Turn with me in the Word of God to the prophet Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah chapter 61. Isaiah 61, and I would like to read all 11 verses of that chapter. So let us hear the word of the Lord this morning. The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated. They will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. Aliens will shepherd your flocks. Foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. And you will be called priests of the Lord, and you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. Instead of their shame, my people will receive a double portion. And instead of disgrace, they will rejoice in their inheritance. And so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs. For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness, I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed. I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness. as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. So far the reading of God's holy and infallible Word. May He bless it to our hearts this morning by the power of His Spirit. Well, this is really an amazing chapter in the prophet Isaiah's discourse. He is here proclaiming the good news of salvation to the Jews exiled in Babylon. And if you know the book of Isaiah, you know that he's been prophesying for several chapters leading up to this point, speaking of the Savior who would come and take away the sins of His people and establish them in a new covenant with the Lord. And here, in chapter 61, he announces his purpose of bringing forth the good news in verses 1 through 3. And that probably looked familiar as we know that that was read by the Lord Himself in Luke 4 where it's recorded that he stood up in the synagogue and read most of that and applied it to himself. And then he goes on, Isaiah, that is, and speaks of the promises to the Jews being returned out of captivity in verses 4 through 9. And these are promises that are extended to the new covenant church who has also been delivered out of slavery, out of spiritual slavery and spiritual bondage. And these things are promises that are extended to us. And then in verse 10, Isaiah represents the church as giving thanks to God. And this is what I would like us to focus in on this morning. This is all an amazing chapter and if we had time we could take it apart and indeed spend hours upon it. But this imagery in verse 10 of chapter 61 is what I would like to draw your attention to this morning. For here he represents the church giving thanks to God, saying, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. Now Isaiah, speaking on behalf of the church, he proclaims the joy that comes with having God's righteousness imputed to himself. And what he does, you notice, is he connects righteousness to salvation. For they can't be separated. You can't have one without the other. And what Isaiah is doing, even some 700 years before the Lord Jesus Christ would come, is he is heralding with the eyes of faith that great doctrine that the Apostle Paul would later come and articulate in great detail. Namely, the doctrine of justification. Of imputed righteousness to the believing sinner. And he also speaks of that great joy that comes to the one who knows that they possess this righteousness. And so let us consider this morning, this statement of Isaiah and this great imagery that he uses of this robe of righteousness and the joy that comes to the one who possesses it. So in the first place, I'd like us to notice that man needs to be clothed with righteousness. All of us need to be clothed with righteousness. This is man's fundamental problem. He has offended God with his sin. He does not have righteousness. He stands in need because he is a son or a daughter of Adam. And Adam, in the garden, of course, he did not fulfill what was required of him. Instead, he rebelled against God and he fell short of meeting that requirement that God had set for him in that covenant in the garden. He didn't fulfill those things. He told him, Adam, if you remain obedient, then you will get the tree of life and you will have blessed heavenly life glorified life for you and for all your descendants but if you don't well if you disobey you will get sin, death, hell, judgment for you and for all your descendants and of course that is what we got and all of us have the sin all of us stand in need of being clothed in righteousness and we're unacceptable before God on our own. We're unacceptable. We are in inappropriate dress, so to speak. That is really what Isaiah, the imagery that he is using. One that has been clothed in appropriate dress by the Lord is what gives him great joy. But man needs to be clothed in it because on his own he is unacceptable. He is inappropriate before God. None of us would go before a king or before royalty or before someone of great status dressed inappropriately. We would want to be clothed in an acceptable fashion. Ladies, you might think that if your husband were to come home and to say, guess what, you'll never believe it, I won today an all-expense paid trip to London and we are going to go to the symphony there to listen to the London Philharmonic Orchestra and we are also going to be joined by the President of the United States. He's going to be there in London with us and the Queen of England. And we're leaving in just a few days. Now ladies, I know that every one of you would think, wonderful, what am I going to wear? That would probably be the first thought for your mind. What am I going to look like at that event as I sit with those people? I don't sit with those people on an everyday basis. Sure, you have plenty of nice things in your closet, but you'd probably rush off to the store to buy something that would be appropriate for that occasion. Because you wouldn't want to be there dressed inappropriately, would you? You wouldn't dream of going to such an event dressed in a manner that you would normally go to the beach in or a picnic, you know, a t-shirt and some shorts and some flip-flops. No way. That would be unacceptable. That would be inappropriate. Well, man standing before God, he is inappropriate in his own righteousness. And it's not just a t-shirt and flip-flops, but he is stained with disgusting sin, something repulsive before God's eyes. He is unacceptable. He has fallen short of the glory of God because sin robs man of this glory. It robs him of ever being acceptable before God. It robs him of the true purpose of living, to know God and to glorify Him forever. Sin robs man of this righteousness. And this is exactly what the Bible proclaims from beginning to end, that man stands in need of being clothed in a righteousness as good as God's. Now, we might ask, well, what exactly is righteousness? What precisely is it? If I were to ask you that question, what would you say? How would you define righteousness? Well, righteousness in biblical language, both in the language of the Old Testament, Hebrew, and in the language of the New Testament, Greek, righteousness means, for one, to be innocent. It means to be not guilty. You can't have guilt and have righteousness. You might think of somebody who has been caught for a crime and set on trial before a jury of their peers, and in that trial they are found not guilty. They are not guilty of that crime, and then they go free. Well, it's the same with righteousness. We can't be guilty and have righteousness. We can't be found responsible for some crime. But righteousness means more than just not guilty, it means also something positive. It means to possess the quality and the characteristic of upright behavior. You see, a person who goes on trial for a crime and they are found not guilty, they're innocent and that's fine. And that wipes their slate clean concerning that crime. But that doesn't mean that they have upright behavior in all manners of the law, does it? It doesn't mean they are a meritorious citizen. It just means they're not guilty of that thing. Well, righteousness means to be innocent and to be guiltless. But it also means to have this upright behavior by God's standards. God's very own standards. A perfect obedience to God's law. A perfect satisfaction of all the requirements of God's love. One slip and you don't have righteousness. One little thing that might seem like just a tiny little sin in our eyes. No righteousness. Falling incredibly short of God's requirement. And so that's why man needs more than just forgiveness. He needs more than just a pardon. He needs righteousness. This positive righteousness. Because if we just have forgiveness, if we just have pardon, that doesn't admit us into heaven. That just puts us back in the garden where Adam was. It puts us back with just a clean slate. Not perfect, upright behavior to the law. It puts us back on the starting line. Righteousness crosses the finish line. Righteousness means fulfillment of God's law. And so we shouldn't ever define justification the way that I was sometimes taught as a lad. And that is, well, justification means just as if I've never sinned. It's more than that. It's more than forgiveness. It goes beyond that. It's a fulfillment of His law. And the problem is that our own righteousness are like filthy rags before God. That is how the Bible describes our own good works when we bring them before God. Filthy rags. That's what Isaiah says in chapter 64. And that's a polite way of putting it. Filthy rags. Children, have you ever seen a filthy rag? A disgusting, repulsive rag maybe that your dad uses to clean messes up Maybe when he's working on the car. Maybe he's changing the oil in his car and some of the oil drips onto the driveway there and he walks over to the garage and he picks up one of those rags that you wouldn't dare touch because they're so gross and he wipes up the oil in the driveway and maybe then your mom says to your dad, Honey, the baby just threw up in the kitchen. I have to get her cleaned up. Would you come wipe it up? And your dad stomps in there into the kitchen with that yucky rag and he wipes up your baby sister, your baby brother's vomit. Now what does that rag look like? It's disgusting, right? What if your dad took that rag and walked over to your nice dining room table and set it down? What would your mom say? What are you doing? Get that thing out of my house. Get that thing off of my dining room table. What's the matter with you? That's disgusting. Get it out of my sight. You know, that's how God looks at our own righteousness, our own good works when we come before God and we say, look at my good works, God. Look at all of my Bible reading. Look at all the times I pray. Look how good I am. I go to a Christian school. I'm a Christian. you must accept me because of these things. God says, when we come before Him like that, He says, get those things out of my sight. They're disgusting. Because our righteousness is not good enough. It doesn't get us into heaven. We need the righteousness of someone else. We need the righteousness of another. Which is my second point. My first point is that man needs righteousness and the second is that he needs the righteousness of another. Now Isaiah in our text, you notice that his great joy comes from God having provided the very righteousness that he demands. God gives it to him. He says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me in the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. You see, Isaiah, speaking on behalf of the church, he is showing that God is the subject and I am the object. It's He that clothes me. It's He who covers. It's He who gives this righteousness. It's Him who does it all. He fulfills the demands of the law. And again, this is exactly what the Apostle Paul would come centuries later and articulate in great detail with his pen. I'll read to you from the letter to the Romans in chapter 3. You can look there if you like. But Romans, of course, many of us know, I'm sure, that as Paul is writing to the Romans, he tells them that they all need a righteousness as good as God's. And he tells them that in chapter 1 and in chapter 2 and for most of chapter 3, that all men are sinners and all need the righteousness that God Himself requires. And he sums it all up in verse 20 of chapter 3 where he says, Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. And then Paul has this great turning point that we're so thankful for in his letter to the Romans in verse 21 when he says, But now, the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, To demonstrate His righteousness because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed. To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. You see, Paul says that righteousness apart from the law has been revealed, it's been manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from the law. That is, from our own law keeping. Apart from our own righteousness. Apart from us trying to fulfill the demands of the law. It's a righteousness that the Reformers were fond of saying is alien. It's foreign. It comes from another. It's someone else's righteousness, not my own. That's the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. The last Adam, who unlike the first Adam, fulfilled everything that was required of him. And that's the righteousness that is imputed to us, given to us, credited to us, so that we are right and acceptable before God. So we are dressed appropriately before this king who demands this righteousness. This is why Luther was fond of saying that the gospel, it comes from outside of you. It doesn't come inside, it comes from outside of you. It's the righteousness of another. It's alien, it's foreign. It's altogether different from ourself. And that's really the fundamental difference between Rome and the Reformation, isn't it? One says that it's God working in you, and the other says it's God working for you. God has worked for you. Deus pro nabis is what they would say. God for you. Romans says, no, it's God in you. He's making you righteous little by little. The more you come to church, the more you partake of these things, He's raising that righteousness up until finally, maybe, you'll be righteous enough to get to heaven. The Reformers said, no, no. No, Paul says it's God for you. It's a righteousness that comes outside of us and it's completed in the Lord Jesus Christ. and He gives it to us freely so that now being declared righteous is a decisive act. It's not a process. Justification is a verdict. It's a proclamation. It's something that God has determined and said, you now have the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we live and God works sanctification in our hearts throughout the rest of our lives. Well, it's the righteousness of another. This merit that God gives us because Christ merited it Himself. So we shouldn't say justification is just as if I never sinned, but it's also just as if I've always been obedient. Because all of Christ's obedience is given to you through faith. Faith. Now, that's the way we receive this righteousness. How do we get this robe? How do I get the garments of salvation? If Christ accomplished it and I want it, how do I get it? Through faith. Faith alone. That is how I receive this righteousness. Now, what does it mean to have faith? What is that? This believing. Well, what does our catechism say when it says, what is true faith in question 21? Well, it's not only a certain knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but it's also, you see, it's more than just believing that this stuff is true. It is also a hearty trust which the Holy Spirit works in me by the Gospel. So that what? So then not only to others, but to me also. Forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation are freely given to me by God. Merely of grace for the sake of Christ's merits. You see, faith trusts in the merit of Jesus Christ. Faith is produced in the believing sinner's heart by the Holy Spirit. and it's looking to Christ alone. Faith doesn't look to its own works. Faith doesn't say, I hope I'm going to be better. Faith doesn't say, well, I think I've finally accomplished it. Faith doesn't look to what it might be or what it hopes to be. Faith flees sin and self-righteousness. Faith puts all those things in a heap, runs from them, and runs to the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith looks outside of itself and to that righteous person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith does not contain good works. Faith is the lone instrument by which we receive Christ's good works. All that Christ has, that is what faith is. Faith alone is how we receive this robe. Well, that is the robe that Isaiah is describing, this robe of righteousness. and it, of course, is produced in the Messiah that he hoped for, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul says we receive it by faith. But now, why is Isaiah so joyful in this text? Why does he say, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God. Well, there's many reasons why we should have such great joy for knowing that we possess this righteousness that God provides Himself. You see, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments as he looks spiffy and fancy on his wedding day, as a bride adorns herself with jewels, so too has God given us Christ's righteousness, this robe and this garment of salvation. And this gives us great reason to rejoice for we are planted in Him. We are trees, oaks of righteousness planted in Him. The true vine. The righteous one. And we know, because that's true, that we have been accepted by God. We've been received by God. And we have His favor. Now, loved ones, that is great reason to rejoice. Knowing that you, sinful you and sinful me, that we have the favor of God. You know, our own conscience accuses us of our sins and tells us we haven't been good enough, we haven't done enough, we probably have lost God's favor, God's angry at us, the devil accuses us, but those things can't stand against us if we have the favor of God. Think of your own conscience. You lie on your bed at night, after a day, and you think of all those things that you said that you wish you could take back. The hurtful things you said to your children. Or the terrible thought that you thought of somebody else. Thoughts of murder or thoughts of lust. And you think, man, I am filthy. And even there, as you lay on your bed, you have the favor of God, the merit of God. If you look to Christ in faith, Not your good works. You look to Christ in faith. You have all the merit you could ever possibly have because it's Christ's merit for you. And so our own conscience, though it accuses us, it can accuse us of nothing because we've been given the righteousness of Christ. I think our catechism points this out beautifully in question 60. Turn there with me. Question 60. In this Psalter hymnal, it's on page 30. Question 60. It asks, how are you right with God? The answer, only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, Nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. All I need to do is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart. You've been as obedient to the law as Christ has. because it's been given to you. Oh, we should know this by heart. We should learn this by heart. We have no excuse not to know this by heart so that we can proclaim that and remember it and know it that these things are true for us and it gives us great joy. And as Satan himself comes along and tries to accuse us of not being good enough, not living up to God's standards, well, what can he accuse us of? We're clothed in the robe of righteousness, of Christ's righteousness. Satan, of course, could come in here and make a list of all the sins we've committed. He knows them all. And he could list them out and paper these walls with all the sins we've committed. And he'd be right. But because we stand in Christ, he cannot do that. Because he can't accuse Christ of anything. Jesus said to his disciples just before he was crucified, the ruler of this world is coming and he has nothing in me. Nothing. He can't accuse Christ of anything. And if you stand in Christ, he can't accuse you. His accusations are meaningless. And that gives us great joy. Paul put it this way. What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? And he goes on. This is in Romans 8. Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is He who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. We can be assured, loved ones, that even though our emotions go up and down at times and accuse us of not having done enough and been good enough, Well, there are no accusations that can be brought against us, not by our conscience or the devil. And that gives us great reason to rejoice, that we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. But we also have great reason to rejoice knowing what awaits us at the end of this life. Knowing that Christ purchased this robe for us, He will also bring us to the end and we will enjoy a whole new earth filled with righteousness. Knowing that we will be presented faultless before the presence of God's glory with exceeding joy. What a wonderful thing to know as we travel on in this world. That we are clothed in His righteousness and we will enter heaven approved, not disapproved. Those words, well done, my good and faithful servant. Christian, they belong to you. Because Christ is the one who finished well. He's the one who did all that the Father commanded Him. He's the good servant. He's the faithful servant. And you have all that Christ has. All that is His is yours. And you can no more be thrown out of heaven than Christ Himself can be thrown out of heaven because you're clothed in His garments. As one pastor, whom many of us know who's since retired, he put it this way. He said that if I were to die and go to heaven and I were met at the gates of heaven and met by an angel, and he were to say, are you on the list? I said, yes, I am. And he opened up his books and went down the list. What's your name? Michael Brown. Brown, Brown, Brown. Oh, yes, here you are. And he read my little bio file there. And he were to say, is this you? This here says that you never committed a sin. That you were obedient to God's law. It says that you never reviled someone when they reviled you. It says here that you fed the poor and you clothed those who were naked. It says that you healed the sick. That you raised the dead. Is this you? And I were to say, yes, it is. Yes, it is. Because I have what is Christ's. He gave it to me without my deserving it at all. Of sheer grace. And knowing that, we are comforted and have great reason to rejoice as we go through this life. But also, finally, we have great joy to know that the good works that we seek to do in this life, they too are a joy. Why do we do good works? Why do we seek to be like our Lord? Are we trying to attain some merit? No. Are we trying to win God's love in His favor? No, we can't do that. We do good works out of gratitude. Out of thankfulness. Because God Himself has clothed us in His righteousness. You know, you'll know that you get the gospel right when you're explaining it to someone. If after you explain it to them, they turn to you and say at some point in the conversation, well, then why do you do good works? Ah, now I'm getting through. I made it clear. You see, you'll sound like an antinomian. That is, someone who just thinks they can live any way they want. It doesn't matter because God's love and favor is rested upon them. You know, that's how Paul sounded when he explained the Gospel and the righteousness that's given to us. And that's why he always had to say, like in chapter 6 of Romans, well, what should we say to these things? Should we continue in sin that grace might abound? No, certainly not. You see, because it sounded to people as if you were saying, well, Paul, you make it sound as if everything is being given to you out of grace by God and now you can just live any way you want to. That's how the gospel should sound. Because God's grace is so rich and so great. And the good works that we seek to do are out of thankfulness to that. Out of thankfulness. We do it out of gratitude. Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. And his apostle John wrote, we love him because he first loved us. We seek to be like our Lord because we love him. And we love Him because He first loved us. And the good works that we now do are a fruit of that righteousness and a fruit of the faith that He has produced in us. And so that too gives us great reason to rejoice. And so this morning, loved ones, I would say, you look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to His righteousness. Know this great joy that Isaiah himself prophesied of so long ago. And rejoice and be comforted knowing that He has clothed you in the righteousness of His Son. And if you're here today and you don't know if you have that righteousness, you're not sure if you are acceptable before God, then I say to you, flee to the Lord Jesus Christ. Today is the day of salvation. It soon will be the day of vengeance. And then it will be too late. But flee to Him now while it's the day of salvation. Confess your sins, repent, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and His good works and His merit alone, His righteousness, and know the wondrous joy that comes to the one who knows they are clothed in His own righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for the Gospel. We thank You, O Lord, that the Gospel is declared to us throughout redemptive history, from Genesis to Revelation. And Lord, we pray that like the prophet Isaiah, we too would graciously rejoice in our Lord, that we would find great reason to delight knowing that we have been clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and all of His obedience and good works has been given to us and now we live out of thankfulness because of that great grace. Lord, may it be so as we go forth this week in serving You in our various vocations and callings, may we seek to keep Your commandments out of thankfulness to this righteousness You have provided to us. May it be so. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.