Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] O Heavenly Father, you and you alone are God.
[00:00:10] We do not recognize any other.
[00:00:15] And although you are the Almighty God, you invite us to draw near to you.
[00:00:25] You open your nature to us.
[00:00:32] You offer from the riches of your character to nurture our souls.
[00:00:41] So we gather together in your house this morning with the intention of drawing near to you, of being taught by your spirit, of being enriched and made better people.
[00:00:56] I pray this morning that we would understand that you are the God of righteousness.
[00:01:03] In Christ's name, Amen.
[00:01:07] We're studying the moral attributes of God.
[00:01:12] We're asking ourself, we're asking the Bible, who is God?
[00:01:21] We've learned that God is true and trustworthy.
[00:01:25] He's good.
[00:01:27] He is a God of steadfast love.
[00:01:30] And this morning we're going to sing together about the Lord is a God of righteousness.
[00:01:38] About 2,000 years before Christ, God invaded the life of a man living in the Ur of Chaldees.
[00:01:49] It was a man like anybody else until God showed up in his life and he said, I'm gonna ask you to do some hard things, but I'm gonna give you a rich promise.
[00:02:04] And this is what God said.
[00:02:09] Go from your country and from your kindred, from your father's house to a land that I will show you.
[00:02:17] And I will make of you a great nation.
[00:02:20] And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.
[00:02:27] I will bless those who bless you.
[00:02:30] And him who dishonors you, I will curse.
[00:02:34] And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
[00:02:41] So Abraham did exactly what God asked him to do.
[00:02:45] He sold his house, he sold his business, he bought some tents, and he went on the adventure with God.
[00:02:56] And 25 years later, we find him living in a tent city in the highlands of Canaan.
[00:03:08] He is a very wealthy man.
[00:03:14] I'm afraid that often we misunderstand.
[00:03:18] Abraham had 300 people who worked for him.
[00:03:23] 300 men.
[00:03:25] And if he had 300 men, there's probably an equal number of women.
[00:03:30] And they all lived in tents.
[00:03:33] So don't have in your head that, uh, Abraham's camping out in a tent that he got from fin, feather and fur.
[00:03:45] He's living in a massive tent city.
[00:03:49] He has giant herds and flocks.
[00:03:53] He is an intensely wealthy man.
[00:03:57] But the promise of God that through his family, the whole earth would be blessed seemed empty because he was 100 years old and didn't have a wife. A son with his wife Sarah.
[00:04:20] He made a mistake and accepted his wife's advice.
[00:04:25] Sorry, ladies. This was bad advice.
[00:04:29] Sarah said to him, why don't you marry my concubine and have a child through her?
[00:04:38] Well, I mean, who's going to turn down that offer?
[00:04:45] So sure enough, Abraham and Hagar have a child.
[00:04:52] Well, then Sarah changes her mind and says, I don't like this.
[00:04:57] This is not what I wanted to happen.
[00:05:01] And when this story happens, this boy, Ishmael, is probably about 13 years old.
[00:05:09] And one day, Abraham is sitting in his tent city. It's the heat of the afternoon, and people are trying to find whatever breeze they can find in whatever shade they can find.
[00:05:24] Because Abraham was camping in the highlands, it would have been impossible to sneak up on the camp.
[00:05:30] You could see people come from miles around.
[00:05:34] But suddenly, Abraham looked up, and there were three men walking toward his camp.
[00:05:43] And he jumped up and ran out to where they were.
[00:05:49] And he bowed himself to the earth and said, o Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.
[00:06:00] Let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree while I bring a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourself. And after that, you can pass on.
[00:06:17] Ah.
[00:06:19] Abraham recognized that this just wasn't three guys walking around.
[00:06:26] He sensed the presence of the Lord and so he ran out and met him and said, let me create a pleasant environment for you.
[00:06:42] Church how often do you go out of your way to create a pleasant environment for the Lord?
[00:06:55] When was the last time you said, I wonder what the Lord would enjoy from me.
[00:07:04] And today I'm going to do everything I can to create a pleasant environment for God in my life.
[00:07:13] Today I'm going to. I'm going to have a relationship with God. That the end of the day, God will say, that was refreshing.
[00:07:23] Church we often think about what we need to get from God, but not often enough do we think about what might I do to be more hospitable, more delightful, more pleasing to the Lord God Almighty?
[00:07:55] And so Abraham gave the commands, and people exploded into activity. The. They made fresh bread, they killed. They. They killed a calf. And. And they. They made a lunch.
[00:08:08] And Abraham and the Lord and two messengers ate lunch together that day.
[00:08:19] And when the lunch was over, the Lord looked directly at Abraham.
[00:08:29] One of those looks that you know something important is about to happen, but you're not really sure what.
[00:08:39] And after he looked straight at Abraham, he said, I'm going to come back here next year at about this very same time.
[00:08:51] And when I do, your wife Sarah will be holding a baby that she gave birth to herself, he said, abraham, I made you a promise 25 years ago, and I am a righteous God, and I always keep my promises.
[00:09:18] I know it's been hard for you to wait.
[00:09:21] I know you've often been confused.
[00:09:24] I know this isn't all working out the way you had scheduled.
[00:09:29] But I am a righteous God, and this will be right in the end.
[00:09:37] Well, Sarah, God bless her, she was in her tent next to Abraham's tent. And she had positioned herself to eavesdrop.
[00:09:49] Ah, ah, ah.
[00:09:54] And she was craning her neck and listening. And when she heard the Lord say, I'm coming back next year, and your daughter, your. Your wife, Sarah will be holding a baby, she laughed.
[00:10:17] She actually cackled.
[00:10:21] And she thought to herself, there was a time that I was young enough to do that, but that time in my life has passed.
[00:10:35] And she chuckled again. And she said, after I'm worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure?
[00:10:49] Ah.
[00:10:52] Ah.
[00:10:54] Sarah questioned the righteousness of God.
[00:10:58] Sarah knew that promise. She knew that promise as clearly as Abraham knew it.
[00:11:04] And God said, I'm going to do the right thing and fulfill my promise. But somewhere in Sarah's heart, she could only see what was lacking in her.
[00:11:16] She could only see how old she was.
[00:11:19] She could only see how life had changed. She could only see the deficits and the deficiencies.
[00:11:27] And so it seemed like what God was saying was unrealistic.
[00:11:34] Church.
[00:11:36] We mustn't ever miss the righteous favor of God because we're too fixated on our own deficits.
[00:11:47] It's easy for me to remember my mess ups.
[00:11:52] It's easy for me to remember the stupid things I've done and said.
[00:11:58] And if I focus too much on my own failure, I lose the wonder of the rightness of God.
[00:12:11] I want you to get this.
[00:12:17] I cannot fail beyond the righteousness of God.
[00:12:25] God's righteousness extends beyond every one of my failures.
[00:12:33] Now, by that I don't mean his righteous judgments. I mean his. His. God has a way of making what was intended to be wrong right.
[00:12:47] God has a way of turning the tables.
[00:12:50] You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
[00:12:55] I can look at times in my life where God just awesomely and in a beautiful way took one of my mistakes, used it to change my character, and use it to change something, and the outcome was 100% better than what I would have ever guessed. Can you tell the story?
[00:13:17] Can you see times in your life where God transformed your mistake into something beyond what you could ever imagine?
[00:13:28] When I Remember my failures. I want to lift my thoughts up to the righteousness of God.
[00:13:36] I don't want to lose the wonder of the righteousness of God wallowing around in my own deficits.
[00:13:51] And the Lord can be a little pushy.
[00:13:55] And he heard Sarah chuckle.
[00:13:59] And he said to Abraham, why is Sarah laughing?
[00:14:07] Well, now Sarah's.
[00:14:10] She knows they.
[00:14:12] She knows they know she was listening in, and she knows. They heard her cackle.
[00:14:22] And she did the only thing a panicking woman could do.
[00:14:27] She denied it.
[00:14:34] I don't know who that was laughing, but it wasn't me.
[00:14:41] But even her.
[00:14:43] Even her moment, God uses in a beautiful way, because this is what he says, is anything too hard for the Lord?
[00:14:56] Is anything too hard for the Lord?
[00:15:00] When I think about the righteousness of God, I want to say to myself, is there anything so broken that the righteousness of God can't fix it?
[00:15:16] Is there is, There is. Is there anything so messed up that what is right in God isn't able to sort it out and, and fix it?
[00:15:28] And, and. And God expects us when he says, is there anything too hard for me? He expects us to think, no, there is nothing too hard for God in everything that is broken in the world around you.
[00:15:47] What is broken in you? What's broken in your family? What's broken in your spouse? What's. What's broken in your kids? What's broken at work?
[00:15:56] We look at all of these things, but we see them apart from the righteousness of God.
[00:16:03] And we begin to think that things are so messed up.
[00:16:09] I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel, but God stands up in his righteousness and he says, there is nothing so broken that my rightness can't fix it.
[00:16:28] And so I learned something important about the righteousness of God.
[00:16:32] The righteousness of God validates and affirms what is right and good.
[00:16:41] God's righteousness is not passive.
[00:16:46] God's righteousness is active. And what does it do? It affirms and validates what is good.
[00:16:55] How does God fix what is bad here? Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
[00:17:07] Listen what the righteous God is saying.
[00:17:10] My goodness. My righteousness sees the same broken world you see, but it sees it differently.
[00:17:19] I see there is something right in me that can fix every wrong in the world.
[00:17:27] I see that there is something good in me that can overcome every bad in the world.
[00:17:34] God said, do you believe that I am a God of righteousness and that my righteousness is greater, more powerful, more creative, and capable to Overcome any evil that is in the world.
[00:17:55] Do you believe.
[00:17:58] Do you believe in a God who is so right that things naturally start getting right around him?
[00:18:12] It's hard to be around God and not get right.
[00:18:17] There is something ordered, there's something.
[00:18:20] There's something arranged. There's something that is unique about God, that he is a God of order and. And even in chaos, things become orderly around him.
[00:18:34] All you have to do is read the Gospels.
[00:18:37] When Jesus is in the storm, what happens?
[00:18:40] The storm stops and order is restored.
[00:18:46] Ah, When Jesus is around sickness, what happens? He heals them and order is restored.
[00:18:56] Even.
[00:18:57] Even the disorder of death itself gets rearranged in the righteous presence of God.
[00:19:08] The righteousness of God makes things right around him and affirms what is right.
[00:19:19] And then the lunch was over and the moment passed.
[00:19:24] And the Lord and his two companions got up and started walking toward the east.
[00:19:31] And Abraham said, I'm not ready for this to be over. I'll walk with you a little way.
[00:19:38] I'll walk with you a little while.
[00:19:40] Remember, Abraham created an environment in which God was comfortable.
[00:19:46] And now what does he do? He says, I'm gonna walk with you a little while.
[00:19:53] What would your life look like this week if you said to God, I'm gonna walk with you today in everything I do. I'm gonna try to touch base with you when I eat my breakfast. I'm gonna touch base with you when I'm driving to work. I'm going to touch base with you when I have my coffee break. I'm going to touch base with you when I eat my lunch. I'm going to touch base with you. And we purposefully and consciously tried to walk with God throughout our day.
[00:20:29] So as they're walking, the Lord suddenly stopped and looked at Abraham.
[00:20:37] And there was that look again, that serious look that something important was about to happen.
[00:20:48] And the Lord said to Abraham, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him, For I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.
[00:21:28] The Lord looked at Abraham and said, ah, I mean, I'm inviting you in to something very important that I'm. I'm about to do.
[00:21:42] I want you to be part of it.
[00:21:44] Isn't it interesting that the God of all righteousness could do this all without us and with a whole lot less hassle.
[00:21:54] But he still invites us in.
[00:21:58] The Lord did not need Abraham's help.
[00:22:01] We agree on that.
[00:22:04] In fact, Abraham made it more difficult for the Lord to do what he wanted to do.
[00:22:11] But this God of righteousness says, I enjoy my people and I want to invite them in when I'm doing right and making the world right.
[00:22:27] Church, can you hear this?
[00:22:30] I'm actually delighted for the Christmas offering to come around.
[00:22:37] I know God wants to feed hungry people.
[00:22:41] And I'm delighted that he says, while I'm fixing something that is broken in the world, God never intended to people go hungry. It was never his plan.
[00:22:54] You know what he says?
[00:22:56] I'm gonna make this right. And I'm inviting you to be my partner in doing that.
[00:23:02] Can you hear this?
[00:23:03] God's going to feed people all year long. He's gonna do it.
[00:23:08] Ah, he doesn't need us. But he says, would you like to be. Would you like to be my partner as we make something right that is wrong in the world? Church.
[00:23:21] Ah. Let me say to you, if you don't, God will get it done anyway.
[00:23:28] This isn't about guilt tripping anyone. This is about saying God said to Abraham, I'm gonna do something special and I want you to do it with me.
[00:23:40] And I believe our church is doing many wonderful things that God says, I'm gonna do something special. I wonder if you'd like to do it with me. Church, I want you to notice that God said to Abraham, I want you and your household to keep the way of the Lord.
[00:24:00] And then he says what the way of the Lord is by doing righteousness?
[00:24:07] Do you know what the way of the Lord is? Do what is right.
[00:24:11] You know what the way of the Lord is? Every day, in every situation, do what is right.
[00:24:18] I don't have to ask myself, what would Jesus do? I already have the answer. He would do the next right thing.
[00:24:27] He said to Abraham, if you want to keep my way, my way is a way of righteousness. I always do what is right.
[00:24:40] And then he said, abraham, I'm going to tell you why I'm here.
[00:24:46] Because an outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave.
[00:24:53] I will go down and see whether they have done all together according to the outcry that has come to me. And. And if not, I will know.
[00:25:05] The Lord said, abraham, I have a sense of what is right.
[00:25:12] And the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are offending my sense of what is right.
[00:25:19] And I'm going to go see exactly what's happening, because my sense of right won't allow me to ignore this church.
[00:25:34] And when.
[00:25:36] When the Lord said that to Abraham, Abraham instantly got sick to his stomach because his nephew Lot lived in Sodom and Gomorrah.
[00:25:52] They left the year of Caldees together.
[00:25:55] They went to Haran together.
[00:25:58] Abraham's brother stayed in Haran, but Lot came with him when he came to the Canaan land.
[00:26:04] And God blessed them so much, and their crops and their. And their flocks and their herds became so big that they couldn't camp together anymore. And they separated into two camps. And Lot moved his camp into the Jordan river valley near Sodom and Gomorrah.
[00:26:23] And little by little, he stopped living in tents and got comfortable living in the city.
[00:26:33] And he gave up his nomadic life and bought a house and raised his kids in Sodom and Gomorrah.
[00:26:43] And Abraham knew the reputation of the place, and he knew that his nephew and his family lived there. And he was terrified of what the outcome might be.
[00:27:02] And now we have one of the most beautiful examples in the Bible.
[00:27:07] Abraham appealed to the righteousness of God.
[00:27:14] It's a brilliant moment.
[00:27:17] It inspires me every time I read it.
[00:27:22] Then Abraham stepped closer to the Lord.
[00:27:27] He drew near to him and he said, will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
[00:27:41] He said, I know you.
[00:27:45] I've known you for 25 years.
[00:27:48] And it doesn't seem right to me to think of you as a God who would sweep away the righteous with the wicked.
[00:28:00] Suppose there are 50 righteous people living in the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for 50 righteous who are in it?
[00:28:11] Far be it from you to do such a thing.
[00:28:15] To put the righteous to death with the wicked so that the righteous fare as the wicked?
[00:28:22] Far be it from you. Listen at this.
[00:28:25] Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right?
[00:28:32] Do you remember I taught you we can appeal to the trustworthiness of God?
[00:28:39] I tell you, we can appeal to the goodness of God.
[00:28:43] We can appeal to the steadfast love of God. But we can also appeal to the righteousness of God.
[00:28:51] When we look at a broken world, when we look at a broken experience, when we look at a broken family, when we look at a broken life, Instead of.
[00:29:06] Instead of despairing, we can do exactly what Abraham did.
[00:29:16] We can say, I know you.
[00:29:20] I know you are righteous.
[00:29:23] I know you do what is right.
[00:29:27] I know no matter what the circumstances. Are you affirm and you vindicate whatever right there is, even if there isn't very much of it, you'll work with it.
[00:29:40] That's what he says.
[00:29:46] And at first.
[00:29:49] First it sensed. Abraham sensed that there's a lot of people down there.
[00:29:58] Surely there are 50 good people down there.
[00:30:03] Well, then, as often happens, Abraham started remembering stories that had come out of Sodom Gomorrah.
[00:30:13] And suddenly he wasn't comfortable with 50.
[00:30:17] And he said, what if we're five short of 50?
[00:30:25] Would you spare? Would you destroy the city over five people?
[00:30:29] The Lord said, no, if there are only 40, I'll spare. If I can find 40 righteous people, that's enough for me to work with, and I'll spare the city.
[00:30:47] But Abraham wasn't comfortable.
[00:30:51] Maybe there weren't 40 people.
[00:30:54] Maybe you couldn't find 40 good people.
[00:30:59] And so he. He humbled himself and he said, behold, I've undertaken to speak to the Lord.
[00:31:06] I who am but dust and ashes.
[00:31:12] He said, God, this isn't really about me.
[00:31:15] This is really about you and who you are.
[00:31:19] And I feel that as a God of righteousness, you're open to me making an appeal to you Church.
[00:31:29] In times of trouble, you have to have a deeper faith in the righteousness of God.
[00:31:37] And you have to say to God, if there is something good here to work with, would you please do it?
[00:31:47] If 99% of it is messed up, but there is 1% out of the righteousness of your existence, would you please work with the 1% and see what might happen?
[00:32:07] And so Abraham negotiated, and he said, there's only 30.
[00:32:24] And the Lord said, For 30 righteous people, I'll save the cities.
[00:32:35] Abraham said, I got nothing to lose.
[00:32:40] How about 20?
[00:32:44] And the Lord said, For 20 righteous people, I'll save the city.
[00:32:52] And Abraham said, please don't be angry with me.
[00:32:56] Let me speak one more time.
[00:32:59] If there are 10.
[00:33:02] If there are 10 righteous people, will you spare the city?
[00:33:08] Let's just imagine 10,000 people lived in those cities.
[00:33:14] What is that?
[00:33:16] One out of every 1,000?
[00:33:19] One out of. If you can find one good person out of every thousand people, will you spare the city? And you know what the righteous Lord said?
[00:33:29] Yes, if I can find 10, if I can find one person out of every 1,000, that's enough.
[00:33:44] I'll make it work.
[00:33:55] And then the moment passed.
[00:33:58] And Abraham said, thank you.
[00:34:01] And Abraham went back to his tent city.
[00:34:04] And the Lord went about his work.
[00:34:08] I don't know what kind of evening it was, but Abraham spent the evening, slept the night And I'm absolutely certain that just before dawn he was out of bed, he was dressed, and he was walking to the place that he had negotiated with God yesterday to see what had happened.
[00:34:32] And as the golden light of morning broke over the eastern mountains and a flush of gold spread all over the sky, Abraham looked in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah and he saw black clouds of smoke pillaring up in the sky.
[00:34:59] God had gone to the city.
[00:35:01] I'll tell you that story another time.
[00:35:05] And couldn't find 10 righteous people.
[00:35:12] In fact, three.
[00:35:19] Three people out of 10,000. He found three.
[00:35:26] This tells me something else about the righteousness of God.
[00:35:29] The righteousness of God vindicates what is good.
[00:35:35] But the righteousness of God also confronts evil.
[00:35:40] This is not a one way. This is not a one way street.
[00:35:44] God vindicates what is good. But God also.
[00:35:49] God also confronts what is evil.
[00:35:54] God is not maudlin.
[00:35:57] God is not weak.
[00:36:00] God is not pathetic.
[00:36:02] He is a righteous God and he gives evil time to repent. But if it does not repent, his righteousness demands that it be confronted. Would you hear this church?
[00:36:20] The righteousness of God requires that evil be confronted.
[00:36:27] The word righteousness that's used here in Genesis and in the rest of the Old Testament. It's the word sadiq.
[00:36:36] Listen to Isaiah 45:21.
[00:36:39] Declare and present your case.
[00:36:41] Let them take counsel together. Who hold? Who told this long ago?
[00:36:47] Who declared it of old?
[00:36:49] Was it not I, the Lord?
[00:36:52] There is no other God besides me.
[00:36:56] A righteous God.
[00:37:00] God declares himself. He says, do you want to know who I am? I am the sadiq. I am the righteous God in Romans chapter 10 in the New Testament. The New Testament word is dikaios.
[00:37:17] And Paul wrote this.
[00:37:20] Being ignorant of the righteousness of God, they sought to establish their own righteousness and they did not submit to the righteousness of God.
[00:37:34] You know what Paul was saying?
[00:37:36] There is really only one righteousness and it's God's righteousness. All self righteousness is an illusion.
[00:37:45] All self righteousness is a self deception.
[00:37:51] God is righteous means that God is and does what is right.
[00:37:57] In fact, we can only distinguish good from evil because God in his nature defines right as right and wrong as wrong.
[00:38:06] Mankind doesn't get to invent for themselves what is right and what is wrong because God is righteous. That has already been decided.
[00:38:18] Now I want to talk to some of you young people who are living in a culture of moral relativity where people say something like this. What's right for you is right for you. But that doesn't mean it's right for me.
[00:38:32] It's called moral relativity.
[00:38:34] Okay, listen. Nobody believes that.
[00:38:38] Absolutely nobody believes that.
[00:38:41] If a professor says that to you, what if you say to them, okay, I like that idea.
[00:38:48] I will decide what is right for me in this class, and I decide. It's not right for me to have to write that paper.
[00:38:58] I will decide what kind of punctuation I use.
[00:39:03] I will decide how I spell words.
[00:39:06] Nobody believes in moral relativity.
[00:39:10] You could not have a class.
[00:39:13] No one would learn anything because everybody would already be right.
[00:39:19] You can't have a family with moral relativity.
[00:39:23] What would happen if I said to Shay, okay, you decide what faithfulness means to you, and I'll decide what faithfulness means to me.
[00:39:32] I'll tell you what happened. My stuff would be on the front lawn.
[00:39:41] Ah. Kids can't say to their parents, ah, well, that's. Maybe that's right for you, but it's not right for me if I want to borrow the neighbor's car and go for a ride. Maybe that's not right for you, but it's all right for me. A family wouldn't work that way. You can't do business with moral relativity.
[00:40:00] All business is built on there is something right and. And there's something wrong. We put what is right into contracts, and if you don't fulfill it, there's consequences.
[00:40:13] You can't have a civilization.
[00:40:16] You cannot have a civilization.
[00:40:21] Your neighbor likes your dog.
[00:40:23] Moral relativity and takes your dog. And you say, hey, that's my dog.
[00:40:30] And they say, well, I wanted it more than you really do.
[00:40:34] I should be allowed to have it because I like it more than you do.
[00:40:38] Moral relativity is an absolute myth. It doesn't work anywhere church.
[00:40:45] And there's some people out there who like to feel smart, but they don't live by moral relativity either. They can't live by it. All right, so where does right and wrong come from?
[00:40:58] It comes from the creator who is himself right.
[00:41:04] And everything that is consistent with God is right. And everything that is an affront to God is wrong.
[00:41:12] If God says, husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church, and you decide that, that doesn't apply to you.
[00:41:22] Look, you don't get the choice. The God who created everything says this is right.
[00:41:30] Are you listening to me?
[00:41:32] We know right from wrong because the Lord our God is righteous.
[00:41:39] God's righteousness affirms and vindicates what is good.
[00:41:45] How does the righteousness of God work in your life? You ought to have a high expectation that that God is going to be affirming what is right in your life.
[00:41:56] What does that look like?
[00:41:59] I don't have to.
[00:42:02] I don't have to manipulate, I don't have to cheat, I don't have to do all these things because there is a great God and he is conscious of my life and he is going to affirm what is right.
[00:42:17] In ways I see, he will affirm it. In ways I can't see, he will affirm it.
[00:42:22] I simply have to partner with him in doing the next right thing.
[00:42:27] God's righteousness confronts and condemns evil.
[00:42:32] By faith, we expect God to confront evil.
[00:42:37] Church this is a historic reality.
[00:42:40] Evil has temporarily been in charge, but God has always come, confronted evil.
[00:42:52] It felt for a while that the Nazis and the fascists, they were going to take the whole world.
[00:43:00] People predicted it, but the God of righteousness said, enough is enough.
[00:43:08] And they wield no power today.
[00:43:11] Look throughout history. There was a time the Roman Empire was unstoppable, but God said enough is enough.
[00:43:19] There was a time that Egypt was a superpower. But God said enough is enough. All of history says God confronts evil.
[00:43:30] I ought to have an expectation in my life as I am engaging and I'm being confronted by evil, I ought to have an expectation that God sees that, he recognizes that, and he has a plan to deal with it.
[00:43:47] God's righteousness in the context of law is justice.
[00:43:53] Here's another place our culture has gone off the rails.
[00:43:58] There is a difference between righteousness and legal technique.
[00:44:06] Would you open your heart to this?
[00:44:08] You who like to think, ah, does a person get justice because the proper legal technique was followed?
[00:44:25] We followed the proper legal technique in our lifetime. We've seen people who obviously had committed heinous crimes walk because of legal technique.
[00:44:42] And the other side of the I want to say too, we need to be a little less judgmental. There are people sitting in prison right now who shouldn't be there because of legal technique.
[00:44:53] There are people sitting in prison because they got a sorry public defender. And the legal technique of the prosecutor was better than the legal technique.
[00:45:05] And justice was not served. All right.
[00:45:08] In our culture, we have to distinguish between the righteousness of God and justice by legal technique.
[00:45:19] Because the righteousness of God and what happens in courtrooms are two different things.
[00:45:26] And I am a firm believer that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.
[00:45:36] I am a firm believer that the God of all the earth will do what is right.
[00:45:46] I want to make this a little more personal for just A minute.
[00:45:56] Where do you get your sense of rightness from?
[00:46:02] What makes you feel right?
[00:46:07] Listen to what Paul said.
[00:46:10] Romans 7:18.
[00:46:12] For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.
[00:46:19] For I have the desire to. To do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
[00:46:28] Anybody here recognize that feeling in my heart? I want to do what is right.
[00:46:37] If I could live out what I really wanted, I would never do another wrong thing.
[00:46:43] Church.
[00:46:46] The desire is there, the ability to do it.
[00:46:52] I fall short.
[00:46:55] I will never have a sense of right by what I do and don't do because I will always have the sense of. I'm not living up to it. I'm not living up to it.
[00:47:08] I can't escape that if I'm honest with myself.
[00:47:12] So where does my sense of right come from?
[00:47:16] Paul's going to tell us that again.
[00:47:18] Galatians 2:16.
[00:47:21] Yet we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:47:32] So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be declared right by faith in Christ, not by the works of the law.
[00:47:44] Because by the works of the law no one will be justified, will be declared right.
[00:47:53] Our sense of right doesn't come because we do more good stuff than bad.
[00:48:00] We have one ground for the sense of right, and that is through Jesus Christ.
[00:48:08] The righteousness of God that we've just talked about is imputed to us.
[00:48:14] God, because he is a God of righteousness, does what is right and gives me what I cannot get by myself.
[00:48:28] He imputes the righteousness of God to me.
[00:48:33] There is therefore no condemnation to them that be in Christ Jesus. For the law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
[00:48:45] Would you listen to this, Church? The righteousness of God is gifted to us.
[00:48:52] That is why the Bible says our sins are removed as far as the east is from the West. As there is no sin in God when He imputes his righteousness to your heart, there is no sin in your heart. Do you hear this?
[00:49:09] Our only hope for righteousness is that the righteous God, because He is righteous, makes things that aren't right. Right what is broken, he fixes.
[00:49:28] What is wounded. He heals.
[00:49:31] What is dead, he gives life to because he is a God of righteousness and things get right around him.
[00:49:41] Our dear Heavenly Father, thank you.
[00:49:46] Thank you that you are a God of righteousness.
[00:49:50] Thank you. Are right in all you do.
[00:49:54] Thank you that you make things right around you.
[00:49:58] My prayer is this morning for everyone who is here who has a sense of an overwhelming sorrow, they have an acute awareness of a brokenness.
[00:50:11] They have a sense that something's wrong and they don't know how to fix it.
[00:50:16] I pray this morning that by your spirit, you would meet them in their need and you would affirm that your righteousness endures forever and that you have something right for their wrong.
[00:50:36] Please affirm that although they cannot see it, your righteousness is at work.
[00:50:43] Please affirm that though they have grown weary and become discouraged, that you have not and that your righteousness is still at work.
[00:50:55] And then, Lord, I pray, I appeal to you to glorify your name by exerting your righteous affirmation for what is good and fixing what is broken in our lives. In Christ's name, Amen.
