How will you get Righteous?
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Pyramids & Righteousness.
I’m going to focus on Is 46:12-13
Quick Overview
Quick Overview
You might think that if the Babylonians are coming to defeath Israel (as God has promised) the surely their gods must be worth something right? Maybe they’re powerful?
No.
If you took their idols, they would go into exile with you. They are powerless in the face o the True God.
Their idols need to be carried by pack animals, but your God YHWH doesn’t need to be carried, indeed, he will be the one who carries his people. He will bear them and save them.
There is no comparison between the “gods” of babylon Bel and Nebo and the God of Israel YHWH. YHWH Knows the future, and in fact he creates it. What he says goes.
God will bring to pass his plans of Redemption for his people, and he will use Babylon to do it.
However,
God will shame and disgrace Babylon, because they will be prideful and unmerciful to Judah.
Babylon will be arrogant and prideful, but God will cut babylon down. They cannot stand against God. Nothing they have, astrology and sorcery included, will be of any use to stand against God’s just recompense for their actions.
In the middle of these two chapters are the two verses I want to focus on.
God Calls the Stubborn
God Calls the Stubborn
The Stubborness of Israel and Judah and their lack of righteousness (just read kings!).
God calls them to listen, to heed what he has to say.
“Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness:
They would rightly expect to hear condemnation, but God has not forgotten his promises and he is actually calling them to listen to a Gospel; good news that he will bring righteousness and slavation to a people who sorely need it.
That call goes out to today’s stubborn of heart too.
It goes out to you, you who are stubborn and far from God.
You think you’re not that far off, but it is an illusion created by your own stubbornness. You are dogged in your rebellion, you are practiced in your sins and you think “tomorrow will be different, tomorrow I will adopt righteouness”
Let us say that you really mean it this time, and it is not just one of your many false promises, and you take up your burden and embark with one step toward righteouness.
It feels good.
You feel you have made progress.
The next day you take some more steps. And then more.
And then, well, you’ve made so much progress, “well I’ve come so far you see, it won’t matter if I indulge in a little bit of my former sins, i’ll make more progress tomorrrow....”
And you wake up back where you started. Far from righteousness and with a fresh layer of shame for your failure.
So what do you do with your shame?
Would that we would run to God! But no, so often we copy our first parents and we sew our fig leaves. We try to cover up, and we hearden our heart against the very thing that will help us most.
This is the condition of all mankind.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
If you do not beleive you are naturally stubborn in heart, then you are wither deceived, or the stuborness is evident.
But I want you to take heart. Your circumstance is dire. You are far from Righteouness. You are stubborn and hard hearted.
The problem is real.
But the Lord is calling, he says “Listen to me...”
The Lord wants you to know you are stubborn and righteous, but that is so that he can tell you the good news!
God Brings His Righteousness
God Brings His Righteousness
For the stubborn and unrighteous Israelite, God was not going to abandon them to Babylon.
Judah would be carried off into exile.
Jerusalem will be breached.
The Temple will be torn down.
But God is not done with His promises or His people.
I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay;
To a people far away from righteouness God promises to bring his own righteousness.
Their rebellion lead to exile, but God will overcome their rebellion. And while it may seem distant when they are exiles in a distant land, God assures them that his slavation is not far off and it’s not too late.
Imagine the salve that these words would be to the Jew weeping by the rivers of babylon for their lost home and worship. God has not abandoned them.
And he would come, after 70 years to free them!
He would save them from the hand of their opressors and send them home!
They would be sent back and comissioned to rebuild.
Yet this is only a shadowy and incomplete salvation. It is not lasting or substantial. It leaves us pining for a greater salvation, where God’s righteouness comes near.
And that is what God did do.
What is the importance of Righteousness? RIght action, rightness of heart.
Unrighteouness will seperate us from God (because he is utterly righteous).
To find slavation, to be saved from this plight of rejection from God, we need to become righteous.
If we, since our first parents, are naturally born in sin and therefore far from righteousness what are we to do?
Lets say you give somone a “moral” education and gave them a strict set of laws to follow so that they could live the righteous life.
Well it’s no use! That’s what Israel had! They had torah, they had God himself guiding them! And they were just as far from righteousness as anyone else.
They needed an alien righteousness.
They needed God to bring near his righteousness.
And that’s what God did.
He fulfilled this promise in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Christ is God’s Righteousness come near Near.
Jesus is the human embodiment of the righteouness of God. Perfect in every way.
Paul deals with this topic extensively in Romans and he helpully outlines it here:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
There’s no way to become truly righteous through the Law or outside it.
But the law was good and helps us see our need for RIghteousness from another source.
The righteousness has come near and it is now accessable in Jesus Christ.
It is accessed by faith. Trusting belief in Jesus.
To become a citizen of another nation one of the things you usually have to do is signify your allegience. Such as in Australia:
“From this time forward, under God, I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.”
So to access the benefits and blessings of Australian citizenship you must become loyal to Australia. You must pledge, you must confess, you must belong.
Jesus offers the blessing and benefit of righteousness for His people. Citizens of his kingdom are granted Righteousness, which in turn means they receive Salvation. Rescue from the humman condition.
You have to join Jesus team by faith.
Faith, trusting that
Jesus came into the world to save sinners
That he lived a perfect righteous life
That he died an undeserved death as a sacfircie for thoses sinners.
That he was burried and rose again three days later.
That his righteousness can be granted to us.
Great exchange!
By faith alone (without works) that we receive this righteousness. - One of the catch cries of the Reformation.
God Places His Salvation
God Places His Salvation
Salvation comes through the earthly Zion, but prepares us and directs us to a better Mount Zion.
I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”
Zion recovered, Israel restored, but only in part.
Greater and better was to come.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,
The City is the Bride, the Bride is the Church, The Glory of God is in the City (see Rev 21, Eph 2:21)
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
So What?
So What?
“Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness: I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”
