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Dunlap SDA Church

P. Gerard Damsteegt

Experiencing Righteousness by Faith in Christ

Let us ask the Lord to give the full power of the Holy Spirit.

Lord, I send you a spirit of righteousness.

Fill us with your Holy Spirit and may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Savior and Redeemer.

You know, this subject has been presented many occasions under the title Righteousness by Faith.

Many of those presentations were very interesting.

In fact the history of the Christian Church has seen 3 times this subject coming up.

Once in the days of Paul, and that was in the early church, to the Romans, the message to the Romans, and it was not always pleasantly accepted.

The next experience with Righteous by Faith was during the Reformation.

And there was the conflict between the established Catholic Church and the Reformers within the Church.

And they had difficulty in accepting what the Church was teaching there in regards not righteousness by faith in Christ.

And the next thing, when it appears again on the horizon, was in our church, about 40 years after the beginning of our church in 1888.

And again, there are strong discussions, heavily disagreements, and that is not what I wanted to present today.

I think we have had enough disagreements.

But what I think I'd like to present is how this righteousness, this righteousness by faith can be experienced.

You know, the intellectual concept, I'm sure that here are a number of people who can explain it.

Can I see the hands of some who would like to venture out in explaining it?

I wouldn't ask you to come here to the pulpit and give a lecture on this.

But keep in mind here that the intellectual presentation, the intellectual understanding doesn't make it.

You get dry discussions, fights, and if you have time and you want to see what took place in 1888, in 1988 the General Conference White Estate collected all the manuscripts and letters in which Ellen Wright has mentioned the term 1888 and righteousness.

And they came with 4 compilations of over 1, 800 pages.

So you see there was lots of things going on.

But I read it because I was asked to teach this subject and you know it was not the most pleasant material.

I digested it, I glanced, I glanced the most beautiful things, but now I'd like to summarize my experience and my personal experience in The next half an hour.

The importance of this subject was already pointed out by Jesus who said in Matthew 5 verse 6, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.

Now the question is, does this fit your experience?

Because in order to be filled with this, what needs to be happening?

You need to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And the question is, how many of us, I don't even want to see hands, are hungry and thirsty for righteousness.

See that is something totally different experience.

And yet this is what the Lord said in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

In fact a little later on he recommends to list priorities in your life and 1 of the priorities is seek first the kingdom of God and we know this text but that was not the end.

The end of this text is, and his righteousness.

And the question is, are we seeking first with the kingdom the righteousness?

And if you don't, you will never be filled.

Friends, the biblical teaching of righteousness by faith in Christ affects the experience of the believer in 3 areas.

In the past, in the present, and in the future.

And for you, of course, it is important to know the present.

But without the past, you will never experience the present.

And so let us now try to analyze this here.

The experience about righteousness by faith in Christ in the past.

Because if you've never experienced it, It's bit too early for you to begin right now.

And make this a part of your past experience.

Now we don't think generally if we talk about the rise of faith, then we talk about repentance.

But this is the prerequisite to experience it.

Genuine repentance produces godly sorrow.

It results in a radical change in attitude towards God and sin.

You know, now you may understand probably, Well, when Jesus started to preach, what generally did he say?

Because without repentance you will never experience.

God's Spirit convicts those who receive Him of the seriousness of sin by bringing them to a sense of God's righteousness and their own lost condition.

You find this in 2 Corinthians 7 verse 10.

Now I would invite you to turn to the text.

And I frequently use the New King James, but this time I don't.

Because very few Bibles have the definition that the spirit of prophecy uses over and over again that really brings a certain special experience.

So I'm reading then for the King James, the second Corinthians chapter 7, verse 10.

And Paul says here, for godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation.

And it is only when we have godly sorrow it goes to repentance.

And then it says here, not only this, repentance to salvation, not to be repented of.

Now this is basically 1 of the literal translations here.

Because what happened is what we experience, like many of our Catholic friends do also, they go to the priest, they confess 1 thing, and what happened next week?

Come back, confess the same thing over and over again.

And you don't worry about it because the priest tells you what to do.

And you do a number of penitence, and then it is over.

And you know that next week you can do it again.

No, friends, true repentance is preceded by Godly sorrow.

You have to be deeply sorrowful, And at the same time, what does it say here?

So in other words, you don't repeat this all the time.

Now, of course, the Bible has always a way out that if you fail, there's hope.

Because in 1 John 2, if anybody sins, what happened then?

You know, there is forgiveness But is there forgiveness if you commit this sin and you do it all the time.

And the text says worldly sorrow result into what?

You know, God is very patient with us and no matter what you do, he's very patient, but there comes an end to it, because you don't have truly godly sorrow.

Experiencing Righteousness by Faith in Christ

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