The Armor Of God – Righteousness Series

The Armor of God – Righteousness – Teaching

(Recap: If someone wasn’t there, encourage them to ask someone for notes.)

Really quickly: Last week we talked about our truth belt and leaning on the Holy Spirit for truth. Does anyone want to very quickly share a truth adjustment the Holy Spirit had them make?

(If no one has anything, encourage people to keep listening, because we all have adjustments to make. Share your story or my story if no one has one as an example)

--------------

Example:

Someone shared this with me. They thought that God couldn’t heal anyone that wasn’t saved. They thought that it was “the children’s bread,” because that’s what they grew up with in church. The Holy Spirit brought this revelation to them like someone turned on the lights; no one in the Old Testament, including those in Jesus’ Earthly ministry, was actually born again. Jesus even healed non-Jewish people.

--------------

Let’s start this week’s very important lesson on righteousness!

Ephesians 6:14 NKJV

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

Righteousness. The Roman soldier’s breast plate was to protect all their vital organs from an attack. It was a piece of thick metal that was attached on the sides with leather straps.

Righteousness in the Bible simply means right standing with God. According to Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, right standing with God will protect vital parts, our heart. There are many verses in the Bible that speak of righteousness.

We’re going to break righteousness up into two parts, spiritual position and righteous living, because they’re separate and yet they are related. When we don’t live righteously before the Lord, it affects our consciousness. Once your consciousness is affected, it changes your perception of your spiritual position, and then you won’t boldly approach the throne of grace that you may obtain mercy and grace in your time of need (Hebrews 4:16). Did you get that? I’ll say that one more time in a different way. When you feel bad for sinning, it affects how you view yourself in Christ, and then you approach God sheepishly, fearfully, despondently, sorrowfully, and so on... therefore you won’t approach God boldly to obtain mercy and grace in your time of need but approach Him more like a beggar needing a handout. When we feel that way, we start saying things like, “I’ll never ask You for anything else… If You do this for me, I’ll do… Please, please, please just this once…” We shift our prayers outside of scripture, praying from a weak position, because of how we feel and what we think of ourselves. That’s how we get away from the Word.

First, let’s talk about spiritual position

In the Old Testament, Israel was made righteous through doing certain rituals, which made right standing with God performance based. In the New Testament, we’re made righteous in Christ, which makes our right standing with God based on what Christ has already done for us, and it’s accepted by faith. When we start to judge ourselves according to how God sees us by saying, “I should read my Bible more… I should give money to the poor… I should be in church more… I should… I should….” That’s performance based, and you’re putting yourself back under the law. There is absolutely nothing wrong with assessing how you’re growing in Christ. What we’re talking about is when you need something from God and your prayer is, “God, I know I haven’t been the best Christian… God, I know I could have….” before you ask for something. That’s not Biblical humility but not understanding who you are in Christ. We don’t see examples of these types of prayer in the Word. If you’re talking with God about making changes in your life to be closer to Him, of course that’s perfectly fine, because you’re being honest, “God I haven’t been acting like Jesus lately. Holy Spirit, I need your help to change.”

For some people, it’s a wild, sacred-cow-killing, and a reckless thought to think you were made completely righteous when you said, “I do,” to Jesus, and you have remained that way Bible reading or no Bible reading, church going or nonchurch going, giving to the poor or not giving to the poor. Let’s look at some scripture to see that we were made completely righteous in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NKJV

16Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.