9th May 2025

9th May 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 1:9-11)


Message (Alan Burke)


Sadly when I arrived the butcher had already closed in Crossgar and if memory serves me right so had the greengrocers. The village we use to live before had an excellent butchers and greengrocers. Although when I was there I never tried though in the greengrocer asking could you get me some fruit of righteousness because there was more chance that they could get me a dead man’s finger (that’s actually a fruit). Paul it’s not hard for us to figure out that he is here using fruit metaphorically just as Jesus used it in Matthew 7 speaking of false prophets when he said that you will recognise them by their fruits (7:15-20). Making the point there that a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit or a diseased tree bear good fruit. Fruit here is used as there by Jesus to speak of one’s deeds, actions, how we live. Fruit is our deeds that reveals our character, that reveal the inner self. Paul is praying that the church in Philippi may be filled with the fruit of righteousness. 


Righteousness means to have right standing before God, it is where we are by God himself legally declared upright, acquitted of wrong as we are put right with God himself. This righteousness doesn’t come by our own acts or merits this is what God does as he accepts and accounts our persons as righteous in his sight is by imputation the imputation Christ’s righteousness. We have right standing before the Lord through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ that is imputed to us. Imputed means that it is given to us. While what we deserve was placed upon him. This righteousness only comes through Jesus Christ the fruit comes through him and what he has done, not apart from him. There can be no fruit of righteousness unless we have first been made righteous by God as the Holy Spirit works within us, there is no other way for us to be made righteous, try as people might to live a good life thinking that God grades on a curve and they will be ok because they’ve not hurt anyone and sure they are better than their dirtbag of a next door neighbour. No it is solely by Grace Alone through Faith Alone in Christ Alone that we are made righteous before God that we can have right standing. 


Paul’s prayer for the church in Philippi was that this righteousness would be seen in fruit, it would be seen in their deeds, in their actions, in how they lived, in a way that revealed their character, the inner self and that they belonged to Christ to the Praise and Glory of God. For us the righteousness within us should be seen in the fruit of our lives, it should be seen in our deeds, in our actions, in how we live, in a way that reveals the character of our inner self that we belong to Christ Jesus to the praise and glory of God. This is why we have been saved, this is why all has been made that has been made for the praise and glory of God. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q79 Which is the tenth commandment?
A. The tenth commandment is, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
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