Awake To Righteousness
We’ve been talking about righteousness and the importance of knowing we are the righteousness of God in Christ. Again the definition of righteousnes according to the Greek Lexicon is, “the state of him who is as he ought to be, righteous, the condition acceptable to God.” This is how we ought to be, because of what Jesus has done, we are,now, in a state or condition that is acceptable to God. It has nothing to do with what we do, it has to do with what
He has done.
I Cor 15:34 in the King James says, “awake to righteousness and sin not”. The NIV says,
“come back to your senses”. Another translation says, “be awake to righteousness and keep yourselves from sin”. Another translation says, “come to your right mind, and sin no more.”
What is ones’s “right mind”? What is “coming back to your senses”, as the NIV says? It is
coming back to the truth and reality that “we are the righteousness of God in Christ”. That we
are already righteous, it’s not something that we have to achieve or try to earn.
“Awake to righteousness and sin not.” In other words, all these translations are saying the same
thing in one way or another and that is, before we are going to be able to effectively overcome sin, we must awake to righteousness. Awake to righteousness and sin not. Most of the time we think
of that backwards, that I must stop sinning first, before I can awake to righteousness, but that’s
not what it says, it says to first awake to righteousness, then when we realize that we already are the righteousness of God, because He has made us righteousness, then, through that knowledge, and the power and authority of righteousness we will be able to overcome sin. Sin will no longer have any dominion over us.
The one translation says, “come to your right mind”. Romans 12:2 says we are transformed by
the “renewing of our minds”. Until our minds have been renewed to the truth that we already are
the righteousness of God, we will never really have the power over sin in our life.
You see, the power of God comes to us from Him through righteousness, and the power of our knowing that we have a right to certain things. That we have the power through righteousness to not let sin
“reign in our mortal bodies”, as Rom 6:12 says. Sin is always present with us in our flesh, our or
sinful nature or our outward man, they all mean the same thing. It’s always there, it’s whether or
not it is able to reign or not that’s the real issue. And the only way it is not going to reign, is
through the power of righteousness. Look at Rom 5:17-21 again.
The only way we will ever be able to reign in life is through the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness given to us by Jesus Christ. You can not reign as long as you don’t believe you have a right to, and if you think your right to reign comes as a result of you never committing a sin, you can forget it. You’ll be defeated all your life. But when we realize that our right to reign comes as a free gift, as a result of who we are, who He has made us, rather that what we do, that we don’t have to earn it, then the power that comes from that knowledge will defeat keep sin from reigning in our mortal bodies. How? Because knowledge is power. Jesus said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The knowledge of the truth has the power to set us free. When you know who you are, it’s easier to live accordingly. If you don’t know who you are, you’ll live like everybody else, because you think you’re supposed to. It’s sort of like being born into royalty. Someone who is born of royal blood, will not live and conduct themselves the way other people do. Why? Is it because they don’t have the ability? No, they could choose to live any way they wanted to, but they don’t because of who
they are. And it’s easy for them to choose to live a certain way, because of who they are. They know who they are already, they don’t have to try and prove it. They were born who they are. So they live by
different standards than everybody else, not because they earned it, but because they were born into it. But if they didn’t know who they were, they would probably live and act like everyone else. Do you see what I am saying?
Let’s look at Rom 4: When we believe God’s word to us and the “righteousness which is of
faith” begins to work in us, we will not consider our own bodies, or our on flesh, no matter
what it wants, no matter how strong the desire may be, we will not consider the flesh. Abraham
considered not his own body, and he staggered not at the promise of God because he was strong
in faith. His faith which was imputed to him for righteousness is what made him strong enough to
stand against or "consider not" his own flesh. If it hadn’t been for his right standing with God through faith, he would never have been able to stand against or "considernot" his own flesh, and neither will you and I.
That’s why it is so vital to know the word, because faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the
word. And when we are strong in faith and the knowledge of our righteousness, sin will no
longer have any dominion over us. Sin will no longer rule our lives, and even from time to time, if
our flesh, where sin resides should pop its ugly head up and we do stumble, we have an advocate with the Father, and when we confess our sins, he’s faithful to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
So the message today is, Awake to righteousness, come to the knowledge of your righteousness. Realize that you are the righteousness of God, and you will begin to act like it.
