Philippians 3:1-21

The priority of anyone who is wrong ought to be to get right.  All of us have been made wrong because of sin and getting right with God should be the highest priority of every man.  God demands righteousness in order to be rightly related to Him.  The bad news is that none of us are righteous.  The good news is that Christ has made His righteousness available to us through faith in the work that He has done on our behalf.  Because of our pride, it is difficult for us to admit that we need this righteousness that we did not earn.  However, it is the only righteousness that is available to us.

WE MUST NOT BE DECEIVED BY SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS: There are always those who will present some system invented by man whereby we can somehow achieve our own righteousness.  For the Jews it was by observing the Law, other religions have their lists of rituals that must be performed as well.  However, they all claim to lead a person to attain a righteousness that comes from human effort.  These are false religions that offer no true hope but they are very attractive to us because they provide us with a sense of accomplishment in attaining self-righteousness.  We must not be deceived by these man-made religions that appeal to our flesh and our pride but, in reality, do nothing to provide the righteousness that we so desperately need.
WE MUST DENY OUR OWN SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS: The first step to attaining true righteousness is to admit the lack of our own righteousness.  We must recognize our desperate need.  Paul had an impressive list of accomplishments within the religion of Judaism; he also had an impressive pedigree.  However, he considered all of these to be the same a refuse or trash in light of the requirements of God.  It is easy for us to impress other people, or to be impressed or proud of ourselves.  God, on the other hand, is not impressed by our accomplishments; He requires complete and perfect righteousness.  The sooner we come to the place of admitting that we do not possess this righteousness, the sooner we will be able to find the gracious offer of God through Christ.  It is of vital importance that we turn from and deny our self righteousness.
WE MUST DESIRE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST: The only means by which we can be accepted by God is by faith in the cross of Christ, which will result in the transfer of our sin to the cross and the transfer of Christ’s righteousness to us.  This is the means that God has prescribed whereby we might have hope of being free from our sin and be able to attain the righteousness that He demands.  The righteousness of Christ makes us acceptable to God, but it also implants within our hearts a burning desire to move forward in the practice of righteousness in order to bring glory to God.  Perfection is not within our grasp apart from Christ, but if we have experienced forgiveness, our greatest desire will be to live for God’s glory and to press on to the righteous life that He desires to produce in our lives.  This is the desire that God longs to see in our lives and fulfill in our lives as we look forward to the truly righteous life He will bring about in us when we reach heaven.

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