Building Godly Character: Righteousness

Righteousness is making the right decision according to God’s standards.

Being in line with God’s standards. The process of being made righteous is called justification.

Are you perfect? NO We are all sinners saved by grace. But our goal the thing we should strive for is to live right by God. We are building a building. You want it to be straight. I am not a builder, but I like to pretend I am one. I love construction, there were days when I was helping Chuck Kark or watching Tim Bourn, when I was being Rick Skinner’s gofer that I wished I could be a builder. I will never forget when I walked into the construction of the new addition here and I thought to myself that’s not straight. I could see studs at 16 inches on center and one was clearly off. When things aren’t inline you notice especially if you are paying attention. I appreciate quality work and I like things to be in order. Being righteous is having your life straight, square, plum, level, in line, organized. Not by the worlds standards and I am not talking about having matching clothes or a perfect lawn, it is about meeting the standards and codes of the building inspector of your life Jesus Christ.

1 Hunger for Righteousness

Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.”

I like food, you like food, guess what we all like food. I have a terrible love of pizza and chicken wings. I have to tell you I am not one of those insane people who like hot sauce that is painful, but I like spicy food. It’s bad when I sense that something with hot sauce in it, my mouth begins to water.

Food - fine we need food to live, but do we hunger for that which is right. The older I get the more that I want that but I got to work on something. I want the world to fit my standard. I want people to behave like I want them to behave, the truth is that I should desire myself to behave like God wants me to behave. When I pick up the scriptures and read what is right my mouth begins to salivate because I want to make the right choices, the kind of choices that further the kingdom of God.

Thirst. I used to have a thirst addiction for soda, some people have an addiction to alchohol I had one to soda. It was the only thing I drank to get me through my tough schedule and it wasn’t good. I would drink a coke after doing chores at camp, I would drink one for lunch at school, I would drink one for dinner. It wasn’t good. I don’t believe that having a soda is a sin. I have had some this week but it became something I was addicted to couldn’t get through the day without it. I have to have that kind of thirst for righteousness. There is a righteousness chain through the Bible.

God loves righteousness.

Psalm 33:5 He loves righteousness and justice; The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

My daughter like hiking, She wants to find an outdoorsie guy. So when she finds a guy who likes to play video games all day she is like, well....... My wife and I have tried to tell her to be patient with a guy. Before I met my wife I played basketball. Yep that’s what I did. I got up I played basketball every day I played basketball. I don’t play basketball. I did not go hiking I did not go to waterfalls. My girlfriend Michelle likes waterfalls. Today waterfall hiking is one of my favorite activities, I have an app, I have pictures I am a waterfall nut. Because she loved them, I love them. I have to be honest thought she really likes fireworks. Well I am working on appreciating fireworks. But do you get my point. If you fall in love with God you fall in love with right. Adultery and Fornication are wrong. If given the choice to do right or sin, which do I chose. I chose right because God loves right and I learn to love righteousness like my wife loves pistachio nut ice cream.

Follow Righteousness

Isaiah 51:1–2 Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, You who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, And to Sarah who bore you; For I called him alone, And blessed him and increased him.

You ever see those construction dump trucks. You know the ones that you get behind going up the old ballyhack road and it says in big bold letters ATTENTION DO NOT FOLLOW. If your like me you are like, Oh great what am I supposed to do now. Or if they pull out in front of you I have been know to audibly say, He buddy I was on this road first you go find your own road. Or haha, it makes me want to follow it even more. When it pulls off into the construction site I just want to go along with him. How come we are driven to do things that we are told not to for our own safety, but when it comes to being told to do good things we don’t follow through.

Take time to learn Righteousness

Isaiah 1:16–17 Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.

I love doing math. You might not, you probably don’t. Probably I am the only person you have ever met who gets a trigonometry identity and thinks. O Boy. As a matter of fact in school those can be frustrating to kids. They can’t button mash a calculator to do them. They have to practice. I can’t ice skate. I don’t want to take the time to learn. My daughters do and it is neat. I just don’t want to try. But please try to learn to do good. Stop doing evil. The choice is yours. Choose right!

Sowing and Reaping Righteousness

Hosea 10:12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

Through the Bible you have a trail of Righteousness that we should long for. God hammers this point this is what I want you to do. There is also a theme of Sowing and Reaping. To quote Rev Charles Stanley you get what you sow later than you sow and more than you so. What are you sowing. Hey if you spend your time sowing hatred what are you going to get. If you get time sowing the word of God what are you going to get. If you sow what is right you are going to get what is right. What are you investing in with your kids your loved ones.

2 Righteousness is Precious

Job 27:6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go; My heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.

Righteousness is important to God it is like spiritual gold. You don’t play lousy goosey with your righteousness. You hang onto like something that is precious to you. You ever lose your phone, oh worse yet have you ever seen a teenage girl lose her phone. It’s not good. Couch cushions are flying crying mascara is running and everything is falling apart. Oh many some people hang onto their phone like their life depended on it. Back when I first started working at camp, no one had a cell phone. Oh the good old days. Before the dreaded phone. Kids need to put down their phone and touch grass once in awhile. Still camp staff would push each other in the swimming pool all the time. No big deal. And then came the cell phone...... Do you hang on to your righteousness with that kind of vigor. Job did. When the devil was pushing him in the deep end he was not letting go of righteousness.

Love the righteous and hate the evil.

Romans 12:9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.

I didn’t say hate evil people the Bible says abhor the evil. A good craftsman hates the a job that doesn’t meet their standards. They want it done right. Evil should disgust us. It should make us cringe and we should want to hold onto that righteousness preciously. What is you cling to, your Bible or your phone. I am not saying your phone is inheritantly evil. But it ruins a lot of people a lot of marriages. Take your Bible and treat it like a teenager treats there phone it is precious! I think of the words of the apostle Peter Lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life and we have come to believe and know that you are the christ.

Establish justice

Amos 5:15 Hate evil, love good; Establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of hosts Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Again the idea of hate the wrong the evil of this world. I hate things that are against God’s word. Your a Christian you aren’t supposed to hate. Oh really! I hate murder with passion, I hate devil worship with passion, I hate sexual immorality and what it does to people with a passion. I don’t hate the people who participate in those things. I just hate the evil. I want to be right in God’s eyes it is Jesus who establish the justification in our lives. He lines us up and makes us right.

Wear righteousness proudly

Job 29:14 I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; My justice was like a robe and a turban.

Ok I have a confession to make. I like one name brand type of clothing. I like to excercise and I found some comfortable apparel for summer and winter Spyder brand. I am not being paid to endorse it at all. Not that any of you would buy it because I said it, but I like Spyder cold and hot gear especially for running I go to the store and look for cheap spyder stuff my family pics on me about that because most of the time I don’t care what I am wearing. But do you wear righteousness proudly. I am not saying you toot your own horn. But you wear it with pride. Can you say. “I haven’t had a drink in 12 years!” PRAISE GOD! that is something to celebrate. That is like when we celebrate someone being married for 25 years praise God. I haven’t looked at pornography for 18 years. I have taught Sunday School for 42 years. I have been involved in 28 VBS. It is a badge of honor to have the choice to do right or wrong and your chose right. What righteous badge of honor do you wear. I desperately want to know. I am getting their with you. I bring these things up and I used to get one response. Now I get a lot more and I appreciate it.

3 Righteousness Rewarded

Psalm 58:11 So that men will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; Surely He is God who judges in the earth.

2 Timothy 4:7–8 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

Not only do the righteous reap righteousness in this life. Those who live righteously are rewarded as so in the next. So talk about what is right. Do what is right. Don’t cheat people, when you have a choice to do right or wrong do right. If you have a choice between sin and death or righteousness and life. Chose right.

You realize Romans 6.23 is written to the saved not the unsaved. It starts out should we continue in sin that grace may abound certainly not and it ends for the wages of sin is death but God’s gift is eternal life. Which are you going to chose to live your life for, as a Christian. It isn’t a works based salvation. You have found salvation live in the light of God’s grace.

4 Righteousness is required.

3 John 11 Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God.

People imitate others it happens all the time. In the seventies everyone wore tight fitting bell bottoms in the nineties teenagers were wearing pants 10 sizes to large. Today eveyone has purple hair and dresses just as strange as we all did when we were that age. But we should strive to imitate the Godly and if we aren’t we are not of God. Godly people are chosing to do right.

None are righteous.

Romans 3:10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;

Righteousness is found in the LORD.

Zephaniah 2:3 Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, Who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness, seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden In the day of the Lord’s anger.

God is the general inspector of our lives we are all crooked. We none of us can be completely righteous is Jesus who straightens you out. Not only is He the judge the inspector He is also the master builder who straightens your life out and makes it acceptable to code. IF you need to be straightened out you need the LORD. Only He can save you. He is a good God and can fix the error of your ways.

You can leave church today righteous.

Romans 3:21–24 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

According to God we are all sinners. We are all out of alignment with His standard. Jesus died to justify us to put us back in line and if you have been walking away from the LORD but today you find that you want to live right before God. You want to through off the evil that has been destroying you. Come to the Savior! Jesus died on the cross to set you straight. You can be his today.