P2-SFS4 - God's Answer to the Performance Trap: Justification

“The Search For Significance –

Seeing your true worth through God's eyes”

Robert S. McGee

Chapter 4 – God's Answer to the Performance Trap: Justification

• When God thinks about you, does he deceive himself in some way, or does he know who you truly are?
• If he knows who we truly are, then why do we say, “In God's eyes I am truly righteous”, “forgiven”, “loved”, “pleasing” and so on? Are we trying to say that God is not living in reality? Or that he overlooks our faults?
• Eiother he knows who you are, or he doesn't. Playing with words like this dishonors God, and it stops us from experiencing the reality of who we are
• Now, here is another question. If you see yourself differently than God, who is mistaken, you or God?
• Yet often we allow our minds to overrule what God says is true
• We were made by God for God
• He created needs in us that only he can fill
• One of these is the need for self-worth
• When we try to meet that need by other people, we will end up frustrated

GOD'S SOLUTION

• In our minds, we are constantly talking to ourselves
• What are we talking about? Often it is about how well we are doing, based on our performance, and others' opinions about us
• We so often fall into the trap of using the formula:
  • Self-worth = Performance + Others' Opinions
• This is a lie from Satan, designed to lock us into the performance trap
• God cancelled this equation totally
• He has given us a secure self-worth totally apart from our ability to performance
• When Christ died on the cross more happened than just our forgiveness
• 2 Cor 5:21 “God made him who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”
• So God placed our sin upon Jesus, and gave us his righteousness. What an exchange!
• We have been justified – made just
• Justification carries no guilt with it and has no memory of past transgressions
• Christ paid for all our sins at the cross, past, present and future
• Hebrews 10:17 “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” - quote from Jer 31:34
• We are completely forgiven by God
• In the same act of love through which God forgave our sins, he also provided for our righteousness, the worthiness to stand in God's presence
• By imputing righteousness to us, God attributes Christ's worth to us
• We are no longer condemned sinners
• Instead, we are fully forgiven, righteous and are now fully pleasing to God
• God wants his redeemed to experience the reality of that redemption
• We are forgiven and righteous by Christ's sacrifice, not by our performance
• So we are pleasing to God in spite of our failures
• This reality can replace our fear of failure with peace, hope and joy
• Failure need not be a millstone around our neck
• Neither success nor failure is the proper pasis for our self-worth
• Christ alone is the source of our forgiveness, freedom, joy and purpose
• This does not mean that our actions are irrelevant
• Our sinful actions, words and attitudes griev e the Lord, but our staus as holy beloved children remsains intact

POSSIBLE OBSTACLES TO RECEIVING THIS TRUTH

• Addiction to the approval of others
  • We look for other people's approval whren we succeed
  • We love it. This can become an addiction
  • Sometimes we enjoy success so much we leave God to one side
  • We may judge those who fail, and consider ourselves better than them
  • Then when we fail we judge ourselves mercilessly
• Sense of hopelessness
  • This can either drive us toward depending on God, or into passivity
  • Psassoivity will never achieve victory
  • God wants our active cooperation
• Desire to live life by some formula
  • In order to receive justification and its results, we must receive it through our relationship with Jesus, not by performing some ritual
• Need to control
  • If we base our worth on what Christ did for us, we will feel a loss of control

REASONS FOR OBEDIENCE

• Christ's love motivates us to live for him
• Sin is destructive and should be avoided
• The Father lovingly disciplines us for wrongdoing
  • Not the same as punishment

Punishment : Discipline

Source -  God's wrath :  God's love

Purpose -  To avenge a wrong : To correct a wrong

Results in - Alienation : Reconciliation

Personal result -  Guilt : A righteous lifestyle

Directed toward - Non-believers :  His children

• His commands for us are good
• We will receive eternal rewards for obedience
• Christ is worthy of our obedience

Discussion Questions

• What does it mean to be justified? Rom 3:19-28, 4:4-5, 5:1-11

• Are we as righteous as Christ? 2 Cor 5:21, Col 1:22, 3:12, Heb 10:14

• Are you remembering sins God has forgotten? Rom 4:6-8, Heb 10:17

• If your good works don't make you more pleasing to God, why should you be involved in good works?