Let me read for you as an introduction to our study today, a section of scripture that we've been studying for some time now in Ephesians chapter six on the subject of spiritual warfare. And then after we read the text, I want to focus your attention again today on verse 14, give you a minute to get there. If you're there in Ephesians chapter six, I would like you to pick up with me in verse 10 today. Every once in a while, we'll just go ahead so that we don't forget. and we'll read the whole text. And so I'm going to do that today. I'm going to begin reading in verse 10 and read all the way down through verse 20. Here's what Paul says. Last major section now in his letter, after all the wonderful things he's taught us about who we are and what it means to walk the worthy Christian walk. Here now is his last subject. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which I'm an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. Bow with me in prayer. Father, I echo Paul's request here before your throne today. Pray that I would speak boldly as I ought to speak with the word of God open before me and that delegated authority from you to proclaim it. Father, we have a great subject and we pray that you would open our hearts and our minds and that you would teach us and that you would change us and that you would equip us. Father, that you would edify us and sanctify us. And father, if there's any lost ones here, that you would save them as we study and work through precious truth of your word today. Father, we need your spirit to be our guide, protect us from the very enemy that we're talking about as we study. And we'll give you all the thanks and the praise and the honor and the glory for it all in advance, praying these things in Jesus name, amen. Well, we've gotten a pretty good start on the second major section in this text now, that we're calling the believers defensive strategy. Of course, we had a call to battle in the first four verses, and now we're on the believer's defensive strategy in the next four verses of this text. And in this next section, what's happening is this. Paul is explaining all the various pieces of armor that make up the full armor of God that he's already mentioned twice in the first section. And so, as we see these pieces of armor, there are six of them. We're just taking them one at a time. working down through them for the past two weeks now, which I guess had Christmas in there, so it goes back even more than that. But for the past two weeks of study now, we've been talking about what it means to gird your loins with truth. And I'm not gonna spend a lot of time reviewing that because we spent a lot of time unfolding it. But I will remind you again this morning that Paul mentions this girdle first for a reason. The girdle is the first piece of armor. Please remember that. the first piece of armor that the soldier would put on. Paul watched it happen many times. And it's also the foundational piece of armor upon which all the other pieces depended, and we talked about that as well. Keep in mind now that as we cross the bridge, all of those same features now, as we've discussed over the past weeks, carry over to the spiritual soldier's girdle. That girdle is also foundational to all the other pieces. And what is this girdle? What is the spiritual soldiers girdle made out of? Text is clear. That girdle is made out of precious truth. Now, if you've been here, you know that I've spent a significant amount of my time here in the pulpit over the past two weeks, defining and defending what I believe with all my heart. Paul meant when he used this word truth, Ephesians 6 14 and so let me emphasize that again please understand again this morning that your girdle that you wear out into this battlefield is not made out of the subjective truthfulness in your life as the vast majority of teachers on this subject would say and believe me I know I've read them probably over a dozen of them your girdle is not that subjective truthfulness that flows out of your life. Your girdle, people, is made out of that objective body of absolute and eternal truth that we have in the written word of God. Would you please mark that again, dear brothers and sisters, as the foundation of your defense against the forces of hell. And would you be reminded again this morning, I know we've talked about this before, but would you be reminded again this morning that that is a foundation that will never ever fail you. It's a foundation that will never fail you. And it's a foundation that will never, this is important. It's a foundation that will never be hindered by whatever degree of unfaithfulness there happens to be in your life at any given moment of time. So important to understand. I've said this before, and I will say it again. The truthfulness, the subjective truthfulness in your life will never be perfect. Never perfect. Even on your best day, it will never be perfect. But the truth of what your girdle is made dear friend, is always perfect every day. God wants you to know that when he sends you out there on that battlefield. You need to know that. This people, another way to put it would be to say this, this people, this girdle, this is not the armor that your life produces, this is the armor that God provides. Very important point. This girdle is the first piece of what is called what the full armor of God, full armor of God. This girdle, this perfect truth, as we learned last week is truth that God imparts to you in the sovereign saving act, making you remember the reference we went to making you among those blessed ones that Jesus spoke to pilot about who are, remember what he said about those people? Those who hear me are those who are what of the truth. Aren't you thankful this morning that you're of the truth? Does that mean you understand all the truth and all the details of all? No, but you're of the truth and I'm of the truth because God imparted his truth to me as a part of the saving act. And that truth, again, is not the subject of truthfulness of my life that is always less than perfect. It's that absolute truth of the word of God. Now, We are going to jump into the next piece of armor today. I promise we are going to talk about the breastplate of righteousness today. But before we do that, because this is such an important deal, I want to say just one more clarifying word, maybe two about that subjective truthfulness that I've said over and over and over again is not what this girdle is made of. And let me tell you why I want to say another word about it. I want to say another word about it because we're going to, we're going to, you know what? As we march into the breastplate, guess what we're going to have to deal with? The very same issue again. Now, as I said a little while ago, I have read lots and lots and lots of explanations of this girdle. And as I've said before, Most of them have concluded that this girdle is a girdle that's made out of that subjective truthfulness of our lives. That's the direction most of them go in. And so what you have to do to put this girdle on, they say, is to live a life of integrity. You have to speak the truth. That's putting the girdle on. When you do that, when you speak the truth, when you live a life of integrity, the girdle is on. When you don't, guess what? The girdle is off. Now that does, of course, understanding this whole thing pretty easy. But I submit to you that an easy interpretation is not worth very much if it's wrong. And it's my contention and my conviction that it's wrong. And certainly, as I've said before, you know, I have to add this again. I'm not against those things. Don't think I'm preaching against truthfulness. I'm not. Um, I'm not against those things. I fully agree with these guys that you do need to live a life of integrity. I'm for that, okay? You do need to speak the truth. I'm for that. But once again, let me say that I do not think that that's the essence of this girdle. That's my point. I don't think any of these guys that I'm talking about are intentionally trying to mislead anyone. I just think they've missed the point. I think they've missed the main point. And because we're going to have to deal with the same thing again today, I thought, I thought it would be good for me to just take an extra minute or two this morning to try to explain it to you several ways before, let me take a minute or two to explain this thing to you. And yet one more way this morning, because we're going to see it again. Think about this. As you study the scriptures and understand the Christian life, a very important thing you will have to know, is how to differentiate between the positional and the practical. Have we talked about that before? If you're going to study the scriptures and make sense out of the Christian life, you will need to know how to differentiate between the positional and the practical. Christianity with regards to lots of different things is an already not yet kind of a situation. We even speak of it that way sometimes. And that's why we often will say something like this. The Christian life is... becoming what you are. Have you ever heard that said? The Christian life is becoming what you are. And what do we mean by that? Well, we mean that the Christian life is becoming more and more in practice as you live this life, what you already are in position. Does that make sense? The Christian life is becoming what you are. Position and practice people can't be separated in the Christian life. But that having been said, there is a marked difference between the two. And if you don't understand those two, it will confuse you every single time if you get them mixed up while you're studying the scriptures. And let's apply that truth now to the truth of which this girdle is made. When I land on objective truth as the substance of this girdle, I want you to know that I'm not in any way denying the subjective expression of that truth in your life. One has to do with position. The other one has to do with practice. And as I said, those two things are inseparable. So inseparable that we can say this, if subjective truthfulness is not the rule in your life, then you know what I have to say about you? Then I would have to say that the objective truth isn't there either because It's the objective truth within you that produces the subject of truth. It's the objective truth within you that makes it possible for you to speak the truth. You see, if you really are of the truth, as Jesus said to pilot positionally, then the general rule of your life is going to be the practice of truthfulness. That's what's going to prove it. The two are inseparable. You can't have one without the other, but here's my point now. Please understand my help. I hope I'm not making this only as clear as mud. Here's my point. You see how the two work together and the one drives the other? It's the objective truth that's in the driver's seat. That's what I'm trying to say. It's the objective truth that's driving this thing. That's the stable one of the two, the consistent one of the two, the sure and steadfast one of the two. That's the one that's producing the other one. That's the one that's driving the other one. And so, I contend that's the one that Paul is talking about. You see, while you're here in this earth and your human body, what you are in practice is always going to fall short of what you are in position. And again, why is it so important for me to get carried away and elaborate on this? And Tom Palpitt and whatever I'm doing up here, why is all of that important? It's important for me to elaborate on this again, because your understanding and application of all of these pieces of armor, I believe, depends on it. If you can't understand it, how's it gonna work? It won't. You need to understand it in your mind before it's gonna work in your life. As I said a couple times now, we're gonna deal with the same issue again today when we get moving into the breastplate. But while we're still talking about the girdle for a minute, this discussion is important. And let me tell you why it's important. Here is why it's important. Get this. While we're still talking about the girdle, this discussion is important because you need to know folks that a little lapse, and I'm afraid with that other interpretation, I'm afraid a lot of professing Christians out there don't know this. You need to know regarding the girdle now that a little lapse in your subjective integrity, a little lapse like that, that is not the rule of your life, but the exception of your life is not going to equal stripping your girdle off. You need to know that. How can you go out on the battlefield wondering, Ooh, what if I crossed the line? Maybe my girdles dropped, right? Um, it's not a little lapse in your subjective integrity is not going to strip your girdle off any more than it's going to equal losing your salvation. Same principle. And always remember anyway, there's kind of a parallel there here, isn't there? That's what, that's what my conclusion is anyway. Us remember as we study that this armor taken as a whole represents an understanding and an application in your life of the gospel of Jesus Christ really does. All of this represents not just what it means to be a faithful and obedient spiritual soldier, but also what it means to be a faithful and obedient follower of Jesus Christ. Okay. And so let's move on now. I'm not seeing this armor completely separated from the whole of the Christian life. Really. It's an important subject that Paul is dealing with, but let's move on to a second piece of armor. at the end of verse 14. And this one is one now that Paul refers to as the breastplate of righteousness. Let me read that verse again. Stand firm. Our goal in this battle is pretty clear, isn't it? How many times have we seen that? What? That third time, I think. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth. And here we are now and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, we're moving on. Second piece. First thing we need to talk about on all of these, I told you it's going to be the same on all of them. First thing we need to talk about here is what Paul was looking at when he penned this verse. What do you suppose he's looking at now? Right? He was looking at the girdle. Now he's looking at the Roman soldier's breastplate. Most of the time he was chained to the guy, lots of time to look. And so now let's talk a little bit about the Roman soldier's breastplate. We're not going to get too carried away with that, but we need to talk about it a little bit. I'm going to ask and answer two questions that I think will get us to where we need to be. Understanding of that. What was the Roman soldier's breastplate made of and what did it protect? What was it made of? What did it look like? And what did it protect? Well, the Roman soldier's breastplate was often made out of leather or some type of heavy linen, perhaps, onto which were sewn overlapping slices of animal hooves or horns, or sometimes pieces of metal that were kind of overlapping to protect him. For the higher-ranking soldiers, I read that these breastplates were usually made entirely out of metal, that the metalsmith would hammer it into the shape of his torso or his body. They were custom-made for the higher-ranking guys or soldiers, completely out of metal. And then I have to tell you, just as a side note here, that as I thought about this breastplate in my study one day, I couldn't help but remember that time when I had to wear one myself. Joe remembers that. Mine, I think, was made out of fiberglass, I believe, is the one that I had. This was a long time ago, but a number of years ago when I was at the Baptist church here in town, back in the couple of first years in 1990s, I don't know why, but I was selected to be the Roman centurion in that Christmas thing they did. I think Joe came to that maybe, and maybe that was the first time I met Joe. And so I was marching around there that night, a couple of those nights, and I had a breastplate and I had a helmet with the big flume thing on it. and I had a shield, and if I remember correctly, I think I even had a sword for that thing. But anyway, see the picture here, not me, but see the picture here that Paul wants you to see. We have a Roman soldier with his breastplate on, which was a tough, sleeveless, vest-like piece of armor that covered his full torso, okay? And let's talk a little bit now about all the important things that a piece of armor like that would protect when you're in a battle. No Roman soldier would ever even think of going into battle without his breastplate on because the breastplate is what protected all the, you know, what's all, you know, what's there, right? All the vital organs of the body are there. I've mentioned to you before that most of the combat that was involved with these guys was hand to hand kind of combat, which is a very close range kind of thing, kind of combat that was done with a a very short sword or even what we might refer to as a dagger. And so in that close hand-to-hand kind of combat with a dagger or a short sword, getting your head cut off was far less of a problem than getting a fatal wound to the mid section. And so that was a real big deal. They needed that protection there from the breastplate. And there were two primary areas, two very important and primary areas protected by the breastplate. First of all, There was the heart area, the upper area of the torso, which included the heart and the lungs. And then there was, down lower, the bowel area, which included the intestines and the kidney and the liver and, you know, various other vital organs of the body down lower. And all of that was protected by the breastplate. And with that very brief and basic description of the Roman soldier's breastplate now, Let's leave it. We're going to cross the bridge and talk about the more important breastplate there is for us to understand. And that is the spiritual soldiers breastplate. On this one, I have a number of questions that are going to guide our thoughts, questions that are very similar to the ones that we used with regard to the girdle. And so probably a good plan here would be for me to just go ahead and give you the questions right now. We're not gonna make it through all of them today, but let me give you the questions right now so that you'll sort of have an idea of where we're going on this study. And then we'll actually get through three of them today before we run out of time. Question number four will be for next week. Question number five will be for the week after that. And then we're off to the footwear, right? The gospel shoes. And so here are the questions. I have a total of five. Let me just lay them out for you. We just talked about what the Roman soldiers breastplate protected. And so while that's still fresh in our minds, I thought it would be good. We'll just begin with the question. What does the spiritual soldiers breastplate protect? Right? We'll start there from there. We'll ask an answer, a very easy question. What is the spiritual soldiers breastplate made of? The answer to that's right in our tax. That's not hard, but it will beg a third question that is a little harder. Um, And that's the one we'll finish with today. What kind of righteousness did Paul have in mind here? And so you can see we're right back where we were on the truth of the girdle. Question number four for next week is how do you put this breastplate on? How do you put this breastplate of righteousness on? Well, how do you get, this kind of righteousness that the breastplate is made out of. That's a question folks that is going to lead us into a discussion of a very precious, please excuse my sniffing. It's a part of what's going on right now, but doing my best. That's a question that will lead us actually feel pretty good. That's a question that will lead us into a discussion of a very precious and foundational doctrine of the faith that will be the entire focus of our study next Lord's day. And that is the doctrine of justification. That's the answer to the question, how do you put this girdle on? And then we'll finish in the week following with question number five, how does this breastplate work on the spiritual battlefield? What is it going to do for you once you have it on? Okay, so let's go back to work now, back to question one. What does the spiritual soldier's breastplate protect? And we just noticed that the Roman soldier's breastplate covered all the vital organs in his heart area and in his bowel area. And as we cross the bridge now, I have to remind you what those two areas of the human body represented in ancient Jewish thinking. That's critical here and very important here. Something that very surely, would have been in Paul's mind as he penned these inspired words. And I think I'm quite sure that we have talked about this before, probably more than once as it's come up in our study of the scriptures over the years. And so I think most of you already know this, but let's review it anyway. In Jewish thinking, the heart represented the mind, which also included the will. Okay. In Jewish thinking, the heart represented the mind, which also included the will. And let me not just say that, let me demonstrate it for you very quickly from the scriptures. I'll give you just a few out of many real quick here. Jesus said this in Matthew 15, 19, for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. Now, We know, don't we, that evil thoughts and all of those other things don't literally come out of that big muscle in your chest cavity that pumps blood throughout your body. Right? And so we understand Jesus here to be using the word heart in that symbolic Jewish way to refer to the mind. Let me give you another one. Moses is another one who makes this clear. You know, this verse, Deuteronomy six, six, Moses said, and these words, which I'm commanding you today shall be on your, heart. Um, what he very clearly meant by that is that these words shall be on your mind. He said heart, but he meant mind. And we know that because it's not again in your literal heart muscle where you understand and process words. It's in your mind where we do that. Um, heart equals mind. And then there's, um, Deuteronomy 1426 that speaks of that which the heart desires, or we could say that which the heart wills. Okay. And so we understand, that the heart and Jewish thinking represented the mind and the will. We've talked about it before. Lots of other scriptures could support that, but suffice it for this morning to say that that's the analogy that Paul is making here. Adding to the girdle, now think about this, adding to the girdles, girding of the loins of your mind. We had the breastplate now as further protection for that critical place in between your left ear and your right ear. You see, Satan, in most cases, is not interested in plunging a dagger through your heart, literally, but he is very much interested in what? Attacking your mind. And I built that case, been a while now, but we built that case a while ago. And so we have now two pieces of armor that both protect the mind. This is kind of interesting. Two pieces of armor that both protect the mind in different ways. A primary focus of the girdle is to protect the way your mind processes truth, And a primary focus of the breastplate now is to protect the way your mind processes feelings and emotions, which moves us into the second area protected by the breastplate. The heart equals the mind and the will. Up higher, the bowels now. In Jewish thinking, the heart represented the mind and the will. And in Jewish thinking, the bowel area down lower protected, or represented rather, the seat of your emotions. I think you all know that, right? We've talked about that before. The Jews understood the bowels to be that place where you feel things. The bowel area of the body represented feelings and affections and you know how it is even with us still today. We often talk about, don't we, you know, people hate public speaking and if you ever have an opportunity where you have to do that, sometimes people will say, I'm getting, butterflies in my stomach, right? Or other times when people have a decision to make, they will say, you know, I have a gut feeling about this or about that or whatever. This is where those expressions came from. It's a Jewish, it's an ancient Jewish thing. And again, it's something that can be demonstrated in scripture. Unfortunately, not very well by the NASB, but let me explain. Colossians 3.12 and 1 John 3.17 both refer to having a heart of compassion. but I'm going to prefer the King James Bible in those cases because in both of those verses, the King James Bible says bowels of compassion and the King James Bible is actually a better translation in both of those cases because bowels is exactly what that Greek word means. It's the Greek word from which we get our word spleen. Now the more common word for heart in the new Testament is cardia with a K cardia. This is not cardia here in Colossians three 12 and first John three 17 this is the word splank non it's used some 11 times in the new Testament and it's a word that literally refers to all the internal organs in that bowel area of the body. And so when the King James Bible says bowels, perfect, perfect word, to translate that Greek word. And let me give you one verse now where the NASB does get it right. There's one verse where the NASB actually translates this word in a way that makes its meaning very clear. Um, it says this in acts one 18 about Judas. Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness and falling headlong. He burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out. Okay. Uh, that's a little gross. but that's what the word means. And that's our word right there. Intestines is our word. That's what it means. Bowels. Okay. Now please understand again that in Hebrew thinking, the bowels represented the seat of emotions or feelings. A second area protected by this breastplate, a second area where Satan desires to attack believers. Right now, let me give you just a little preview of what we're going to talk about when we get to question number five. Why is this important? When we get to question number five, we're going to answer the question, how does this breastplate work on the spiritual battlefield? Let me throw a hint out for you to think about. It'll take us a couple more weeks before we get there. The enemy of your soul, people, is going to mess with your emotions. He's going to mess with your emotions. He's going to try to twist, the way you think about things. He's going to try to make you feel wrong things about wrong things. He's going to, he's going to put things in your mind that aren't real. He's going to make you, he's going to mess with your emotions and let me tell you what his ultimate goal is and we'll talk about it further later on. His ultimate goal is that he wants to get you to rely on your feelings and your emotions as the foundation of your faith. Right? They're not worthy of that. They're not reliable. They're not dependable. They're fluctuating. They come and they go. Some of them are real. Some of them are not. They're just not worthy of that. But his goal is to get you to focus. And so why do you suppose, I mean, I don't want to get carried away about this right now because we're going to do it later, but why do you suppose there's all these, why do you suppose in Satan's counterfeit church today that that's the focus? Feel good stuff, emotional stuff, work them up kind of stuff, right? Some of it, most of it is, is, is humanly manufactured, manipulated kind of emotional stuff because you know what happens? You get all worked up and you go home and an hour later, you crash. It's gone. There's nothing there. And so Satan wants you to put your reliance upon those fickle kind of feelings and emotions. And so he's going to mess with your emotions. He's going to mess with you regarding those things that you need to know. Can I just give you a hint right now? What the answer to that is the breastplate of righteousness is the answer. We'll get there. We'll talk about that later. And so, Anyway, I gave you more of a preview than I was intending to right now on that, but, uh, uh, just because I'm, I've been thinking about it so much, but please mark and remember the answer to this first question, what the breastplate protects, the feeling, the mind, the will, the feelings and emotions and so forth. Um, until we remark and remember that, so we get the question number five, um, and then we will elaborate on it a whole bunch more, uh, on that day. Please hold that thought for now. Let's move on, um, to question number two. more stuff to get out on the table here. Question number two is the quick one, easy one. What is a spiritual soldier's breastplate made of? Well, just like it was for the girdle, this question gets answered very directly in the text, making it of course, a very easy one to answer. What is the spiritual, you know, if you had one of those fill in the blank kind of Bible studies, like, like I used to have years ago, you know, You fill in the blank. It's pretty easy to get the answer right on this one, right? What is the spiritual soldier's breastplate made out of? You look in your verse 14 and what does it say? Righteousness. Ding, ding, ding. And you get the prize. You win. That's the answer. The spiritual soldier's girdle is made out of truth and the spiritual soldier's breastplate now is made out of righteousness. That's the answer to this question. Okay. It's the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness translates a Greek word that is used 91 times in the new Testament, always in its noun form and almost always translated with the familiar biblical word righteousness. I did find one as I looked, I did find one verse where the word was translated as right instead of righteousness. And, and as I looked at that, I thought, you know what, that's, that's a very good definition. of the word as Peter took the gospel, it's in Acts 10. When Peter took the gospel, remember he was the first one to take the gospel to the Gentile household of Cornelius. And in that account, Peter used this word to speak of the man who does what is right. A really good definition of the word. That's exactly what it means. Righteousness is rightness. Righteousness is rightness. Okay. And so here's where we're going to begin on that. Would you please understand now, as we opened up this subject of righteousness, that there's only one true and real source for that thing. And that is God. God is the only true and real source of righteousness. Whenever the Bible speaks of the righteousness of God, you can always know that it's talking about a perfect righteousness. God is perfectly righteous. Everything he says is perfectly righteous. Everything he does, is perfectly righteous. Our God is perfectly righteous and just, and our God is perfectly holy and pure, and on and on it goes. All cases that can be easily and thoroughly built in the scriptures. Whenever, mark this, whenever we're talking about the righteousness of God, there is never any confusion about what is meant by that term. But now I have to say, but, but the Bible also uses this same term righteousness to speak of men. Okay. And, uh, that is something of course that now jumbles it up a little bit for the sake of clarity and understanding. What I think most of you already know is that this word righteousness is a word that gets applied to men in the scriptures in a variety of different ways, which moves us now into our final question for today. Question number three. The girdle we had to deal with, we had to understand which kind of truth Paul had in mind. Now we have a similar question to answer with regard to righteousness. As we seek to understand the breastplate, let me say that it is critical for us to know which kind of righteous, here we go again, right? What kind of truth? Well, now we're going to have to deal with this question. Which kind of righteousness did Paul have in mind when he penned these words at the end of Ephesians 6, 14, what kind of righteousness among the various ways that word gets applied to men, right? When it's applied to God, we're, we're sure on it. We don't have any problem there. But now when it's applied to men, we, we have to understand exactly what direction Paul is going in. What is he referring to? How did he mean it to be understood? Let me give you the options this morning. And as I give you the options, we'll also narrow it down. Start off, first of all, and the first one, by the way, is not it, but let's start there anyway. First of all, it must be said that this word righteousness gets applied sometimes in the scriptures, even to unbelievers, right? It does. There are unbelievers referred to in the scriptures, Think with me on this now. Some of them are religious, some of them are not, but they're unbelievers who are referred to in the scriptures who are producing something on their own that they think is righteousness and that they call righteousness, but that is not really righteousness at all. For the sake of our study today, we're gonna call this first kind of righteousness today self-righteousness, all right? Self-righteousness. Let me give you a couple of examples. When I say self-righteousness, I'm talking about a humanly manufactured kind of righteousness. This is, for example, we hear about this all the time, don't we? This is the godless Hollywood movie star who gives a million dollars, he probably, he or she probably has, you know, $50 million, but sacrificially gives a million dollars to feed the poor in some third world country, thinking that that's going to gain that person favor with that. Or maybe it's that, how about this example? Maybe it's that religious Mormon who takes a year off work to walk the streets and knock on doors because he thinks that will earn him favor and merit with God. Bible has much to say about self-righteousness because, mark this, most lost people wrongly think by default that heaven is something they can earn on the basis of their own good works. They wrongly think this way. They wrongly think that God is going to one day put all of their deeds on the balance scale and, um, They're hoping that the balance scale is going to tip on the good side. And then if it tips on the good side, if the good side outweighs the bad side, their hope is then that based on that, they will be granted entrance to heaven. You know, when you ask people on the street, Joe and Joe and Stein have been doing some of that recently. When you ask people on the street, why they think God should allow them into heaven. Probably tell me if I'm wrong, guys, I used to do a lot of this myself. Probably nine out of 10 of them are going to give you some form of that answer that I just gave you. Um, God should let me into heaven. They will say, because I've lived a pretty good life. I have, uh, God should let me into heaven. In other words, because of my own self-righteousness, however, they may, you know, expound upon that. But basically that is the answer. Let me tell you what that is. It's so important. If there's anybody in the hearing range of my voice who has lost, this is so important. That understanding that that is deceit that comes from hell. And it is a tragically miscalculated understanding of the entrance requirements for heaven. That's what it is. entrance requirements that Jesus very clearly articulated in Matthew 5 48. And so let me ask you another question. If you're thinking that way, that God should let you in on the basis of your own life and your own good works. How about this question is a followup question. Just how good do you suppose you would have to be? If that's the route you're going to take, just how good do you suppose you would have to be in order to merit heaven on the basis of your own goodness? Well, Jesus answered that question in Matthew 5, 48, you are to be perfect. Jesus said, your heavenly father is perfect. Ooh, got a problem. If you want to be good enough for heaven, if you're going to do it that way, if you want to be good enough for heaven, all you have to do is be perfect. Not one sin, not one violation of God's law anywhere to be found in your life. And you know what the problem with that is? You've already missed it before you start. You've already missed it before you start. You've already lost before you even start running a race. And the scribes and the Pharisees are the proof. The scribes and the Pharisees were self-deceived. You know, these guys actually thought they were doing this thing. They really did. They thought they were doing this thing. They prided themselves, in fact, on keeping the law of God. And these guys worked at it meticulously as the occupation of their lives. I mean, that's all they did was study the law. They even made up laws so that they could keep them. That's how, how much they were involved in this thing. But even they fell short of the standard. And Jesus made that clear a little earlier in that same chapter, Matthew five 20. He said, for, I say to you that unless your righteousness, look at this word surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. You know what the point of that is to say to people, look, look, listen, people, They made it a whole lot closer than you did, but even they fell short. And so where does that leave you? Really bad shape, if that's the approach. Mark this very important gospel truth, okay? So important, foundational. You cannot be good enough for heaven. Can't be done. You cannot be righteous enough for heaven, no matter how hard you try. You cannot perfectly keep God's law, no matter how hard you try. And proving that to you, in fact, is the very reason why God gave his law in the first place. Pharisees missed that completely. They thought that God had given his law to them as a means by which they could be saved. They could keep it then and be saved. They thought the law was a means by which they could attain the righteousness they needed to stand before a Holy God. And you know what? They failed to see what was right there in front of their face, that clear. They completely failed to see what the law was so desperately trying to show them. And that was their total inability to keep it. You see, that's how the law works. That's how the law works. Any think about it this way. Any rational thinking person who comes up against the law of God and tries to keep it would have to say this after the very first hour, maybe even after the first minute, if I'm ever going to be good enough for heaven, if I'm ever going to have the kind of righteousness I need to stand before a Holy God, there must be some other way. There's gotta be another way. Gotta be another way. Praise be to God. There is another way. Praise be to God. There is another way. Boston and Galatians 3.24, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ. The law is our schoolmaster tended to drive us to Christ that we may listen to this now that we may be justified by faith. Hold on to those three precious words and we're going to unfold them next week. What is the other way? The other way to get the righteousness of God is to be justified by faith. What it means to be justified by faith, as I said, is a doctrine that we're going to talk about next week in all of its wonderful glory. For now, for now, how about we do this talking about self-righteousness? How about if we just go ahead and mark self-righteousness off the list? That's not it. When Paul talks about the breastplate of righteousness, he is not talking. I assure you that he is not talking about self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is not the kind of righteousness, This breastplate is made out of the prophet Isaiah summed that up well for us. You know the verse, right? Um, he summed up God's perspective on our own self righteousness in Isaiah 64, six. He said that all our righteous deeds from God's vantage point are like a filthy garment. And, um, you know, we talked about Judas's intestines a little while ago and that was kind of gross. And, I'm going to say this because it's, it's kind of gross, but it's the truth. A lot of people don't understand that literally what Isaiah is talking about, there is a menstrual cloth. All of our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment from God's perspective, no matter how well you do, no matter how high you attain, you're always going to fall short. And a whole bunch of it from God's perspective is like a filthy garment. Let's move on now. how this word righteousness gets applied to believing men and women in the scriptures. There are two ways that this word gets applied now to believers in the scriptures. One of them, of course, has to be Paul's intended meaning for the word here in Ephesians 6.14. And this now is where our understanding of the breastplate can get a little bit murky as we would read a handful of commentaries on the subject. And the confusion has to do with that very same issue we talked about earlier. You say, well, why did you go on and on and on about that a little while ago? Well, here's why. This is why we're dealing with it again. Now the confusion has to do with the difference between position and practice. Okay, so let me start by saying this. We're talking about believers now. Self-righteousness is out. Now there's a couple of different kinds of righteousness that get where that word gets applied to believers. There's a kind of righteousness that believers have in position. that will inevitably manifest itself in varying degrees in their practice. Okay. And most of the teaching, I've already affirmed this. I've already discovered this. Most of the teaching now that you're going to find on this subject and the breastplate is going to want to point you in the direction of that practical righteousness. This breastplate of righteousness, the righteousness of this breastplate, is that practical righteousness. The breastplate, they will say, is that righteousness that gets lived out by you when you're being faithful and obedient to the word of God. When you're living righteously, you have your breastplate on. When you're not living righteously, the breastplate comes off. Once again, let me dogmatically say that I do not think that's right. I do not think that's right. And so let's talk a little bit. All I want to do is introduce the subject to you. I'm quickly running out of time. Let me at least introduce this subject to you and we'll talk about it more in weeks ahead. Let's talk a little bit now about these two kinds of righteousness and let's have the same, the very same discussion again that we've already had concerning the girdle of truth. Insofar as true believers are concerned, There is what we could call positional righteousness. And then there is what we could call practical righteousness. The Bible speaks of both. And how about for the sake of our study today that we use some terms that the reformers and the Puritans used. They spoke of it this way. They spoke of an imputed righteousness. and an imparted righteousness and imputed righteousness and an imparted righteousness imputed. Now what we'll deal more a little bit with that word imputed next week. But let me just say for now that imputed righteousness is the kind of righteousness you'll need. If you're ever going to stand in the presence of a Holy God, imputed righteousness is that kind of righteousness that comes that other way. We talked about just a few minutes ago. It's that kind of righteousness you knew you needed, but couldn't produce. It's that kind of righteousness that you went desperately running for after the law of God had crushed you into dust. That's what happened to Paul, by the way, did a lot, crushed him into dust. He went running for a different kind of right. We're going to read about that in a little bit. The righteousness that gets imputed to you, the righteousness that gets charged to your account by faith at salvation. People is the very righteousness of God in all its Holy perfection. No one is ever going to stand before God without it. No one is ever going to stand before God without this kind. And so would you please Mark this, imputed righteousness this morning. We just opened our discussion on the breastplate. Would you please mark this imputed righteousness this morning now as the kind of righteousness this breastplate is made out of. It is the imputed righteousness of God that comes by faith through faith in Jesus Christ. And how do you put it on? Well, that's a question that we're going to answer next week. And that's a question, the answer of which is all wrapped up in a precious doctrine known as justification by faith. That will be the focus of our study next Lord's day. For now, let's go on to that other way. The Bible uses this word righteousness with regard to believers. And as we do, we'll try to pull a, put this one in its proper place. When the very, okay, we've got imputed righteousness. Now let's talk about imparted righteousness. When the very pure and holy and perfect righteousness of God has been imputed to you through faith, something else is always going to happen right along with that. It's inevitable. When God imputes, he also imparts. When God imputes, he also imparts. And what that means is this, that positional righteousness that has been forensically charged and credited to your account. Kind of giving away the doctrine of justification, aren't I? That positional righteousness that has been forensically charged. We can't get sick of talking about that though, so we're gonna do it all over again next week. That positional righteousness that has been forensically charged and credited to your account is now going to do something else. It's inevitably going to begin to manifest itself. in and through your life in very practical ways. It can't be stopped. If it's really there, that can't be stopped. Imputed righteousness is a judicial declaration. Imparted righteousness now, people, is a transformed life. And again, now let me say exactly what I said earlier about the truth of the girdle. Positional righteousness and practical righteousness are inseparable. You can't take them apart. You cannot have one. without the other, but again, please understand now, which one is in the driver's seat. You see that? Let's use that term again or that analogy again, which one is in the driver's seat. That is the crux of this issue. And that I believe is what brings clarity to this issue. Positional righteousness is in the driver's seat. It's the positional righteousness that drives this whole thing. It's a positional righteousness that produces the practical righteousness. It's the positional righteousness that makes the practical righteousness possible and never ever the other way around. Your positional right, I'm saying all the same things I said about truth, right? Your positional righteousness is perfect and complete. Your practical righteousness is not and never will be this side of glory. And so I'm going to contend again on this second piece of armor that the righteousness that Paul had in mind here in Ephesians 6, 14, the righteousness of which this breastplate is made is the imputed righteousness of God that comes to the believer on the basis of his faith in Jesus Christ. Thus saith the Lord. And would you turn with me now in closing for today, I want to take you one more direction. We're going to wrap this up. Would you turn with me in closing please to a very familiar text in Philippians chapter three. So I thought about this. I couldn't think of a, a better scripture. This is the perfect scripture to pull our thoughts all together for today. All of the things that we talked about today, and it's also an excellent scripture that will prepare us for what we're going to talk about next week in this text. I'm going to read in a minute. In this text, as he recounts for the Philippians, what Paul, what was going on in his mind, when God was drawing him to the cross, Paul covers all three kinds of righteousness that we talked about today. That's the interesting part of this. Paul covers all three kinds of righteousness that we talked about today. And then he lands on the right one and tells us how he got it. Pick up with me please in verse one. And I'm going to read down through verse 14 and make just a brief comment or two or three along the way. Philippians chapter three in verse one. Finally, my brother, and Paul says to the Philippians, rejoice in the Lord to write the same things again is no trouble to me and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision for we are the true circumcision. who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. All right. That was just kind of an introduction and watch this. Now watch what he says next about his own self righteousness. Remember we had all three kinds. We're going to see him here as a very religious unbeliever. Paul had once actually he was Saul then he had once taken that self righteousness route to merit favor with God. And uh, You know, he did a pretty good job among relatively speaking. He did a pretty good job. We don't put confidence in the flesh. Paul had said in verse three, although verse four, looking back at my own life. Now Paul says, I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. I took a pretty good shot at it is basically what Paul is saying here. And then he went on to recount for them his impressive Jewish credentials. Paul had quite a pedigree and his point here is to say to them, listen, if anyone could have done it, I'm the guy who could have done it. Circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee. Paul was not just an ordinary religious unbeliever. You know about this guy. We've been studying his letters for years. Paul was a Pharisee. Paul was, he was not only a Pharisee, he was a highly esteemed Pharisee. He was a leader, a religious leader among the Jews and a very zealous one at that. He, he had laid his robe down there at the feet when Stephen was stoned. And you remember all of that. He was a fierce, he hunted Christians. This guy asked the zeal, he says in verse six, a persecutor of the church as to the righteousness, which is in the law found blameless. In other words, I had this law keeping. I want you Philippians to know that I had this law keeping thing down, keeping the law was the occupation of my life and I did it pretty well. I did it better than most and maybe better than all of them put together. But watch what happens now. Gospel. Watch what happens when Paul comes face to face with the gospel. Verse seven, and realizes when he comes face to face with the gospel, he realizes what his own righteousness looks like against the backdrop of the kind he really needed to stand before a holy God. Verse seven, but whatever things were gained to me, those things I've counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of their surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish." Greek word means dung. So that I may gain Christ. Everything, you know what that means? Everything in Paul's life that he had previously thought was gain for him, earning him favor with God, everything in his life, that he had previously thought was earning him a place in heaven. He now realizes is totally, completely 100% worthless against the backdrop of the true righteousness that he really needed. So you know what he does? He does what he knows he has to do. The hand came open. He let it go. He let it go. He, you know, however you want to illustrate it. He wiped it off the table. And even more literally, according to the text, he threw it in the dung pile. Every single bit of it went in the dung pile. And can I just stop right here long enough to say something to all of you? There is no man or woman who will ever get the righteousness of God until they put their own righteousness in the very same place that Paul put his. Okay. Won't happen. If you're holding any of yours up at all to God, even a little bit of it, you will never get his. And here's the tragic part of that. If you never get his righteousness, you will be separated from his Holy presence for all eternity in a place the Bible calls hell. I count all things Paul said to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them, but rubbish so that I may gain Christ verse nine and may be found in him and watch this now, not having a righteousness of my own. That's the key, right? Your own isn't going to cut it. Not having, I got rid of it. Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law. That isn't gonna work. But that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. That is such a beautiful thing. I know you understand that, but I never get tired of that. I never get tired of that. When Jesus, when God saves you, all of your sins go upon the Savior who takes them to the cross, pays the penalty for them, and God drapes over you the perfect white robe of Jesus Christ's righteousness so that you stand righteous in him, positionally righteous forever. And you know what we just covered now? We went from Paul's self-righteousness. Now what kind does he have? Now he's got that imputed righteousness we talked about, doesn't he? Right now you have the imputed righteousness that we're going to talk about more next week. And can I also say the righteousness of which this breastplate is made? That's what Paul just attained. Note how Paul describes it. It's not the righteousness of my own derived from the law. It's the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith that I may know him. You know what? That's the, that's Paul's ultimate goal. He didn't want it. That's all he wanted in life that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. And then I want you to know one more thing. So read three more verses in this chapter. We're almost done. You know, I said a little while ago that imputed righteousness, This positional kind of righteousness is always going to produce practical righteousness as well. Guess what it did in Paul's life? That very thing. It's exactly what Paul's talking about now, beginning in verse 12 with imputed righteousness. Now in the driver's seat, watch what happens next in Paul's life. Not that I've already obtained it. He said, he goes on to say, or have already become perfect. And you say, well, now wait a minute. I thought Paul had already obtained it. Yes. Paul had already obtained it and he had already become perfect. positionally, but that's not what he's talking about now. Now he's talking about what happens after that. Now he's talking about practical righteousness in his life that would get produced by that positional righteousness. And, and let me read the rest of the verses though. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus brother. And I do not regard myself, as having laid hold of it yet. Well, one thing I do for getting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And there you have Paul with his breastplate of righteousness on living out the rest of his Christian life in a fallen world and in a fallen human body of flesh. Or how about if I say it this way, you know what you have there at the end of that text, there you have Paul spending the rest of his earthly life becoming more and more in practice what he already was now in position. Does that make sense to you? Do you see that? That's what we're talking about. It's the positional righteousness that's in the driver's seat, folks. That's the one that Paul is talking about here when he refers to this breastplate. Now, next time, as I said, we're going to plan to answer question number four. It's a very important question. How do we put this breastplate on? You know, I'll probably start out by saying something similar to what I said before. You can't, but you must. You must, but you can't. Right. And so we'll deal with that. It's all about the doctrine of justification. And we'll talk about that next Lord's day together. Let's pray. Father, thank you for our time and your word together. Use it as you see fit to save the lost and to sanctify the saved father, we commit it to you. And we're so thankful that we can trust you to do those things in all of our lives that only you can do save and sanctify. We pray. And Father, accept our worship today. We love you and we thank you so much for who you are and for what you've done for us. In Jesus name we pray, amen.