Yahweh Tsidkenu
YAHWEH-Tsidkenu
INTRODUCTION
· A God Who can Make People Clean Again
· Have you ever tried to please someone who couldn’t be pleased?
o ILLUS. - teacher/student, assignment - boss/employee
· Many think about God that way?
· What’s it going to take to please God?
Ps. 146:8 “The Lord loves the righteous”
Good and bad news - bad- we are not righteous good- God has a name for our need
"“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’" (Jeremiah 23:5-6, ESV)
· The leaders have failed the people
:6b “the Lord our Righteousness” Yahweh-Tsidkenu
What the name implies:
1. Righteousness is intrinsic to God’s nature
· it is not conveyed to God because He obeys some standard.....HE IS THE STANDARD
· That means God must be right in all His dealings with us.
Are there times we don’t believe that? Are there times we believe God is wrong?
· It means God’s Laws are Righteous (Ps. 119:7)
· All God’s Deeds are Righteous (Ps. 146:17)
Everything God has ever done is right
Every Judgment of God is Right (Ps. 96:13)
Sometimes we are asked how God is going to view a person who was not very faithful. We say, “God will do Right”
· on that day we are all before Him, it will be clear that He did right
· Those who want to bargain with God do not understand His nature.(“I will do this if God will do”)
· God will always do right whatever we do.
2. Righteousness is Essential for a Relationship with God
· Remember the standard of righteousness is God, not one another
· as long as I measure myself against others, I can figure out a way that I am righteous
· Bible calls such people as “self righteous”
· Luke 18:9 - parable is told to those “who were confident in their own righteousness”:
· They failed to see that the standard is NOT others, it is God.
"We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away." (Isaiah 64:6, ESV)
"as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;" (Romans 3:10, ESV)
3. Righteousness must come from God and Not Ourselves
· ILLUS. - Lee Davis - La Junta, CO - popular DJ, worked at convenience store, went to church. A good guy. Then found out he was Henry Andrews, a convicted murderer who had escaped GA state pen in 1983.
Henry told his boss, he felt he had paid for his crime. But the law is not concerned with your opinion. Justice must be satisfied, not when you think it is enough.
· Our sin. We don’t decide when we have done enough for justice to be done. There’s nothing we can do to satisfy that Justice. Only when God makes us righteous. Jehovah-Tsidkenu - THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
· The name does not say “YOU ARE RIGHTEOUS”. It does not say “GOD IS RIGHTEOUS”... though He is. ...It says, “GOD IS GOING TO BE YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS”
That’s what Jesus said (Matt. 6:33), “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness”
-that is to be our focus.
How do we seek the righteousness of God?
" For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”" (Romans 1:16-17, ESV)
Then shocks them by saying (3:20) "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:20, ESV)
· He didn’t say it was bad to observe the Law, it just wasn’t going to make you righteous.
" But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—" (Romans 3:21, ESV)
"fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:21-25, ESV)
What does the Bible tell us?
A. Righteousness is Offered Through Christ (Jer. 23:5-6 is talking of Jesus)
· Who was God talking about here? Jesus is Jehovah-Tsidkenu
· This is the answer to the question of how God could have anything to do with such sinners as ourselves
"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit," (1 Peter 3:18, ESV)
"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV)
The essence of sin: We substitute ourselves for God (we put ourselves where only God deserves to be)
The essence of Salvation: God substitutes Himself for us (God puts himself where only we deserve to be)
CONCLUSION
Why it’s Important to Rely on Jehovah-Tsidkenu?
1. We will not fear confession "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:8-9, ESV)
· Jesus blood covers our sin, not our excuses
· If we know Jehovah-Tsidkenu we don’t have to fear being honest about ourselves. We can pray “God, be merciful to me a sinner”
2. We will not face condemnation " That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—" (1 John 1:1-2, ESV)
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1, ESV)
Do you want to be clean or wallow in the shame and guilt of your sins of yesterday and today?