Sixth Sunday after Trinity

There are two kinds of righteousness that matter in the life of a Christian. First, there is the righteousness that avails before men. Are you known for being a good, kind, and compassionate person? Do you have a good reputation with your family, friends, and peers? Do people trust you and generally think well of you? This is righteousness before men. It is based solely and works, that is, on your actions and behavior. Would you like to be known as a generous person? Then do generous deeds. Want to have good credit? Then pay your bills on time. It’s a pretty simply system. Righteousness before men is 100% based on what you do, and that’s how it ought to be.

The second kind of righteousness is the righteousness that matters before God. How much does this righteousness matter? A whole lot. If you don’t have righteousness before men, you probably won’t have a lot of friends. You might not get a raise at work. The bank may not give you a loan. But if you don’t have righteousness before God, you can’t go to heaven. Unlike us, God does not judge by works. Righteousness before God is not based on what we do, it is based on the heart. Man looks at the outward. God alone can see the heart.

Jesus uses the Fifth Commandment as an example to teach us about the two kinds of righteousness. “You shall not murder.” There are two different standards for murder: man’s and God’s. The law of man says, “If you were angry with your brother and you thought about killing him but didn’t, you are innocent of murder.” Our courts cannot prosecute people for thoughts. We can only base our righteousness on actions, on what people actually do. Why? Because we can’t read minds. But God can. So his law says, “If you are angry with your brother in your heart, that is the sin of murder in the eyes of God.” No one here has committed murder with their hands. That’s good. You don’t need to go to jail. You have righteousness before men. But don’t confuse that with righteousness before God. Righteousness before men is a good thing to have today, but it won’t help you get into heaven. For that, you need a higher and better righteousness.

In Bible times, the most righteous people around were the scribes and Pharisees. A scribe is a person who writes stuff down for a living, such as a court stenographer, but these scribes were different. They read and wrote and memorized all of the religious and civil laws. And they kept them perfectly, or as close to perfectly as anyone could. Scribes never committed murder. They never parked their donkey across two parking stalls. They never skipped church. They never forgot to give their offering. If the scribe were around today, he would probably carry a 6-foot ruler to make sure he never came within 5.9 feet of anyone.

Before men, the scribes and Pharisees were perfectly righteous. And this isn’t a bad thing. We need righteousness before men to have a well-ordered society. We could use a whole lot more of this kind or righteousness right now in America. So then, why did Jesus have a problem with the scribes and Pharisees? Because they thought that being righteous before men was the same as being righteous before God. They counted on their outward actions to gain them entry into heaven.

On the same day that Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8), he also said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20). In other words, take the most righteous person you know, a person who embodies kindness, selflessness, and integrity. If you want to get into heaven, you will need to be more rightness than that. If you ever want to see God, you must have, not just pure hands, but a pure heart. If you don’t you will “absolutely never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

So many people, Christians and non-Christians, confuse these two kinds of righteousness. Both are important, but there are two very different standards for two very different purposes. If you want a business loan from the bank, righteousness before God won’t help you. Wells Fargo doesn’t deal with that sort of currency. You’re going to need a good reputation and a high credit score. But if you want eternal life, all the righteousness of men won’t help you one bit if you don’t have what matters in the eyes of God.

The next time you attend a non-Lutheran funeral and listen to someone give a eulogy, you will probably hear something along these lines: “We know Fred is in heaven because he was such a kind man. He would give the shirt off his back to a total stranger.” We’ve all heard this speech many times before. I’m glad that Fred was a kind man. I’m sure his family and friends appreciated him for that. Fred had righteousness before men. That’s a good thing to have. But righteousness before God is something altogether different. Is Fred in heaven? Actually, based only on what was said, we would have no idea. Many atheists are kinder than some Christians. But that’s not the way into heaven. You need the better kind of righteousness.

So how do we get the righteousness that matters before God? We all want to see God. To do that, you need a pure heart. How are you going to get that? Or I should say, “How did you get that?” because we are talking about something that has already happened. You already have the righteousness of God. But how did you get it? St. Paul answers, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom 6:3). And if you have been united to his death, you shall certainly be united with him in the resurrection! Unlike Fred’s family, who is looking at Fred’s outward life and hoping his heart was good enough to get him into heaven, you don’t have to look at yourself at all. Our eyes are upon Jesus, on his spotless life, on his pure heart, on his perfect life, on his obedient death. All of this he did in your place. The righteousness that counts before God, can’t be earned, it can only be received. Righteousness before men comes by works. Righteousness before God comes only by faith.

Do you believe that Jesus’ death was for you? Then, by faith, the perfect righteousness that God demands in order to enter heaven is yours. You didn’t earn it. You couldn’t. No one has the pure heart that God requires. You might have been able to show love to your neighbor with your hands, but no one has perfect love in the heart, unless God does a heart transplant. That’s exactly what he did for you when you were baptized. Jesus took your old, dirty, sinful heart, and he gave you a new heart. He took your sin and gave you his righteousness. No one else had the perfect righteousness that counts in the eyes of God. Only Jesus. And he gave it to you. Now it’s yours.

When you receive a gift, it doesn’t matter that you didn’t earn it. It’s still yours. If someone gives you $100 and you take it to the store, they don’t ask, “Did you earn this money or was it given to you?” They don’t care. Money is money. So it is the righteousness before God, the righteousness that guarantees your entrance to heaven. Of course you didn’t earn it. Nobody ever could. But by faith it’s yours just the same. And at the end of your life, someone could say about you, “We know this dear saint is in heaven.” How? Because Jesus gave you the righteousness that is better than the scribes and the Pharisees, the righteousness that comes only by faith. Amen.