"Who I AM" - Just and Righteous
Notes
Transcript
In the last few weeks...
In the last few weeks...
I thought when we started this sermon series it was going to be a breeze, looking at God, His characteristics, His attributes, His values, His morality, His justice, His righteousness. I hope that you have found what I have seen and we will continue to explore. These concepts, all 15 of them. Describe our God and DO NOT LIMIT HIM.
You see to try and limit God when talking about any of these attributes misses the mark. The Jews a very long ago developed the Shema. The Shema is that Jewish prayer that they begin with every single morning. This short verse give them the sense of who God is.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You cannot think about one of His attributes without thinking about all of them.
Looking back...
God is infinite, at the same time He is immense, at the same time that he is Good and this week at the same time He is Just and Righteous.
This week...
God’s Justice and Righteousness
POINT #1 - JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ARE EQUAL IN GOD’S CHARACTER.
Justice and Righteousness in Hebrew share the same root in the Old Testament.
Here is an example of that from scripture...
14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.
Justice certainly has the force of a legal decision or establishes a right from a wrong.
36 Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
Justice is expressed as God’s righteousness. Justice if you will is the noun while righteousness is the the action of Justice so is the verb.
The righteousness of God is His Justice.
In the Old Testament God sets the standard… Particularly in the Ten Commandments
This is the standard that He applies throughout the time before Christ.
Christ comes and fulfills the all of the law including the Old Testament. Christ’s work on the Cross gives us a new commandment. Not to replace the Old but to give new direction.
27 He answered: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
POINT #2 - CHRIST’S SACRIFICE DID NOT CHANGE GOD’S JUSTICE.
When God sent Jesus, His only begotten son earth he in essence sent himself.
When it came to the cross, God separated Himself from Jesus. God imposed His righteous, justice on the body and spirit of Jesus.
46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
At that point the full force of the God of the universe was on the shoulders of Christ.
This act that Christ did…redeems humanity from the effects of sin. The justice and righteousness of God is satisfied at the Cross.
POINT #3 - GOD DEMANDS JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUS FROM HIS PEOPLE.
I know this is a peat from earlier but it is worth repeat
14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.
The people of God from the very beginning were barking concerning God’s justice and His righteousness.
You see it is our nature to think that we have a better idea, a better way, a smarter way, a more efficient way. We aren’t the first one’s to do that. Listen to the prophet Ezekiel
25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust?
God is scolding Israel… Note that He did NOT just destroy them… He could have and had every reason to. If not here the many hundreds of times we see Israel misbehaving in God’s eyes.
Why didn’t God just take Israel out?
God is also Merciful, by the way that’s next week, Israel is God’s people, he chose Israel to be His people, so...
At the same time that God is Just and Righteousness and Merciful.
The Israelites did suffer consequences for their disobedience. This was measured as “unfaithfulness” to God
1 All Israel was listed in the genealogies recorded in the book of the kings of Israel. The people of Judah were taken captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness.
20 He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power.
There are consequences for disobedience to God… Sometime those consequences lead to death… spiritual or physical. But always lead to a “captivity” of sorts
OK Jeff, I get it God is Just, he is Righteous. He held the whole of the Jews accountable and sent them into captivity.
When one or two may have been righteous. He sent them there knowing that they would intermarry with the Babylonians and no longer be pure.
Why would He do such a thing..?
Mostly, Jeff… Why did you form this foundation of God’s Justice and Righteousness for the last 10 minutes. Don’t we live in the age of Grace and we no longer have to live under the law because of it?
Weren’t the Ten Commandments satisfied and summarized when Jesus said
POINT #4 - CHRIST’S DEMAND FOR US IS THIS, “LOVE THE LORD GOD… AND LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF
Yes, if we can do that in the way that he demands, we would be RIGHTEOUS.
“Love the Lord God.” I’ll refer you back to the Ten Commandments.
I am the LORD your God.
Have no other Gods before me.
Have no graven images or likenesses of me.
Do not take the LORD's name in vain.
We as a people would still have trouble, a lot of trouble with these.
And then probably the most difficult part...
“Love your neighbor as yourself.... How do I do that. Once again back to the Ten Commandments
You shall not murder [your neighbor]
You shall not commit adultery [with your neighbors spouse]
You shall not steal [from your neighbor]
You shall not bear false witness [against your neighbor]
You shall not covet [your neighbors stuff]
Christ restated what God delivered How do we, as followers of Jesus, look at God’s Justice and Righteousness. This is what is required of us!
First of all, Everything that I described about God is exactly the same that could be said of Jesus… They are indivisible!
How ever you understand it… God and Jesus are EQUAL.
When Jesus suffered on the cross and took my sin, He took my punishment, God’s Justice and God’s Righteousness on His perfect body and perfect spirit and willingly sacrificed it for me..
AND died… So that I would not have to die.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Christ’s death on the cross had infinite power… The atonement provided by Christ is universal. It is available for everyone!
ATONEMENT?
I don’t get “Atonement.” - Neither do I, The best that we can come up with is this word to describe God’s work on the cross, on the shoulders of Jesus and its effects for us.
Two parties, God and man were estranged. We were far apart. Even after 4000 years of God trying to reach down to us we did not get it.
God had to do something, He sent Jesus, one just like himself, to be born like a man, suffer all the temptations that we suffer and yet remain SINLESS
SINLESS is important.
18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers,
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
He was the ONLY one that could be the sacrifice for the whole human race
The atonement in Jesus Christ’s blood is perfect; there isn’t anything that can be added to it.
It is spotless, impeccable, flawless. It is perfect as God is perfect. That holy suffering there on the cross and that resurrection from the dead cancels our sins and satisfies our death sentence and gives us eternal life.
POINT #5 - ALL OF GOD’S JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ARE SATISFIED AT THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
And we, all of humanity are righteousness because of that death, burial and resurrection.
When God justifies a sinner everything in God is on the sinner’s side.
I’ve never been one to shy away from these statements
When God looks at a sinner and sees him there without the covering of the Blood of Christ because he won’t accept Christ because he doesn’t believe it applies to him.
God says he must die for his sin.
When God looks at the sinner that is saved by grace, he accepts the death of Christ on the cross as his only path to God, who in faith knows he’s accepted by God because of that.
That Angels roar from heaven with joy! We too ought to rejoice and thank God with all of our mind, heart and soul.
After accepting Christ as our Savior…
Justice is on the side of the returning sinner.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Justice is over on our side now because the mystery of the agony of God on the cross has changed our eternal situation.
Do I believe in justification by faith? ABSOLUTELY!
1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.
In order to partake of this great mystery… in order to have the full benefit of the Atonement. In order to satisfy God’s demand for Justice and Righteousness
You must be right with God. There is only one path to God in this circumstance.
Through Faith...
If you have heard this words before and many of you have.
Have you continued to live and love the way that Christ demands of us?
Have to swayed away ever so imperceptibly. Have you turned your back on the free offer of Grace, Forgiveness and Righteousness.
Today is the day… Let’s get right with God, Let’s accept His once for all sacrifice.
No matter where you are spiritually, let’s all do this together. Repeat after me.
Dear God, I am a sinner.
I have wandered far from you.
I desperately want to be in fellowship with you.
I confess my sin and I ask that you forgive me.
I accept Jesus as Lord and Savior of my life.
IF you have prayed that prayer for the first time or the 1000th time. I’d like to know. Was all that I said today for nothing… or did you hear it, and accept it.
Catch me on the way out, you don’t have to draw attention to yourself if you don’t want to. Just catch my eye or give a nod.
Welcome or welcome back to living with God by the Grace that was bought on the cross with the blood of Christ.
Let’s pray...