Does Christ’s Righteousness Cover My Joylessness?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | Well, Jesus is my substitute. He became sin for me that I might stand before God righteous and forgiven.

00:00:12.000 | It's beautifully true in 2 Corinthians 5:21.

00:00:15.000 | But is Jesus also my joy substitute to my hope for when I fail to delight in God as I ought to?

00:00:22.000 | It's a really sharp question from a listener named Jake.

00:00:25.000 | Hello Pastor John, thank you for this podcast.

00:00:27.000 | I love the fact that Jesus is my substitute in any way that I display Christ-likeness.

00:00:33.000 | It's something all made possible by the cross of Christ and the Spirit's work inside of me.

00:00:39.000 | Christ was sexually faithful for me because I was not.

00:00:44.000 | In Him I find forgiveness for my past and power to fight my lust today.

00:00:49.000 | Similarly, Christ was never arrogant for me so that I can be forgiven of my angry past

00:00:55.000 | and given the power to fight my own arrogant heart today.

00:00:59.000 | So I wonder if this paradigm also applies to my joy.

00:01:02.000 | Is it true that Christ was fully satisfied in God for me so that I am not condemned for my sourness

00:01:10.000 | but so that my lack of joy in God is forgiven and I can be free to pursue my joy in God daily?

00:01:16.000 | When I fail, I rest in Christ, the perfect Christian hedonist who paid for all my heart's idols,

00:01:25.000 | and there I find renewed hope to press on in seeking after God.

00:01:30.000 | In other words, is Jesus also my joy substitute?

00:01:35.000 | That's pretty thoughtful. I like that. I like this question a lot.

00:01:40.000 | But I'm sure that not all of our listeners are tracking with Jake's pretty remarkable grasp

00:01:48.000 | of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

00:01:51.000 | So let me put some Bible verses under it and then answer his question straight up.

00:01:57.000 | He's applying the doctrine of justification by saying that all the defects of my obedience to God,

00:02:07.000 | my shortfall in keeping God's commandments, do not keep me from being justified in the courtroom of heaven

00:02:16.000 | or from being vindicated and declared not guilty but, in fact, declared righteous in God's sight.

00:02:26.000 | He's saying, rightly, that all this is owing to the perfect obedience and righteousness of Jesus,

00:02:36.000 | which through faith alone is counted as mine.

00:02:41.000 | In union with Christ, Christ's perfections are credited to my account so that God's wrath is taken away

00:02:52.000 | and he is 100% for me as I am in Christ.

00:02:59.000 | So here's where Jake is getting that.

00:03:02.000 | 1 Corinthians 1:30, "From God are you in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God

00:03:12.000 | and righteousness and sanctification and redemption."

00:03:15.000 | Or Romans 5:19, "As by one man's disobedience, namely Adam, the many were appointed sinners,

00:03:25.000 | so by one man's obedience, Christ, the many will be appointed righteous."

00:03:32.000 | Or 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin,"—that's Jesus—

00:03:40.000 | "so that in him,"—in union with him—"we might become the righteousness of God."

00:03:48.000 | Philippians 3:9, "We are found in him,"—in union with him—"not having a righteousness of our own

00:03:57.000 | that comes from law, but that which comes through faith in Christ,

00:04:02.000 | the righteousness from God that depends on faith."

00:04:06.000 | Now Jake is asking if this applies to our joy failures in the Christian life.

00:04:14.000 | Joy is commanded by God. It's one of his commands. Rejoice in the Lord.

00:04:20.000 | And again, I say rejoice. One of the central tenets of my life is that joy is essential

00:04:27.000 | for honoring God and obeying God, because we're commanded to treasure Christ

00:04:34.000 | and be satisfied in him and rejoice in him above all things.

00:04:38.000 | So Jake is asking if we are defective in this regard,

00:04:44.000 | is the perfect rejoicing of Christ counted as mine, like all the other aspects of his obedience are?

00:04:53.000 | Now here goes my answer. So I want you to listen carefully, everybody,

00:04:57.000 | because I took a long time thinking about this sentence, okay, these two sentences.

00:05:03.000 | Here's my answer. The sinful defects of our joy in this life are forgiven,

00:05:12.000 | and the righteous joyfulness of Jesus is imputed to us in the same way

00:05:20.000 | that all of our sinful defects as Christians are forgiven,

00:05:25.000 | and all of Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, namely, by our union with the perfect Jesus Christ,

00:05:37.000 | which we enter, that union, we enter this union by faith, and which we confirm,

00:05:47.000 | so we enter it by faith alone, and we confirm by Spirit-enabled holiness, including holy joy in Christ.

00:06:00.000 | Now let me take a minute and unpack that answer. There are two implications of what I'm saying.

00:06:07.000 | One has to do with the faith by which we enter union with Christ,

00:06:14.000 | and the other has to do with the works of faith that the Holy Spirit enables us to do after we are in Christ,

00:06:24.000 | which confirm that we really are new creatures in Christ.

00:06:30.000 | So one at a time. The implication regarding faith in Jesus through which we enter into union with Christ

00:06:39.000 | is that Christ does not perform faith for us or instead of us in such a way that no faith is needed in us

00:06:53.000 | to enjoy union with him. In other words, the way Jake is applying the doctrine of justification

00:07:00.000 | has been taken by some people to the extreme that they say, "I've read this. I really read this.

00:07:08.000 | We don't need to even be believers if we are elect, because Christ believed perfectly on our behalf,

00:07:20.000 | and his belief is credited to us when we are unbelievers."

00:07:25.000 | Now, Jake is not saying that, but others have followed that logic of imputation to that unbiblical conclusion.

00:07:35.000 | And the reason it's unbiblical is that faith is the instrument God uses to unite us to Christ

00:07:43.000 | and only in union with Christ then do his perfections count on our behalf.

00:07:51.000 | The faithfulness of Christ doesn't replace the requirement of faith to be united to the faithful Christ.

00:08:02.000 | That's the first implication. Justification by faith does not mean that Christ's perfect belief

00:08:11.000 | replaces the requirement for us to believe. Here's the second implication.

00:08:18.000 | Christ's obedience, which is imputed to us, also does not replace the obedience

00:08:28.000 | we are required to have as the fruit of our union with Christ.

00:08:36.000 | Here's 2 Thessalonians 2, 213. We are "saved through sanctification by the Spirit."

00:08:47.000 | In other words, the reality of saving faith is confirmed in sanctification—

00:08:55.000 | that is, in lived-out, Spirit-enabled obedience, including the obedience of joy in Jesus,

00:09:04.000 | treasuring Jesus, being satisfied in Jesus.

00:09:08.000 | Christ's holiness does not replace the requirement of our holiness.

00:09:14.000 | Hebrews 12, 14, "Strive for the holiness without which you will not see the Lord."

00:09:20.000 | That's spoken to believers. To be sure, our holiness is not the ground of our justification.

00:09:28.000 | Christ's holiness is. But our holiness confirms the reality of the faith

00:09:37.000 | that unites us to Christ and his holiness.

00:09:41.000 | So what does that imply about our joy in Christ?

00:09:47.000 | It implies that Christ's perfect joy does not replace the requirement for us

00:09:54.000 | to rejoice in Christ above all else. But because of our union with Christ,

00:10:02.000 | his perfect joy, counted as ours, covers all the defects in our joy.

00:10:12.000 | So our joy, with all its defects, is a real fruit of the Spirit.

00:10:20.000 | Galatians 5, 22, "a real fruit of the Spirit," and thus a real confirmation that we belong to Christ.

00:10:30.000 | Amen. Thank you, Pastor John, for that clarification.

00:10:33.000 | And Jake, thank you for the excellent question.

00:10:36.000 | As you apply Christian hedonism to your life, send us questions.

00:10:40.000 | What doesn't make sense to you? What seems hard to apply?

00:10:44.000 | Send us those questions through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn

00:10:51.000 | Well, speaking of hard topics, self-hate.

00:10:54.000 | It's a topic that gets talked about a lot in our Western culture.

00:10:58.000 | So how would you go about sharing the gospel with an unbelieving friend who struggles here,

00:11:03.000 | who struggles with self-hate?

00:11:06.000 | That is the question for Pastor John.

00:11:08.000 | On Wednesday when we return, I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.

00:11:13.000 | [Silence]

00:11:16.000 | [Silence]

00:11:19.000 | you

Does Christ’s Righteousness Cover My Joylessness?

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