A negative Model
Notes
Transcript
What does it look like to live righteoussly? What is it that we boast in? Take for example King Nebuchadnezer.
King Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man in the world. His empire stretched across nations. His palace shimmered with gold. The hanging gardens — one of the wonders of the ancient world — were his pride and joy.
One day, he walked on the roof of his royal palace in Babylon, looking out over the city he had built. And with pride swelling in his heart, he said:
“Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”
— Daniel 4:30
At that very moment, before his words had even faded into the night air, a voice from heaven thundered:
“King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you!”
In an instant, his power vanished. The proud king who had gloried in himself was driven into the wilderness — eating grass like an ox, his hair growing long, his reason gone. The mighty man who once boasted of his greatness now wandered the fields, humbled and broken.
But after a time, Nebuchadnezzar lifted his eyes toward heaven — and his reason returned. Then, instead of boasting in himself, he boasted in God:
“Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven,
for all His works are right and His ways are just;
and those who walk in pride He is able to humble.”
— Daniel 4:37
“Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day.”
Nebuchadnezzar is that “mighty man” personified — boasting in his own power, blind to the God who gave it. But when he’s humbled, he learns that true greatness is found not in boasting in ourselves, but in boasting in God’s steadfast love and righteousness.
The proud say, “Look what I’ve built.”
The righteous say, “Look what God has done.”
Psalm 52 Speaks of the experience that David had at the hands of Doeg, the man who did not fear God. it goes through what the evil live by and through that we see how the righteouss are supposed to live. and what we learn is that the righteouss live in a that boasts in God alone who lives in a way that points other people to Jesus. who is it that you boast in?
The evil toungue
The evil toungue
This Psalm speaks of the evil and how they live and therefore the righteouss and how they are to live, examples of what it means to live a life for God. Psalm written based on 1 sam 22. Doeg the Edomite reporting to the king where David had gone.
Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Why oh migty man are you boasting in evil. Boast in God for His faithful love is constant. In life the wicked may act as a mighty man, but what we learn is that in the end their lives will be given tyo God to judge. This seems to me to be a sarcastic questiuon, the point being that there is no point to boasting in evil. But even more then that if you think about it what the world aften sees as good we know to be evil. The love of money, the pursuit of power, self above all and the list goes on but these things are the pursuit of them above God.
But the bible tells us what it is we are supposed to boast in, the only thing worth boasting in.
And not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.
It is only through the Lord that we are to boast because it is through Him that we have righteoussness.
Boasting in the Lord is directly connected to the gospel. why boast in evil when we can boast in the one who has forgiven us for our sins.
the world boasts in evil, we have a whole month in support of sin yet people are trying to take Jesus out of Christmas.
What does it mean for the faithful love of God to be constant? apply it to the gospel and the assurance of our salvation.
For it does go back to the faithful love of God. We have gone over this enough to understand what it means. God’s love is faithful eve when we are not. When it seems like God is far away I wonder if it is because we are far away due to the sin in our lives. One question that I have is when it seems like God is far away, have you searched your own life to see if you have given it all up to God. Not to downplay your trials but have you given those trials up to God? Or rather have you really turned to god through all of them.
Have you recieved the reconciliation of God, have you given your life to Jesus completley. He wil give you the strength you need and then we boast in Him because of the salvation that is offered in Him. Once we do this we become righteouss (declared as having a right standing before God) and we also start the porcess of righteoussness. which is where the rest comes in.
Like a sharpened razor, your tongue devises destruction, working treachery.
If a sharpened toungui devises treachery - look at what Doeg did with His treacherous toungue. The bible speaks alot about the treacherous toungue.
I remember working with a group of ladies at a pig barn. Man could they gossip. To hear them talk about each other behind their backs was hard to see. honestly who doesnt like a bit of gossip! in front of the others faces they where happy enough but things changed when they turned their backs. The toungue can be an evil thing, as Christians and those seeking the righteoussness of the Lord God we are supposed to be different
Probably one of the most famous passages on this topic is in the book of James. If the evil have a treacherous toungue (their speech is used for evil and not for God) then what do the righteouss look like?
Now if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we direct their whole bodies. And consider ships: Though very large and driven by fierce winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.
So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things. Consider how a small fire sets ablaze a large forest.
And the tongue is a fire. The tongue, a world of unrighteousness, is placed among our members. It stains the whole body, sets the course of life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
Every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish is tamed and has been tamed by humankind,
but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in God’s likeness.
Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way.
If those that are evil use their toungues for destruction then we are to do the opposite.
The toungue is a powerful tool. There used to be an old saying when coulds would tease you you would say “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” The problem is that words do hurt. It is told that the toungue is like a fire, it is destructive.
So what are we using our speech for? I have learned that it is an easy thing to do, to say something that you regret and to ruin a reputation amongst the people in your community. So then we must be careful for it is very easy to say something we regret that might turn people away from God.
This idea is continued through the next few verses as well.
Like a sharpened razor, your tongue devises destruction, working treachery. You love evil instead of good, lying instead of speaking truthfully. Selah
So then what is it that we love? do we love evil more then good? Do we love our sin more then God. How do we become righteouss observers of yahweh?
the righteouss will see and fear God
You love any words that destroy, you treacherous tongue!
If it is treacherous for the toungue to destroy then as the NT tells us we must learn to use our toungue for building up. Treat each other in love and grace while helping eachother grow. In love I will tell a brother that he is heading down the wrong path, but do we always wait till they are messing up to show them love or are we treating each other in love when we can encourage instead of needing to correct.
We are told to let our speech be seasoned with salt, to build up instead of tearing down. does this mean though that we do not hold people up to the standard God has laid out for us? No. we still hold people up in love and call them to live as God has told us to live, but we learn to do it in love instead of in spite.
This is why God will bring you down forever. He will take you, ripping you out of your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
The consequences of the un-righteouss.
But the righteouss will see God and fear Him
The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, “See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!”
Fear of God - we are not afraid of God. Deep respect and accountability to. This is another thing that we have gone through before. To fear God means that we will look to him as God above all, deep respect and awe. The righteouss will fear God. God does love us, he has created us in His image but the other side of that is that He is a holy God. We need to hold both in hand at the same time.
Laughter at their fall -
This one I struggle with, we are not to have joy at the downfall of the wicked, especially if we have not had a choice to share the gospel with Him. So what does this mean then?
Partly this is Because they trusted in things of the world instead of in God. They know their value is set on man and thingsa instead of God. Behind this is an admonition to not follow their ways. You Could this be exileration and relief that the fate of the world has passed us by. Think of it like this. A horrible fate is set on the whole world because of their sin. There is a chance to avoid this horrendous fate, but it means giving our whole lives up to the one that created the world. So for those who give there lives to Jesus they escape the punishm,ent due to the whole earth for what they have done. I heard someone explain it in a sense of Nervous laughter that their downfall has escaped us.
The joy of the righteouss is not malicious and vindictive, or at least it is not meant to be. It is joy that righteoussness has triumphed, that they now have a life lived in glory, that God will do what He said He will do.
But I am like a flourishing olive tree in the house of God; I trust in God’s faithful love forever and ever.
I will praise you forever for what you have done. In the presence of your faithful people, I will put my hope in your name, for it is good.
expectant hope in God - The tress has no hope of flourishing on it’s own, it needs someone to tend it and help it to grow (if we follow the metaphore of the tree in scripture.
We learn about this expectant hope in God, how the wicked act and how that should show us how the righteouss are to live their lives for God. We look to the examples that have gone before us. We are to be like the floruishing tree whose only reason for life is because of God who has nurtered us, who gives us the strength to grow. The righteouss will praise God forever.
The righteouss will fear God
The righteouss will fear God
The righteouss will remeber that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, made in the image of God but marred by sin. But you have the oporrtunity to give your life back the creator and start the process of becoming like Him again. But in this message of love we remember that we are to fear God.
The wicked trust only in themselves, it is when we understand that we are only where we are because of the grace of God alone. We are utterly dependant on on something that is out of our control. the skilled and attentive pilot of the aircraft we ride, the essential medication that keeps us alive, the holy God who undeservedly forgives and sustains us.
The righteouss will have their lives changed
The righteouss will have their lives changed
Have our lives been changed by God? think of the reaction of Ahimelech the priest to certain death. He was not willing to give up on what God had caleld Him to do. The righteouss will live their lives for God not matyter the cost. With that in mind we have a few ways in which we can live for God that was mentioned here.
the toungue
Oh, be careful, little tongue, what you say, Oh, be careful, little tongue, what you say. There’s a Father up above looking down in tender love, Oh, be careful, little tongue, what you say. but the toungue is no little instrument, like the rudder of a ship and the spark in a dry forest there is great damage in the power of a toungue. In a weak moment we have the ability to tear downwhen our patience wears thin. It seems impossible to tame so what we must do is train it and learn humility when we make mistakes.
Rather we are to use our words for leading people to Jesus, for helping thers grow and when we realize the damage we have done to deal with it in humility.
No love of evil
To have a life changed by the son of God we will have no love of evil and the evil things they do. We will not reveal in the destruction of people who do not know God, but our fear of God will cause us to want those who do evil to turn their evil lives to God. In humility we must turn to God.
seasoned with salt
The righteouss will live lives seasoned with salt. Which goes back not just to our words but also to how we live. We must live and act in usch a way that people will see Jesus in us.
The righteouss will be grateful
The righteouss will be grateful
Are we grateful for what God hgas done. We all deserve death but have been given life if you have given your life to God.
Lord help us not to boast in evil but rather let us hope in your faithful love.
In all that we do help us to live lives of righteoussness. Tame our toungues so that we may use them for spreading the gospel instead of tearing people down. Help us to not fear what is in the world but rather help us to fear you and give our lives to you. I pray that we will be grateful for all that you have done for us. Help us to understand that without you we would be nothing, yet you have shown great love for us.
