Repenting of self-righteousness

Talking to people off the back of yesterday’s sermon on Galatians 1:1-10, it struck me that one of the things people most wanted to go away about think about was the idea that to trust in Christ means not just to repent of our sins, but to repent of trusting in our good works.  

Here is Tim Keller unpacking that a bit...

“What must we do, then, to be saved? To find God we must repent of the things we have done wrong, but if that is all you do, you may remain just an elder brother. To truly become a Christian we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right. Pharisees only repent of their sins, but Christians repent for the very roots of their righteousness, too. We must learn how to repent of the sin under all our other sins and under all our righteousness – the sin of seeking to be our own Saviour and Lord. We must admit that we’ve put our ultimate hope and trust in things other than God, and in both our wrongdoing and right doing we have been seeking to get around God or get control of God in order to get hold of those things.

It is only when you see the desire to be your own Savior and Lord—lying beneath both your sins and your moral goodness—that you are on the verge of becoming a Christian indeed. When you realize that the antidote to being bad is not just being good, you are on the brink. If you follow through, it will change everything—how you relate to God, self, others, the world, your work, you sins, your virtue. It’s called the new birth because it is so radical”

“The Prodigal God” (p.77-78)