Righteousness
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In his book Start with Why, Simon Sinek discusses the importance of motivation in a very interesting section titled “It’s What You Can’t See That Matters.”
Detergent advertisers once promoted their product with statements like “Gets your whites whiter and your brights brighter.” That’s what the market research revealed customers wanted. But was it really? Sinek explains:
The data was true, but the truth of what people wanted was different. The makers of laundry detergent asked consumers WHAT they wanted from detergent, and consumers said whiter whites and brighter brights…. So brands attempted to differentiate HOW they got your whites whiter and brights brighter by trying to convince consumers that one additive was more effective than another. No one asked customers WHY they wanted their clothes clean.
Later a group of anthropologists discovered that this approach wasn’t really driving buying decisions. They observed that when people took their laundry out of the dryer, no one held it up to the light to see how white and bright it was. The first thing people did was to smell it. Sinek concludes, “This was an amazing discovery. Feeling clean was more important to people than being clean.”
It is clear in our culture today that we are fascinated and interested ver much in the things we would call artificial. In many cases, we do not like what is real. Real life for many is just too real and so we desire the fantasy land. Its has been a funny experience in my household that my kids are drinking diet coke instead of regular coke. Are we starting to prefer fake over the genuine. Many prefer fake news over real news. Many prefer fake food over the real thing. My wife and her friends prefer fake cheese on their nachos. An article I read said that studies now show that men prefer women who are more plastic than others. Would we today prefer to live in a virtual world than the real one? Would we today, volunteer to enter the matrix?
And for many in modern Christianity we prefer a fake God over a real one. This is in essence what we would call idolatry in the heart. We have an abundance or a plethora of the “I can’t believe in a God that…” Can’t believe in a God that would send people to hell. Can’t believe in a God that would judge people for being who they are. Can’t believe in a God that says He is the only way. Can’t believe in a God that would want me to have a hard time in life. We then create a God that is not God therefore not real… Therefore Idolatry.
So one of the things that becomes a fleeting fading category of theology proper… the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God. It is a study of what the Bible reveals to us about the character and nature of the living God. It is important for us to be familiar with the God that we love and we serve and it is clear that God wants us to know Him as well. That is why he revealed His characteristics and nature to us in the scriptures. Knowing God is and must be the cry of the heart of a believer.
I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death,
And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.
But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.
But for many of us a true grasp and comprehension of the nature of God shows how great is the distance between us and God. We can’t take the holiness and righteousness of God that causes us to feel shame. When God came into the garden, man and woman were ashamed. Shame increases, lack of control increases, authority increases, our weakness increases, our guilt increases, we become smaller, we are humbled, we become afraid, we become aware and we truly wake up and become alert to our purpose and circumstances. We become alert to reality. And like drug addicts who cannot tolerate real life panic and are desperate to get back into the altered state of consciousness. So modern christianity suffers from this paradigm… We want God to bring God down to be more like man so that we can feel more like God. And because we do this… in the end we cannot trust that God is really God so we end up trusting man. We need God to not be God to feel better about ourselves, and in the end we are convinced that He is not God.
Our psalmist today gives us a syllogism. A wonderful cause and effect. If God is really who He is then we can truly rest in that He will be who He is. Let’s check out the righteousness of God today. The next Hebrew letter … Tsade.
O Lord, you are righteous,
and your regulations are fair.
Your laws are perfect
and completely trustworthy.
The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.
What is Righteousness?
Trustworthy Words
The Gospel
The first thing we will uncover today is getting a better grasp of the communicable attribute called righteousness. Second, we will see why the Word of God is completely trustworthy. And Finally, we will see how the gospel makes this wonderful attribute of God communicable.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to miss the value of the attributes of God, it is the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that will open our hearts and minds to the amazing and still amazing grace of God.
I. What is Righteousness?
- Lord You are ALL Right.
A. How are we to understand Sadiq attah Yaweh? Lord you are ALL Right. A way of understanding this. Or another way… Our Lord always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right. Lord you are ALL Right.
Spurgeon - He praises God by attributing perfect righteousness to Him. God is always right, and He is always actively right, or righteous. This quality is bound up in our very idea of God. We cannot imagine an unrighteous God.
B. Now the idea of Justice is used together with righteous and though they are two different words they interchange. This is a part of the reason why the attribute of righteousness is difficult for us.
“The Rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
just and upright is he.
Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, destroying the righteous along with the wicked. Why, you would be treating the righteous and the wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”
I publicly proclaim bold promises.
I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner.
I would not have told the people of Israel to seek me
if I could not be found.
I, the Lord, speak only what is true
and declare only what is right.
C. So if we understand God’s righteousness, we conclude that it is necessary that he treat people according to what they deserve. If God is truly righteous it is necessary that God punish sin, for it does not deserve reward; it is wrong and deserves punishment. A righteous God must and will uphold justice. He is ALL right.
D. This is the detriment of why not preaching sin and punishment for sin will cause our perception of God to be warped. Why? Because if God does not reject sin and punish sin in justice, He is not ALL right, he is unrighteous. Like it or not, when push comes to shove, we will in our hearts conclude that God is not really one who is right and all He does is right. But to help us understand righteousness even more… how do we understand what is right? We should understand it in the sense of “the ought.” What ought to happen in life and what ought to be in life. When what happens is what ought to happen it is right.
E. This is the question of the ages and cannot, I repeat cannot, sorry to my atheist firends, cannot be answered without God. Why not because we see clearly in the scriptures that what is right is what conforms to the character of God. Because God is the standard of what is right, then what is right is to be measured by who He is. So if we know not the Lord, how can we know what is right? If He is the standard Himself of what is righteous then how can we ever question whether He is right, wrong, righteous, unrighteous, just or unjust? Common in our culture and even in the church.
No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?” When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?
“Do you still want to argue with the Almighty?
You are God’s critic, but do you have the answers?”
F. You know whats huge about this? Then God answers not in terms of an explanation that would allow Job to understand why God’s actions were right, but rather in terms of a statement of God’s own majesty and power! God does not need to explain the rightness of his actions to Job, for God is the Creator and Job is the creature. He does not justify Himself, because He does not need to.
Did Job still demand an answer? Nope.
“Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
G. We need to rejoice today even in light of the righteousness of God. When we understand it in light of His divine righteousness we see that His righteousness is also tied up in His divine Omnipotence. Because check it out… If the God of perfect righteousness without power to carry out that righteousness, we would have no guarantee that justice or the right thing will ultimately prevail in the universe. If thats what ya want … and everybody wants this.
H. Now think about an all powerful God who was not righteous… If He were a God of unlimited power, yet unrighteous in his character, how unimaginatively horrible the world would be. It would be more than apparent that unrighteousness would be at the center of the universe and nobody could do anything about it. Meaningless, meaningless, existence would become meaningless, and we would be driven to the most utter horror and despair. We ought therefore continually to thank and praise God for who he is. What HE IS… AS HE IS!
“The Rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
just and upright is he.
II. Trustworthy Words
-Perfect and completely trustworthy.
A. And so because of the extent of the righteousness and justice of God there is something that we can find even more comfort in. If God is ALL RIght and is completely upright and an unfailing upholder of justice by nature. Then all His work is perfect and we can trust that all He does is trustworthy.
B. Therefore… His words are perfect and His words are completely trustworthy as our psalmist writes. Hear the Word modern evangelicalism and culture. We can trust the Word of the living God to be right always right and just and always just. We can trust the Word of God.
C. So for many in our culture and many in our churches… there are things in the scriptures that seem unjust, not right, not politically correct. Many struggle with it. Many have issues with it. Many can’t get over it. But in the end… the problem is the same… we do not trust the Word. But Shane… I get this one a-lot.
O Babylon, you will be destroyed.
Happy is the one who pays you back
for what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who takes your babies
and smashes them against the rocks!
D. Are you kidding me? How am I suppose to see that the Word of God is trustworthy, perfect and just when we read stuff like this. Many a confidence has been shattered by verses like these. Many a preacher has even suggested that this verse does not belong in the Bible. Why don’t we trust it?
E. No matter what, understand what it says or not… we trust it. Even if it sounds bad we trust it. We do not know the big picture. We trust the Word of God because its perfect and trust worthy because Yaweh is totally righteous. He is ALL Right.
F. This problem psalm is what we call an imprecatory psalm. To imprecate is to pray evil against. These are psalms that express the emotion of revenge and injustice performed against the writer. The context of this psalm is from the mouths of the Israelites who were just destroyed and were taken captive by the babylonians. They raped pillaged hanged and dashed the Israelite babies against the rock. It is the expression of revenge or for their enemies to get paid back for the injustice that was done.
G. “Blessed is HE who repays you. Who does to you what you did to us”. It is a prayer of expression and ultimately a cry for the justice of God to be done. Eye for an eye Lord. The Psalmist is predicting that God will not let this act of barbarism pass unchallenged. He will see it and he will address it with perfect equity. This verse then expresses faith and hope in future judgment.
Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,
“I will take revenge;
I will pay them back,”
says the Lord.
H. In the same way we rest in the knowledge that the the Lord will ensure that justice will be done. And in reality Justice will be done. Our God is ALL RIght. All He does is right and just. And He will ensure that Justice is done.
III. The Gospel
- Simultaneously righteous and a sinner.
A. The All Right Justice to be done in all reality is not really good news if we take a deeper. Wonderful that the Lord is that way. We want all the injustice and unrighteousness done against us to be dealt with by our righteous Lord. We rejoice that all the wonderful of God will be done and all the wicked will be destroyed. All the evil will lose. All the wicked will be condemned. Rejoice in our faithful, just, righteous, and all powerful God.
B. However a deep look will expose one very important thing. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Which means a just God must punish sin and the sinner in divine condemnation. We must face the wrath of God. We are all by nature children of wrath. There is no one on earth who always does good and never sins. If we transgress the smallest of commandments we are as guilty as those who have broken all of them.
C. But then Shane why can we rejoice. Our God is not only Just and righteous, but gracious and merciful. Our just God did bring justice. But in His mercy instead of us, it was Christ. Jesus not only lived the life we should have lived and he died the death we should have died. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
D. So the promises continue… all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. And not only saved but actually become children of God and co-heirs with Christ.
E. The use of the term communicable attributes of God are the attributes of God that He shares with us. Wait so if he shares righteousness with us … So are we righteous then?
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
F. Rejoice and be glad… righteous is He.