Made Right | Selvin Cortez

When God looks at you… what does He see?
Your past? Your mistakes? Your failures?
Or something completely different? 

In this sermon, pastor Selvin Cortez teaches how being a Christian is not trying to be made right—it is being made right in Christ. 
Enjoy! 

REFERENCE: 2 Corinthians 5:21

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yes! Amen. Amen. What a great worship moment. That's that's what I'm looking if we could do this all night, we would do this all night. Uh, but there's a word that God has put in my heart for you, and I have to be obedient and share it with you. I want to invite you to take your seat if you can. Um, because God is good. God is good. The worship was so powerful, so powerful. I don't know if you noticed this, but in the middle of worship, our drummer Nathan, Nathan, say hi, wave to everybody. That's Nathan. Nathan was so on fire. Watch this, watch this. Do you see how far it went there? Do you see how far that stick traveled all the way to here? That is just awesome. We've got a great, great worship team. Great church. You guys are amazing. Thank you for being here. It is an amazing spring Sunday. Listen, I I try, I try, I try to force, I try to force nature into my agenda. And so I put my boots away. I um, you know, the scrubber for the for the snow, I put that away. And so this morning when I when I got uh I left my house and went to my car, I was surprised to see all that white stuff, and um, and I didn't have anything to clean my car, so uh I did it with my arm and I started cleaning the windows with the jacket part of my arm. It was it was the worst thing. I had a little mountain on my hood. It was uh, but this is this is what it is, and you're here, you're here, and so God bless you. Um imagine this moment right now. We were just we were just in this incredible moment of worship. Who else is worthy? There is no one, only you, Jesus. That's what we were singing, and in that moment, in that moment, could you imagine this? And we talked a little bit about this last week, but can you imagine being interrupted? Right? Boom, instantly, we are in his presence. And as we're singing with our eyes closed, our our our arms lifted up, and we're singing, who else is worthy? There is no one, only you, Jesus. Our eyes open up and he is standing right there. Could you imagine that? Look, when he comes back for us because he's coming, he's coming. I I want to invite you to stay tuned in. We've got a series on the end times coming up. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. He's coming back. And can you imagine that moment where we're we're in the a moment of worship, and all of a sudden, bang, we are in his presence. And the next words that come out of our mouths are there is no one, only you, Jesus. What a moment of praise, what a moment that would be. And and my question today is this imagine standing in his presence. Just let that sit in for a second. The maker of the universe who knows everything, all your thoughts, the amount of hair on your head, if you still have some, uh He knows your thoughts, he knows you intimately. He created the heavens and the earth. He has every single star in the known universe named. He knows them by name. We assign like numbers. He calls them Larry and Bob and Tony. That God. What a God! What a mighty God. And being in his presence, would you stand or sit? Fall. Would you be nervous? Would you feel unworthy? Standing in his presence. Do you think you belong? And so in the last couple of weeks, we've been diving into this series, it has been incredible for me. To get it ready, to feel how God is speaking directly into my life. It's just been such an honor to bring this series to life in your life and in my own life. To see how God is moving in strength and in might and in power. And this series has started with being a Christian is. Being a Christian means being made alive. It's not something that we do, it's something that we are. We are Christians, we are believers. And then we went on to being a Christian is having access, access to the presence of God, a presence that we had no access to before. And we have that access through the blood that was shed on the cross for us. That was last week. And I want to invite you, if if you haven't heard those messages, they're going to lead us into Easter. Please catch up. This is just like watching Netflix, but you're listening to it. You can't miss an episode. And I want you to binge on the last two messages, and this one even. And let's get into the fourth message coming up next week. And then leading us into Easter weekend and how powerful God is going to move on that weekend. I want to invite you as well to pray for Easter weekend. That somebody said it to me this this way, uh, that I completely understood this week. They said, Easter is our Super Bowl weekend. Easter is our Super Bowl weekend. You want to invite everybody, everybody and anybody. And and look, this has been working ever since, you know, even when I was teaching at uh at the university, I would tell my students, hey, listen, if uh in my photography classes, if you don't have a subject to photograph, if you don't have a model to photograph, just go out in the middle of the street, find the best-looking person, and invite them in. My students would do that. And to my surprise, some of them would even get into relationships with them. And they're just complete strangers off the street coming into one of our classes. We're gonna replicate that. We're gonna do the exact same thing for Easter Sunday. I want you to grab whoever you find and say, hey, I've got something for you. And we've got you, you notice that we have these cards on your desk. On your desk. There's the teacher part. Uh you've got these cards on your seats. Grab a card, grab as many as you want, just take it and start giving them out to random people, random strangers, just whoever you find out there, because it's going to be amazing. And as I'm getting this message ready, there's a there's a story that I absolutely love, all of them in the in the Bible, but it's when Jesus is speaking and he says, he asks this critical question to his disciples. He says to his disciples, they're they're in this intimate moment, and he says, Hey guys, um, I got a quick question for you. Um, what do other people, like, who do other people say that I am? And they were telling him, You're the prophet. Uh, other people are saying that that you are a prophet, you are Elijah reincarnate, you are John the Baptist, you are that they start telling Jesus what other people are saying about him. And then he turns a question around and says, Who do you say I am? And the way that you see Jesus is going to change everything in your life. And he says to them, Who do you say that I am? And I kept reading that phrase, and I went to bed, and that phrase was still in my mind. Jesus speaking these words, Who do you say I am? Who do you say I am? Who do you say I am? Who do you say I am? And then everything slowed down. And then it dawned on me. Jesus turned the question around on his disciples. Who do they say I am? Who do you say I am? And now I'm gonna do the same thing, Jesus. I'm gonna turn the question back to you. Who do you say that I am? Because now that we're in his presence, now that we have access, we know that we can stand there. How are we standing there? Who do you say that I am? God, what do you think of me? Who do you say that I am? Why can I stand here in your presence right now? What gives me the right to stand here? Who do you say that I am? And and and that's a critical identity question. You see, being a Christian is not about what we do, it's about who we are. And being a Christian necessitates you knowing who you are in Christ, it necessitates you knowing what he says about you. You must know, you have to know what he's saying about you, how he sees you. And that's what this message is all about. It's all about making us right in his presence. Now, not perfect, right. We have right standing, we are fully accepted. And the verse that we're gonna hone in on is 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. It says this, for our sake he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Yeah, no amen. That's okay, that's okay. We're gonna we're we're we're gonna dive into it. That in him we might become the righteousness of God. That word righteousness is pretty heavy. It's one of those theological words that you find at like seminary school and and Bible school. Uh, righteousness, what does that mean? Well, righteousness means this: it is the right to stand before God without fear, shame, or condemnation. That's what it means. It means we have a right to be in God's presence without fearing him, without carrying shame or condemnation. We are fully accepted in his presence as sons and daughters. We are fully able and capable to enter. See, we are not, if we listen to our past, we'll find identity in our past. If you listen to your mistakes, you might find your identity in your mistakes. I am XYZ. If you listen to other words, to your shame, you might be defined by your shame. But if you listen to Jesus, he says that you are fully and unconditionally accepted in his presence. You are accepted. We stand because we belong. We belong in his presence, and he wants us to come into that presence with him. So watch this. There was an exchange that happened. You see, the reason why, and we saw this last week, but the reason why we have access is through the cross. At the cross, there was an exchange that took place, and we received what was his, so that we could give him what was ours. And Romans chapter 5, verse 1 says this, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus. Now we're getting into it, guys. Being a Christian, we're talking about righteousness and justification. These are legal terms that declare you free, free, liberated from the cost, the wages of your sin. That's what it means to be justified. And when we are justified, we are righteous, we can stand before the king of kings. In the old testament, you could not approach a king without being summoned by the king himself. So it was illegal. You couldn't just go up to the king and say, Hey, what's up, my man? Give him a high five, maybe a fist bump or a chest bump. You couldn't do that. It was illegal. You did that, and that was the last fist bump you're ever doing. And so you had to be summoned by the king. The king would extend his scepter and would extend it to you, and then if if he pointed it at you, you could come into his presence. And it was suicide to enter into his presence without being summoned. There was a queen, her name was Esther, she did it anyway. She's like, I got I gotta go and see him. I'm gonna go see my king. I'm gonna go seek him because I need him to decree something special over my people. And she said, watch this, she said, if I die, I die. But I'm gonna go see him. Boldness. And that's the same boldness that we have, knowing that we're not going to die in his presence, but we can enter boldly and ask God. Ask him. And that's where we're at. That we have this righteousness. We have been justified by faith. Romans 8:1 says this therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is no condemnation. That means that you you no matter what you did in your past, you can enter into his presence once he has been, once you have been justified by accepting Christ. So there is this exchange that happened. And in 1 Samuel gives us an amazing picture. And I need you to follow the thread here. There's an amazing picture of this exchange. There's two fellas, one, his name is Jonathan, and the other one, his name is David. And Jonathan is the prince. He is the son of King Saul. And King Saul is on the throne, and and and God has has abandoned him, has destituted him because of his actions. And God chose for himself a new king. Now imagine being Jonathan, knowing that you are the prince, the heir to the throne, but God has not chosen you. He chose your best friend, David. And so Jonathan, knowing, knowing that David was the next to be to be king over Israel, Jonathan does something important. He does an exchange. He takes off his royal garments and he places them on David's back. A divine exchange happened where he takes off his robes and he puts them on David, anointing David as king. And he took on his own his own nakedness. He said, I'm not going to be the next king, you be it. So the shepherd boy became a king in that moment. Jonathan exchanging his kingship for David's lowliness. That's exactly what Jesus did. He exchanged on the cross, he exchanged his divine nature, his royalty for your sin and my sin. He exchanged his divinity for my humanity. And he took off his robes and he placed them on us and declared us his righteousness. Jesus takes away our sins. Jesus walks into this moment and says, I will take on your humanity, I will take on your sins, I will take on your punishment, I will put it on myself. Now you, all you gotta do is take on my righteousness. Take on my kingly clothes. And that's the picture that we see in Samuel, Jonathan, and David in a divine exchange. And so this is happening at the same time that Jesus is doing it as well. And he calls us into his presence. Because now we can. We have been summoned by our King. We have been clothed in his righteousness, giving us access into his presence. And he says of you and me that we are, we are his temple. We are his temple. Do you know what that means? Temple just means that you are a dwelling place for his presence. He is in you, the hope of glory, the author and finisher of your faith. He is your righteousness, he is your strong tower, he is your shield, he is your strength, he is your provider, he is the lover of your soul, and so he calls us his holy temple. Now I want you to see something about the first place in the Bible. The first place where we see this God coming down and dwelling among his people is called the tabernacle. And the tabernacle, we talked about this a little bit, and you've heard me say this. The tabernacle is split up into three parts. It's split up into the outer court where all the people are gathered. It's split up onto the the actual tent of meeting. And in the tent of meeting, there are two separations. One is called the holy place, and the third one is called the most holy place. And that most holy place is divided by a curtain. Nobody can walk in through there. But when when when the priests would walk into the holy place, there's a table on the right hand side, there's there's uh uh a menorah, which is a candle uh that is lit up, and so all of this, all of this um silverware, there's bread uh on the table. And it's it's funny how there's no seats, there's no chairs. The people that are in the holy place have nowhere to sit. They're standing all the time. And above them, above them, the lining of the roof of this tent of meeting is white, it's fully white along the top. And it is laced with ribbons. And the ribbons are red, they're purple, red, scarlet, they're purple, they're blue, intertwined with red, with white. And so we see this picture of the priests walking into the holy place covered with white around them. With a red ribbon, there's a blue ribbon, a purple ribbon, and white all the way around. And so we see what God is saying, and we see this in Exodus chapter 26, verse 1. Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of, ready for this, fine twined linen, and blue and purple and scarlet yarns. Blue and purple and scarlet yarns. From the outside, the tabernacle looked ordinary. Notice how it says with ten, you're going to make ten curtains. The outer curtain was badger skin. Like it was just badger skin. Who would know that the presence of Almighty God is inside of this tent? It was just badger skin on the outside. So on the outside, it didn't look that great. But on the inside, it was laden with beautiful colors. Seraphim were on uh in the tent, on the roof of the tent. It was just a beautiful, beautiful sight. And when you start reading these colors, they show up everywhere. Scarlet, red is the blood that covers us. Purple represents royalty. Blue is seated in heavenly places. White is the righteousness of God. So watch this. Here's the teacher part. Scarlet, purple, blue, white. Those get transferred into Jesus. He is, watch this, he is our sacrifice. He is our king. He is seated on the throne. He is our righteousness. This is who he is for us. He is all of these colors. The the the tabernacle was just pointing to Jesus because in him we are covered. We are called kings and priests and a holy nation. We are seated together with him in heavenly places and we have received this free gift of righteousness. This free gift of righteousness we have received. And so listen, um, if if we have received this free gift of righteousness, and these and we now have access into his throne. Do you know what that means? That means you have a new identity. That means if you are seated with Christ in heavenly places as a king and a priest and a holy nation, you have authority. Being a Christian means having authority. Authority over what? For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers in the heavenly realms. That's our battle. And we have this authority over the enemy because we are made righteous. And so you want to know what the enemy wants from you? He wants you to not operate in that righteousness. He wants you to not operate in that authority. I can't, I don't, I won't. I'll never be able to. Those are words that are coming from him. And you think about them and and you see your circumstances around you, and you start maybe even declaring these words over your own life. I can't, I won't, I'm not able to, I won't be able to. That time has passed. And God is saying, that's not who you are. That's who you were, but that's not who you are now. Now you stand in his presence, you stand on his word, you stand on his authority, you have the power to overcome. You have the power in Christ Jesus to declare to any situation that you're going through, any season that you're going through, declare the word of God as a king. Imagine for one second that you are an actual king. And there's something going on in your kingdom. You are a king of a nation, and there's something going on in that kingdom. Will you shy away? And just see, hey, somebody else's problem, not mine. No, as a king, you stand up, you rise up to the occasion, you dress yourself in royal robes, and you step out and you declare what your nation needs. That's exactly what God, that's exactly the picture that He has for us. That's exactly where He's leading us to. Being a Christian, it means having authority. Being a Christian is not what you do, it's who you are. You are a king and a priest and a holy nation to God. That's who he's called you. Identity is the most important thing for God over your life. He wants you to know who you are. Because the enemy is going to challenge that. He's going to challenge you at every turn. He's going to challenge you. He's going to put thoughts like, oh, and you're a Christian? Oh, you did that, and you're supposed to be a believer? You're in a series called being a Christian Is and you're still doing that. Those are the enemy's tactics. Because he doesn't want to hear from your mouth the authority that Christ has given to you. At all. At all. So when God looks at you in this tabernacle, there's a curtain. And that curtain is going to be open. And when that curtain gets opened, God is on the other side of that curtain. The curtain gets opened, and he sees you standing there. And he sees you covered in white. With ribbons of red, blue, purple, all wrapped around you. And the reason why this works, the reason we can be seen like that, the reason God sees us that way is because of the exchange. I know you've seen this, and now it's all gonna come together, and you're gonna be like, oh my goodness. All of this is fulfilled in Jesus. Everything about the tabernacle points to Jesus. You see, it's not about the threads, it's not about the curtains, it's about him. And let's fast forward to the trial of Jesus. Jesus is on trial. He gets taken to Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate finds no error in him, no sin in him. He says, No, this is this is not my problem. Faulty king. This sounds like a you problem. And he sent Jesus over to Herod. And while Jesus is with Herod, they strip him of his clothes. And they put on a red robe. And they put on to him a purple robe. And they put on to him a white robe. I want you to read this with me, John 19, 2. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. Matthew 27, 28, and they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. You see the purple one? They made fun of him. The red one was laden on him. Luke twenty-three, eleven, and Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then arraying him in a splendid robe, he sent him back to Pilate. Look at the word splendid. That's where we get the word lamp from. It's the Greek word that says lampros, meaning bright, shining, splendorous, fine clothing. Mocking our king. You see what they didn't know. In their mockery, and in their assaults on Jesus, they were fulfilling Scripture. Jesus is wrapped in purple. Jesus is wrapped in scarlet red. Jesus is wrapped in white clothes, bright clothes. And all of that is declaring his kingship, his lordship. All of that is saying, He is my place of meeting. And on the cross, that was stripped away from him fully. And now he's on the cross, no robes, nothing to cover him. And that's what we deserved. And that was the payment for our sins. And that was that was why that was why he went. So that we wouldn't go through that shame. But we would receive his robes and his righteousness and his identity. And so Romans 517 says this, and church, this is my favorite verse. This is my favorite verse. For if by the trespass of one man, Adam, by the sin of one man, Adam, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in heaven? No. Reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Some of you got it, some of you got it. If you didn't get it, if you didn't get it, watch this, watch this. Reigning is for kings. And the Lord says, for if by the trespass of one man through Adam all of humanity was imputed sin, how much more through the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace, not just a little bit of grace, abundant provision of grace. Grace means God's favor that is unmerited by any action you do. Which means you are getting grace on top of grace, on top of grace, on top of grace. You are getting God's favor over your life, over your children's lives, over your grandchildren's lives, over your business, over your school, over your education. God's grace is abundant over and over and over and over. It is unseasable. It will never stop. The only picture that comes to my mind are waves over the ocean. The waves crashing into the shore. One wave comes in, covers up the sand, the dirt, the filth, the dirtiness, and then another one right behind it. And from the beginning of time, when oceans began and shores were made, the ocean has not stopped covering and covering, and grace upon grace, the abundance of God's favor over your life, over every area of your life. His abundance is over you. Unstoppable, undeniable is his favor over your life. This is akin to having an unlimited credit card. And so, why don't we live in that victory? It's because we need to understand the next part: the free gift of righteousness. That's what I would do, guys. That's listen, it's so easy to understand the enemy. And I think his his, if this is my favorite verse, this is his least favorite verse. This is the verse that he absolutely hates. And I want to declare that verse over your life: that you are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. And that that righteousness is a free gift, a free gift. That means that as a free gift, that's what I would attack. I would attack your identity. Who do you think you are? Why do you think you are? What purpose do you think you have in this world? That's the first thing. Because if if if he's going to attack that you cannot receive, that the only way to receive is by doing, doing, doing, doing, then he's got you. And then on top of that, you can't ask God because you didn't do. So you are now not. That's how easy it is. And so we stand up in that power and we declare no matter what you're going through, look, you may struggle with sin, but you are not defined by sin anymore. You are not defined by sin anymore. And your struggle is only because you haven't understood yet that you are righteous and that you are a king and a priest and a holy nation for him. So I want to invite you, uh, I'm gonna invite you to stand to your feet in one second, but I don't want it just to be going from sitting down, I've been comfortable for the last 40 minutes, to standing up because he told me to. I promise you, not on my authority, but on the authority of the word of God. If you declare God's word over your life, something is going to change. I promise. I saw this video this week. It was like just popped into my feed. Amazing, I had no idea. In the Chinese language, the word righteousness, righteous, is pronounced like this, yi. Just like yi, like yi, yi. That's how you pronounce righteousness in Chinese. Do you know how they write it? It's two figures in Mandarin, it's written Lam. Above me, righteousness in Mandarin is declaring the lamb above me, the Lamb of God who died on the cross for my sins. Above me, I am now righteous. I stand righteous because he is above me, he is all around, the righteous Lamb of God, risen, exalted. We declare this word. We declare that we are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. We are the righteousness of God that is who we are. Let's sing this song together and worship Him. Worship Him and stand in the authority of His presence.