righteousness and to actually do it, to pick it up, to relish the righteousness that's given to us in Christ.

Father, many of us right now are dealing with tremendous accusations in our conscience. We're afraid even to come before the table, we pray that you would show us how to turn the tide on our own hearts. When our hearts condemn us, you're greater than our hearts. Help us to do that and another joy of those who stand with stand-up dignity in your presence. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching by Tim Keller here at Gospel and 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 and Life would like to send you a daily devotional.

Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com. That's gospelonlife.com. 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.