Well, of course, our basic Scripture tonight is found in Ephesians 6 and verse 14. And it takes us to where it says, Wherefore take up unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, stand. And verse 14 says, Stand therefore, having your loins girded out with truth. We dealt with that last week. And having on the breastplate of righteousness. That's what we'll be dealing with. And for the rest of the message, we're pretty much going to be in Galatians 2.20. But I'm also going to want you to be in Romans chapter number 6 for part of the message. And you'll see why here in just a little bit. And as we've already seen in this series of messages so far, our big enemy is the devil. And he's out to do us in, especially when it comes to our spiritual life. 1 Peter 5, 8, Peter warned us, he said, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion, walked about, seeking whom he may devour. And now, you know, one of the first things about dealing with the enemy, you've got to recognize who they are and that they're an enemy. Amen. There's a lot of folks that deny that Satan is real, but he is real. And if you deny he's real, he's got you right where he wants you. But because Satan as such a schemer, God has given to us all of his spiritual armor made for us to wear so that as we take it on we can stand against his wiles and so that we can withstand his evil attacks against us. And he mentions that both in verse number 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, and verse 13 that I read before I read verse 14. Two places there tells us to put on the whole armor of God in order to be able to stand against the devil's wiles. Now last week we saw that we were to put on the belt of truth and we showed how to put his truth on by meditating upon and obeying the Word of God. You've got to get in the book. The book is so essential in our spiritual walk. As we continue to look at our armor, the whole armor of God provided for us, we see here that we're told to stand having on the breastplate of righteousness. Now, understand that no Roman soldier would ever intentionally go out into battle without his breastplate. There's a particular reason for that. He needed those vital organs protected. I want you to think about it in relation to our present-day police officers. our son-in-law's police officer. And when he goes out, he won't set armor on. I mean, he won't set a bulletproof jacket, a black jacket, whatever they call it. And he doesn't go out if he doesn't have that on. And there's a good reason, because the enemy, the people he's dealing with, are going to try to take him out. And so he wears that. Now, the breastplate for a Roman soldier was a tough, sleeveless piece of armor that covered the full torso. It was often made of leather or heavy linen, onto which was sewn overlapping slices of animal hooves or horns or even sometimes pieces of metal. Some were made of large pieces of metal, molded or hammered to conform to the body. But the purpose of that breastplate was obvious, to protect the most vital organs. the heart, lungs, intestines, as well as other vital organs found there in the abdomen. Now this breastplate was important to the Roman soldier because if an enemy could hit a vital organ, it was all over. It was all over. He would score tremendous victory over his opponent. Now Satan also goes for the vital organs. Now, understand that in ancient Hebrew thinking, the heart would represent the mind and the will. Makes a difference what's in our mind and what's in our will, doesn't it? The bowels were associated with the emotions. In fact, you hear the Apostle Paul use that euphemism, talking about bowels and talking about his feelings for certain churches and certain people in the churches. Now, if Satan can get at our emotions, our minds, and our very wills, he can cripple us, take us down, which is what his goal is. He wants to make you ineffective for the Lord Jesus Christ. And our wonderful God says to us, hey, I'm going to protect you from Satan's attacks on your mind and emotions by giving you a breastplate of righteousness. And it's an established biblical fact that when we were saved, don't you think back to the time that you got saved? Think about that time right now. I hope you can think about it. You may not remember the date or the hour when it took place, but you can see yourself there when you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a definite time. And when you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, it's an established biblical fact that when we were saved there, we were given Christ's righteousness. Christ's righteousness is what gets us to heaven. And so we are covered with His righteousness. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5.21. For He, talking about God, hath made Him, speaking about Jesus, to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We're made the righteousness of God the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we know that righteousness is not something that comes to us naturally, right? We saw that this morning. It doesn't come naturally, does it? None of us were born righteous. We were born with a sinful nature. We were born with a propensity to sin. And we proved ourselves to be unrighteous by our practice of sin. There was a time in our life when we actually practiced sin before we came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. But praise God, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's only dear Son, entered into our life. Amen. And the Lord Jesus did what we could not do. He lived a sinless life. Then He died a substitutionary death on the cross. By substitutionary, it means that He died in our place. The Lord Jesus Christ died in your place and He died in my place. And that's on our behalf so we could be forgiven of our sins and be declared righteous. And we're declared that way by faith. By faith. As a matter of fact, when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you are justified by grace through faith. Now, we were declared righteous in God's eyes the moment we placed our faith in Christ and in His righteousness instead of our own personal righteousness. I'm still amazed at the number of people that think that they're going to meet up to God's demand. You already have it. What they realize is they have it and they've got all this behind them that they are still accountable for. You can't do anything about that. It's not just behind you, but it's also in your present and in your future. You're not going to be righteous enough to be righteous enough in God's eyes to make it to heaven. All of our righteousness in this life is just like filthy rags. That's what Isaiah said. So we get His righteousness instead of our own personal righteousness, which is no good. And God protected us from hellfire by covering us with the righteousness of His Son. And I'm so glad that I have His righteousness. And it's important for us to establish that in our hearts and mind. If Satan can get you starting to doubt your salvation, he's got you. He got you right where He wants you because you're not going to be effective for the Lord if you are constantly questioning whether you're headed to heaven or not, whether you have Christ's righteousness in your life or not. God wants to protect His children with that same righteousness. He has given us a breastplate to wear to protect our heart, our will, our emotions from the attacks of the enemy. Satan wants to constantly bring up our sins. Imagine that. He wants to bring up your sins from the past. He wants to bring up your sins from today. Yeah. Fancy you calling yourself a Christian after what you thought in the service today. Right? I mean, does he ever do that to you? He certainly does that. He'll try to influence the way that we think. But listen, Satan wants to constantly do that. and he wants to bring up not only our sins, but he wants to make us appear to be guilty and to defeat us and make us ineffective for Christ. But what will guard us from those attacks is when we remember that we have the righteousness of Christ. That's an established fact. If you're saved, Nail that down in your life. I am covered with the righteousness of Christ. And Paul, in the passage that we want to look at, in Galatians 2.20, one of the passages that describes this righteousness, Paul says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." Now, let's break this down. In this passage we see three things. We are crucified with Christ, we are to be clothed with Christ, and we are to be confident in Christ. Okay, let's take it one at a time. We are crucified with Christ. That's what Paul said, I am crucified with Christ. And when Christ died on the cross, Someone else died that day. That's right. Because Christ died for us. Well, when does that actually take place in our life? I mean, it took place on the cross of Calvary, but it becomes an actuality in our life when we place our faith and trust in Christ. We died in Christ. Our faith in Him, we died with Him or in Him. Now, if you're a believer, And then just because Jesus died for you, you died with Him and in Him. He took your place on the cross. And this is where we want to go to Romans 6. I'm going to refer back to Galatians 2.20 one step at a time. But I want us to look at some things here in Romans 6 that talks about the matter of fact of our identification with Christ. When we place our faith and trust in what Christ's done, we are identifying with three things. His death, His burial, and His resurrection. We're identifying those things. They become a reality in our life. Look at Romans 6, verse 2. Well, let's back up to verse 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein. And you know, anybody that's gotten saved, I don't know of anybody that wants to continue living in that old way. I mean, if they truly got born again, truly realized what Christ has done for them, they are wanting to live a different life because they're a new creature. Now, notice verse 3. And he's getting them to realize a reality here, okay? that so many of us as we're baptized, we're not talking about water baptism, we're talking about our identification in Christ. We're trusting in Christ, we're identifying in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. As many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, we're baptized into His death. We are identified in His death. Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death, which the picture of water baptism does that. Think about water baptism for a minute. When you got baptized, my preacher said, and I say when I baptize, in obedience to the divine command of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and upon your profession of faith in Him, I baptize you, my brother or sister, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Buried with Him in baptism, boom, raised to walk in newness of life. That's what this is talking about. That picture is a reality in our life. It's not the water baptism that saves you, it's what it represents. It represents our identification in Christ. And that's what he's getting at here. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, our identity into death. Our penalty for sin, which is death, was paid for. It's paid in full. What sin? All sin. Past, present, future. People say, well, I don't know about that future thing. Well, listen, when Christ died, all your sins were future. They just were. They were future. And so we are. Go back to verse number four again. Therefore we are buried with with Him by baptism in death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead. And we know that Christ was raised up from the dead. Amen? You have to believe that in order to be saved. We believe He died on the cross. He was buried in the grave. And on the third day, He got up out of that grave. Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. We ought to know that. I'm supposed to be walking in newness of life. You're supposed to be walking in newness of life because we've identified in the new life of Christ being raised from the dead. Notice verse 5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Aren't you glad you're going to be resurrected one day? Well, listen, you were resurrected also the day you got saved. Spiritually speaking, you were given new life in Christ. You died to the old man, and you are alive in Christ Jesus. Verse 6, knowing this, that our old man, the one that got us in trouble, this is the reason why we were lost to begin with, well, he's crucified. He got crucified. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, and henceforth we should not serve sin. We don't have to serve sin. So, for he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Christ. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. That's the way it's supposed to be with us. We died to sin once. Christ paid that. He died in our place. But in that we live now, we've got that resurrection life, we will live unto God. He says in verse 11, Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is a fact that you are dead in Christ Alive in Christ. It's an established fact. When you trust Christ, that's what happened. Count it to be so. That's what the word reckon means. Count it to be so. Reckon it to be indeed. In verse 12, if you reckon it to be the case, then you're going to try to make sure that sin doesn't reign in your body. Verse 12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it and the lusts that are of, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. I mean, that's the way we're supposed to live. Amen? Yielding to God now, not yielding to that old sinful nature. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law but under grace. Let's take a look down at verse 16. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves service to obey, his service ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God bethink that ye were Before you got saved, you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you." What doctrine? Doctrine of the Gospel. How did Christ die for our sins? According to Scripture. He was buried and rose again the third day. According to Scripture. Verse 18, being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. That's what we are in reality. We are the servants of righteousness. Look at verse number 20. He says, for when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. In other words, in that old life, you couldn't do anything pleasing to God. Nothing. You were free from righteousness. Righteousness is the only thing that satisfies God. What righteousness is He satisfied with? The only righteousness He's satisfied with is the righteousness of His Son. Which is applied to us in our lives, but is also to be lived in our lives. We're to live that that we are. To live the reality of what we are. Verse number 22, but now being made free from sin, become service to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. So, why then do we often lack the protection that the breastplate of righteousness gives? That righteousness comes from Christ, applied to our life, Why do we so often lack the protection? It's because we do not remember the fact that we are crucified with Christ and risen in Him. And we don't count on the fact that we are indeed dead unto sin and alive unto righteousness. The guilt of sin, guilt of our sin, has been punished in Christ. In our standing before God, We stand in the righteousness of Christ. When God the Father looks at us, He sees Christ. He sees His Son. Because we're in Christ. If you're in Christ, who's He going to look and see? He's going to see His Son. We stand uncondemned because Christ took our condemnation. All He had to do was die one time. He died one time. He died for us. So we're crucified with Christ. Here's the second thing. We're to be clothed with Christ. Clothed with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Think about this blessed truth. Through the Holy Spirit, The Lord Jesus lives inside each and every person who is born again. Through the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus lives inside of us when we became born again. But when Paul wrote these words about Christ living in him, he was writing of how he clothed himself with the righteousness of Christ. And here's what he was getting at here. Paul was living out what he prayed in Ephesians chapter number 3. Go back to Ephesians 6 where we were at. Flip back a few pages to chapter number 3. Ephesians 3 and let's look at verse 14 through 19. A prayer that he prayed here. He was living out this prayer. Ephesians 3 verse 14. For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." That's loaded. Those verses are loaded there. The key here is for Christ, by His Holy Spirit, to have His fullness in our lives, to be full of the Holy Spirit. In every area of our being, we are to be submitted to Him. You can't be full of the Holy Spirit if you're not submitted to the Lord. There's a difference between indwelling and fullness. When you got saved, the Holy Spirit came in. That's indwelling. When He has access to your whole life, that's fullness. If there's anything that you're holding back, you say, well, you know, I live my life for the Lord in this area, but over here, I'm just going to kind of hang on to that. No, no, no, that's not fullness. You say, well, I'm full over here. Well, you're not full of it. You can't hold back on the Lord and expect to have His fullness. 1 Thessalonians 5a tells us, but let us who are of the day, Are we children of the day? Well, 1 Thessalonians 5a, Paul is establishing that we are children of the day. He said, we who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love. Breastplate of faith and love. It's the breastplate of faith because it became ours by faith. By grace through faith, that's how it came. It's a breastplate of love because it was made available by Christ's love for us. And we should take it up and be clothed with it by our love for Him. So it's got two parts, really, of the love. His love for us to begin with, and because of His love for us, we love Him. Love, love, love. Going both ways, right? So, if Christ has control of our life, He is living His life through us. That's what Paul's talking about in Galatians 2.20. Think about it. Let's think about it individually. Sometimes we have a tough time forgiving people. Don't we? But if Christ is in control of our life, and He's living His life through us, He will forgive through us. If you can't forgive, you're not living in the fullness of Him. Just not. He will love through us. Are we to love? Some people are just not really very loving. I just have a hard time loving that person because they're just not loving. Listen, what you are admitting is that you're not allowing Christ to control that area of your life. Because without Christ in control of your love, guess what? Christ loves that person and you're loving them. He will witness through us. He will witness through us. Amen? Do we need to be witnessing? Do we need to be telling folks about Christ? We most certainly do. Would I just have a difficult time doing that? Well, listen, Christ doesn't have a difficult time. If you're full of Him, we'll witness. Christ will say no to sin through us. Christ has always said no to sin. We won't have trouble saying no to sin if we're full of Christ. We know that Christ doesn't want that in our life. I mean, a lot of times it's just night and day. This ought not to be in my life. This that I'm thinking about doing, God wouldn't have any part of it. With God wouldn't have any part of it. Listen, you ought not have any part of it either. Right? I mean, let's just tell it like it is. We ought to be doing good. Doing good works. Did Jesus do good works when He was down here? Oh yeah, many. Too many to number. Too many to even record all in the book. But listen, He will do good works through us as we are filled with Him. Now to sum it up, Christ will live a righteous life through us if we're yielded to Him. We are crucified with Christ. We are to be clothed with Christ. Here's the third thing. We are to be confident in Christ. My confidence is not in this flesh. Your confidence is not to be in your flesh. What is our confidence in? It's in the Lord. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one that we can have confidence in. That's what he says in Galatians 2.20, Paul said, "...and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." So, as we yield ourselves to be clothed with Christ, we are placing our faith and confidence in Christ. Lord, You want this in my life. I'm yielding my life to you, and I'm going to trust you, and my confidence is in you, that I'm doing what you desire. We trust in Christ when our flesh would hold a grudge, but we choose to no longer hold a grudge against somebody. Right? If you choose to hold a grudge, listen, Jesus is nowhere in that. You're just not in it. Kick it out. Call it what it is, a sin. It ought not to be in the life of a believer. We're trusting Christ when our flesh would hold a grudge, but we choose no longer to hold a grudge. We're trusting Christ when our flesh wants to do or say what is dishonest, but instead we choose to do and say what is truthful, even if it costs us. You ever had to speak the truth when you knew you were going to pay a price for it? The Lord sent me to preach messages before the people got up and walked out. They didn't want anything more to do with me. But I preached the truth. I preached what was the truth. I trusted Christ in doing that. We're trusting Christ when some circumstances arise that causes our flesh to want to fear or worry. But then we choose. You've got to choose to do this. Choose to turn those fears and worries over to Him. I'm not to worry. I'm not to fear, Lord. I'm going to trust You in this. We're trusting Christ when we are tempted to doubt, but instead we choose to cast aside our doubts and have faith in Christ and His Word because our confidence is in Him. Go with the Word of God. You will not go wrong by going with God's Word. You'll be on the right side every time. Things may not go the way that you hope they go, but if you trust Christ and you go according to God's Word, you will please God and you can have confidence that you have followed what the Father would have you to do because His Son is manifest in your life. and manifest through your life. Here's the last one. As we trust Christ in our daily walk, we will be clothed with Christ's righteousness as Christ lives His life through us. If you're trusting Him in your daily walk, Lord, this is a new day. This is a day that You have made. I'm going to rejoice and be glad in it. But also, I'm going to need Your help to walk in the way I will walk today. Every day, we need to get up and say, Lord, I need You to live Your life through my life. Lord, I don't want to walk my way. I want to walk Your way. I'm going to give you one last set of verses. Romans 13, verses 12-14. In fact, turn there. I wasn't going to have you turn there, but I'm going to have you turn there. Familiar passage. You'll recognize it. Romans 13, verse number 12. Paul writes, the night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness. Now, who is associated with works of darkness? Satan, the enemy, right? You've got to cast that off. Let us put on the armor of light. Who has the armor of light? God does. Jesus is that armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and in-being. Many of those things are in your life. You're not walking the way you ought to walk. You're not walking honestly. You can't say I'm walking in Christ if you're walking with those things in your life. But look at verse 14. but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof." That's a big thing right there. If you just determined, listen, I'm not going to fulfill the lust of my flesh. I'm going to fulfill the will of God in heaven. I'm going to walk according to Christ's way. Christ's righteousness. Why should we want to live such a life? Why should we want to be righteous in the way we live? Well, Paul tells us, life which I now live in the flesh, I will live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Shouldn't we give all that we have for Christ by yielding to His rule and reign in every area of our lives? I mean, think about what He did for us. You think about the road to Calvary. In a couple of weeks here, Easter is going to be right on us. We're going to be focusing on the Calvary road. We're going to be focusing on that death that He died for us and the resurrection that He now lives. And shouldn't we give our all for Christ by yielding to His rule and reign in every area of our lives? He deserves that. So for our invitation tonight, I want us to sing all four verses of a song. that we don't sing very often. It's number 342. It's really the Lord telling us, I gave my life for thee. My precious blood I shed. You know, what has thou given to me? And we need to think about that. Number 342 in the Red Book. And put on Christ's righteousness. Make sure you know Christ as your Savior, and then put on the breastplate of His righteousness. We are crucified with Christ, we are to be clothed with Christ, and we are to be confident in Christ. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we thank You for that righteousness that You give. And Lord, we all need help with this each and every day. Help us to realize this everyday thing that we've got to wake up and we've got to clothe ourselves in You. There's not a day that goes by that we ought not to pick up the armor. And we definitely need the breastplate. We need all the pieces of armor, but we can't go without the breastplate. We must have Your righteousness. We do have Your righteousness, but we are to walk in that righteousness that we have. And for that, we need your help. Help us to yield our lives to you and let it be real in our lives, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.