Jesus is the Righteous One

This week we continue with our Lenten season and Easter Sunday sermon series “Jesus is…”. We are looking at some of the names given to Jesus within the New Testament letters. This week we will discover that “Jesus is the Righteous One.” Our scripture comes from Romans 4:13-25. The words will be on the screen.

13 It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, 15 because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” o He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” t 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Please pray with me…

Are youright with God? This is a question that humankind has been trying to answer since sin was brought into the world by Adam and Eve. It is thebasis that our Old Testament was founded. It was the Jewish people on a constant journey attempting to bring themselves into being right with God.

What they were unable to understand was that their attempts at righteousness were futile. There was no way that they could become right with God until who they called the Messiah, or the Anointed One, came down to earth for them.

We believe that Jesus is the Messiah that they were seeking. We look at Jesus as the one who came down to earth to live amongst us without sin and then who would die on the cross in order that it became possible for our sins to be forgiven.

Thus, making it possible for us to become right with God. Last week we spent a little bit of time on this topic. Looking at Jesus regarding righteousness. How Jesus being righteous died for us, those that were unrighteous.

Jesus dying on the cross for us allowed for all of humankind to become heirs to God. The Jewish people were already considered children of God. They became formed as a people group by being chosen by God to be his chosen people.

It was through the death on the cross by Jesus that it became possible for all of us to become children of God. Both the Jews and the Gentiles were looked at as equals by God. Jesus had to purify both Jew and Gentile through his death for us to be able to reside with God in heaven.

This was the main reason Jesus came to earth to live amongst his creation. A human was the only one who could die for the indiscretions of other humans. But it had to be a righteous human. It had to be a human who was pure in mind, body, and spirit. It had to be the son of God.

As I mentioned last week the Jews attempted to become right with God through obeying the law. Something that was impossible. But we can’t blame them for trying. Our first scripture reading tells us how they thought it was possible. Deuteronomy 6 verses 24 and 25 told them this by saying that…

“24 The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. 25 And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”

They were doing their best to fulfill the commands offered to them by God. The problem was that in our humanness our best is not good enough. We can only become right with God through the grace of God, because we are only able to become right with God through the forgiveness of our sins.

So, what does it mean for us to be righteous? It means living our lives and acting like Jesus. It means putting others before ourselves. It is what God desired for Adam and Eve to do and what he continues to desire for us today.

Becoming righteous is us becoming closer to God each and every day. The way it often is said is that as we become more righteous, we become more right with God. We become more holy. We become more focused on his ways instead of our own.

We follow the adage that we are living in the world but not of the world. We take on more traits of God and less traits of our humanness. Our human nature is overridden by our Godly nature. We choose to become closer to God every day.

We can do this through grace and not the law. Our text from Romans makes this clear when it says

“13 It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, 15 because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham.”

The more we rely on God the closer we are able to become to God.

Jesus offered to us the ultimate example of what it means to be righteous through his words and his actions. We discover these within scripture. We find Jesus many times helping those that needed his help the most; from the lepers who were not allowed to be a part of the Jewish society due to their disease, to the blind who were forced to rely on others to survive.

Jesus was there for them. Jesus healed many of them. We may not always be able to heal those around us that need us like Jesus did but we are able to treat them with dignity and respect. We are able to assist them when given the chance.

One of the big parts of the ministry of the original group that became known as Methodists was to visit those that were imprisoned. To go to those that were forgotten by society including for many their family and friends. Weekly they would go and visit with them and talk to them about Christ.

A prison or jail ministry might not be where you are called but there is somewhere that God is calling you that can allow you to reach out to those who are in need in some way. Jesus gave us the example of what it means to be righteous by touching and showing compassion to those that were in need.

Jesus showed us righteousness by communicating with God. It is difficult for us to be right with God if we are not communicating with him. We need to desire to be in touch with God every day. We need to do that so that we can discover the areas of our lives that are in need of improvement through him.

We need to do this so that we can have God let us know of the people that we are to talk with about him. We need to do this in order to find out where he is calling us into ministry for him. Connecting with God through prayer and listening is a needed part of our spiritual walk.

This leads to another way that Jesus showed us righteousness. He followed what God commanded of him. Jesus didn’t just communicate with God he took what God commanded him to do and he did it.

He didn’t wait to make sure if what he was called to do would be approved by society. He received the message and went with it knowing that God would be beside him every step of the way.

He said and did what God told him to do. The more righteous we become, the more we trust God and rely on God to be there and to lead us into fulfilling his desires for our lives. I often refer to this as letting our faith factor be greater than our fear factor.

The disciples gave us the example of how we do this while Jesus is not on the earth. The first thing that they did after Jesus ascended into heaven was that they joined together in prayer. We also are to join together in prayer both as a Christian community and separately.

It is through prayer that we receive what we as a church and what we as individuals are to do for God. It is how we discover the calling for ourselves and for our church. It is why we are beginning a prayer service for us, those within our circuit and the community. We know the importance of staying connected with God.

Shortly after they prayed those that were together receive the Holy Spirit and by following the leading of the Holy Spirit Peter begins to speak to a large group of Jews. He speaks through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are to allow the Holy Spirit to speak through us. When I say up here before I start my sermon “not my words but your words” I mean that. We need to desire to have the words that God wants for us to express to be the words that we use under all circumstances.

In our humanness we often struggle with this one. We know what we want to say, and we try to find a way for that to be what God wants us to say. We need to be willing to understand that everything that we want to say is not always what God wants said.

We need to decide that we are going to “think before we speak.” I don’t know about you, but it is when I forget to follow this rule that I often get into the most trouble. We need to allow God to direct our words.

We also can see God at work in the lives of the early followers through people like Philip who in Acts chapter 8 is told by an angel of the Lord to “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch.”

Philip could have questioned what he was being told to do. After all it may not have been where he wanted to go but God spoke to him, and he went. He listened and responded to what he had heard. This encounter put into place by a word from an angel became what led the Ethiopian to becoming a follower of Jesus.

Many times, we believe that things happen by chance. We run into the right person at just the right time, and we call it “good timing.” I wonder if it might be ‘God timing.” It might be God directing you and the other person without either of you even realizing it into a life changing encounter.

But sometimes God does want you to respond to his words. He wants you to know that he has created the encounter. He wants you to have the faith to follow his word. He wants you to be his hands, his feet, his voice.

There are many other ways that we can see the early followers being righteous. They prayed; they remembered the words spoken to them by Jesus. They focused on being closer to God each and every day.

Verse 18 of Romans tells us that “Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations.” We also have hope. Abraham is responding to a personal calling of God. He has no scripture to help him understand. He did not have the knowledge of saving grace offered through Jesus. Abraham responded purely based off of faith.

We are also offered hope. We have hope through God. God decided that it was time for him to offer up his son to die on a cross. He gave us hope because through that decision we were able to receive eternal life. God allowed us the possibility to reside with him. He did this through his grace, allowing us to be righteous or right with him.

We have hope because of Jesus. We can have hope because of the sacrifice that Jesus as a righteous person made on the cross. He died so that we could become righteous. He removed the curse of the law and put before us grace. We didn’t have to be good enough to become a part of God’s family.

We also can have hope in the future. We have hope in the future because of two reasons. The first is grace. Those of us that believe Jesus is our Lord and Savior have received justifying grace.

God has made our relationship with him right again. We now have available to us sanctifying grace. Grace offered to us by God so that we can become more righteous each and every day. We are able to become closer to God and to serve him and to lead others into a relationship with him.

The final reason is that we can have hope in our future because we know where we are going to end up. World renowned Evangelist Billy Graham had said this concerning his death. He said “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”

Billy Graham had hope. He knew where he was going to be. He knew that any struggle that he had here on earth would be forgotten when he reached heaven. Each one of us that believes Jesus as our Lord and Savior can say those same words “Someday you will read or hear that I am dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” And with that I believe we all can say “amen.”

Let us pray…