Worship Notes
Righteousness – I have none of my own. Isaiah 64:6 goes so far as to say that “all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment (filthy rags).” Every time I’ve read the words “filthy rags,” I thought I understood just how bad of a statement that is, but today, those words captured my attention for deeper study. The imagery is far, far worse than I have ever imagined. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I think we all, with age, and maybe a little more wisdom, become aware that, apart from Christ’s righteousness, we have no righteousness whatsoever. And those works that some might consider to be righteousness, apart from Christ, are self-serving and repugnant.
So, when I sing of forfeiting my righteousness at my Savior’s cross, I am confident that there could be no more beautiful exchange. Not by my works or my merit, but by the work of my Savior at the cross, I am made righteous:
All sufficient merit shining like the sun
A fortune I inherit by no work I have done
My righteousness I forfeit at my Savior's cross
Where all sufficient merit did what I could not
Ephesians 3: 8b-9 puts it this way: “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
I trade my filthy rags of unclean righteousness for Jesus’ blood-washed robes of pure righteousness. Jesus Christ paid the debt for me and, in that instant, I know that it is done, no more sin debt. His righteousness, his all-sufficient merit, is now mine.
It is done it is finished! No more debt I owe.
Paid in full, all sufficient merit now my own.
Chris
Don’t know one of the songs we’re singing? Check them out here:
At Calvary
https://youtu.be/OzJZVXzYymk?si=OsipVCWnXSwOqPTC
Graves into Gardens
https://youtu.be/YihKbG8-X3U?si=Ccmdpt8j-ewx47Db
All Sufficient Merit
https://youtu.be/-Eh-RFCixFw?si=xroeZyYRzJ9-1W0t