Bookends Ch 3: Enemies of the Gospel: Self-Righteousness

To review, we learned that (using the analogy of our lives being like a bookshelf with many books on it) our first bookend which holds up all of our "books" must be the righteousness of Christ which is given to us through the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross in which God credits us with Christ's perfect righteousness. We learned that this good news is what motivates us to love Christ and to desire to be like Him; to grow in holiness.

Now this week, in the third chapter we are discussing an enemy of the gospel: self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is when we depend upon our own performance to merit (or earn) God's approval, access to God (or fellowship with Him), acceptance into God's family, admittance into heaven (eternal life), daily provision of our needs or wants, and/or the ability to live the Christian life.

Paul says that self-righteousness nullifies God's grace in Galatians 2:21. "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose". We learned that this doesn't mean that we lose our salvific grace, but rather that we lose the ability to experience God's grace. When we have a self-righteous attitude we do not have the assurance that based soley on the righteousness of Christ, we have all of those blessings that were mentioned earlier. So this nullifies the grace of God because we treat the gospel as unimportant or ineffective, when we act as though God's blessings are dependent upon us.

This is a subtle sin and can disguise itself in many ways in our lives. Certainly, there are those who think that if they are good enough they'll get into heaven; but I think it is more deceptive in the hearts of believers who do ultimately trust in Christ's righteousness for salvation, but who fall into the temptation to live like they must essentially do the rest.. as if our salvation was purchased by Christ but the rest is up to us. One example that they used in the book really hit home with me. They spoke of whether we expect an answer to prayer when we are being obedient more than when we're being less faithful. Do we figure that God owes us blessings based upon our faithfulness? The danger of this type of thinking is that it causes us to stop pointing to the glories of Christ and the cross and instead point at ourselves and our "accomplishments". When we do this in our minds we can start to model this to the world and as such, we change the good news that we are preaching. So we need to be on guard to see whether we are trusting in the glories of Christ as imparted to us on the cross, or whether we are resting on our works of "righteousness".

Here are some questions from the book that can help us to assess ourselves:

Do you think of the cross often? Do you think of it as one rescued or as one judging all those others who "just need Jesus"?

Do you find it difficult to respect those whose standards aren't as high as yours?

Do you feel like God owes you a good life? How about when life is difficult: do you get angry and feel like you deserve better?

Do you recognize your own sins as quickly as you recognize others? Do you resent it when people point out your weaknesses or do you become defensive?

Do you find it difficult to identify specific sins that you commit each day and are you in the habit of repenting of specific sins on a moment by moment basis? Do you rationalize your sin?

Do you assume that practicing spiritual disciplines should result in God's blessing: especially day by day? Do you tend to think that things will work out according to your plans because you read your bible or prayed, etc. on any given day?

I chose this chapter to write about because I know this struggle is a big part of my life and so I hoped this chapter would challenge and stretch me. I was not disappointed. I hope that you all enjoyed the chapter and yet were also wonderously convicted and moved (as I was) to press on toward the goal of resting in Christ's righteousness every second of every day, for His glory!