Ecclesiastes 7:13-8:1 Repenting of Our Righteousness

Repenting of Our Righteousness , December 3, 2017

Jack Miller, Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Seminary, would often identify himself as a recovering Pharisee. Through his ministry, Tim Keller viewed the Prodigal Son story as focusing on the need for the older brother to repent of his self-righteousness as much as the young brother needed to repent of his unrighteousness ().

I. Why is Life Confusing? –

A. God makes both the straight and the crooked –

1. God takes responsibility for peace and calamity –

2. God blesses the wicked mysteriously –

B. Consider what God is doing –

1. We do not know the future but we know who holds the future – ,

2. “Though He slay me yet will I trust Him”

II. Manipulation by Self-Righteousness –

A. Efforts to live perfectly righteously will fail

1. God cannot be manipulated by our obedience –

2. The older brother thought he could manipulate his father by obedience – (verse 29 is the argument that is vain!!)

B. All of our righteousness is as filthy rags –

1. There is not a just man on the earth –

2. Not by works of righteousness –

3. Who can save himself? – ;

4. Scheming to control God is the worst of sins because it does not consider the righteousness of God –

The Last Addiction – thinking you can self-help yourself to “recovery.”

III. Wisdom is a Person –

A. Christ is greater than Solomon –

1. All wisdom is in Christ –

2. He is our righteousness and wisdom –

B. Jesus Christ is the wise governor of the universe –

1. He alone can make the crooked straight –

2. Christ died on a crooked cross to make our way straight –

In Christ’s gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed –

In Christ is wisdom that will make your face shine –