lion rebel

Romans 3:9-20

What shall we conclude then?  Do we have any advantage?  Not at all!  We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles are alike under the power of sin.  As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

            Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.  Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law; rather through the law we become conscious of our sin.

______________________

This passage stirs a few things in my heart.  I read it a few times yesterday and I was really challenged by Paul’s use of the Psalms to describe the lack of righteousness and God-seeking people.  Mostly because as I read the words I felt like I was being described in one way or another. 

The first thing that speaks to my heart is the very fact that I am not righteous!  I try hard to be – but truth is, I’m not.  Truth is I am quite unrighteous and I try to find my satisfaction in being good and right.  But I am not – I constantly struggle with pride, selfishness, and fear of what others think of me.  So I try to be good, I try to look pretty, I attempt to be perfect. 

But I fall short.

Every time.

Every time.

And that is why Paul tells us that “through the law we become conscious of our sin.”  There is no perfection in the law – only observance of imperfection.

Yet, the other thing that stirs in my heart is to be the opposite of the first Psalm, Psalm 14, that Paul quotes:  There is one who is righteous, there is one who understands – but only because he seeks God.  He does not turn away, and he does good because his only pursuit is that of God.  And in God, he finds satisfaction and wholeness.

:My goal::Our goal:
to acknowledge that righteousness by pursuit of the law is not righteousness at all.

____________________________________________________________________

Exploring man’s varying responses to righteousness:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear

Acts 24 tells the story of Paul as he is put on trial before Felix a governor for the Romans in Caesarea.  Paul has many opportunities to plead his case with Felix, but instead he only talks about his faith.

“Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish.  He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus.  As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, ‘That’s enough for now!  You may leave.  When I find it convenient, I will send for you.’”

It says earlier in the chapter that Felix was quite familiar with the Way, as they called it, the “sect” of Jews who had become Christians.  But as he listened to Paul it says he became afraid.  Obviously he was afraid because of the judgment, but it is interesting to me that Paul also talked about righteousness and self-control.  And it is apparent that Felix was not interested in living righteously or with self-control, thus his fear of judgment.  But for some reason he was not convinced because he sent Paul away.

Righteousness brings two kinds of fear as a response: 1] the fear that you’re not living righteously and so will be punished at judgment; and 2] the fear of the Lord.  That fear comes because you are living righteously and you understand the greatness of God at the same time – it is a healthy fear.  The first is based on the fact that your hope is placed within yourself; the second is based upon your hope being placed in God.  

And yet, where is the element of grace?  Obviously perfection now, in these days, is not an option.  There is always something that we do or have done that is a marred effect on our life.  Yet, there is grace, because it’s not just about being righteous, it is about wanting to be righteous.  From that comes self-control, which, if you recall with me all the way back to this post, three months ago, is the next step in becoming effective with our knowledge of God.  If you desire righteousness, you will learn self-control, from which you will then persevere to godliness, which leads to mutual affection, which directs you to love.  

Which leads me to believe that I’ve come full circle – not that I’ve discovered everything I can about knowing God, or even just simply knowing him, but I think good progress has been made, to which we now turn to self-control [which, as I think about it has increased through out this summer as I've been discovering more about the knowledge of God].

Exploring man’s varying responses to righteousness:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear

In Matthew’s gospel account, he relates one of Jesus’ sermons:

“He said,

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.’”

 Obviously there’s a whole lot to approach in this “sermon,” but I only want to address the last sentence – noting that things such as “poor in spirit,” “mourning,” and “meekness,” are pretty feeble sounding circumstances to be blessed.  What I mean is that Jesus lays out rules of blessing here and all of them seem to be opposite of what we determine to be realities of life.  We know that those who are well off in spirit will be the ones who conquer others, for how can someone who isn’t up to the task because they don’t feel right take on and destroy a nation in order to rule it?  How is it possible that mourning will bring comfort – many of us know of the lonely moments we’ve spent mourning with no one to even come and hold us.  And the meek inheriting the earth?  I’m sorry but you’ve got to be an ass-kicker now, take names later kind of guy for that to happen – it’s a dog-eat-dog world.  

And yet we know that what Jesus speaks is truth.  Which, first of all, means that the things we believe reality to be are lies.  And if that is the case, then the last one stings poignantly: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  So does this mean that we believe, in our wicked twist of reality, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness won’t be filled?  Or is it simply that there are too few of us who actually hunger and thirst for righteousness, which is why Jesus addressed it?  

Obviously the easy way out is to say that both are what we believe.  When Jesus says this, I think of all the prophets going back to the days of Abraham who waited and yearned for God and his righteousness to overtake, only to watch it all fade away, with perhaps glimpses of what was to come.  And yet they were never filled.  But also, I think of the Pharisees of that day, what they longed for was power and rule, not righteousness.  And even they, in their hunger and thirst for power would be left unfulfilled.

In self application, I believe that I too often simply do not hunger for righteousness – it’s not the thing that quenches my soul each day.  Why?  Because I have allowed the unrighteous things of living in this world to pacify me, to try to make me whole.  So, how do you hunger and thirst for righteousness – you whet your appetite with it, more and more and more until you can’t get enough of it.  So I’ll keep coming back to the buffet table.

Exploring man’s varying responses to righteousness:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear

Amos 6:

“Woe to you who are complacent in Zion,
and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
you notable men of the foremost nation,
to whom the people of Israel come!

…

You put off the evil day and bring near a reign of terror.  You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches.  You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves.  You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments.  You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.  Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.

…

[continuing on in the Message]
God, the Master, has sworn, and solemnly stands by his Word…”I hate the arrogance of Jacob.  I have nothing but contempt for his forts.  I’m about to hand over the city and everyone in it.’  … Do you hold a horse race in a field of rocks?  Do you plow the sea with oxen?  You’d cripple the horses and drown the oxen.  And yet you’ve made a shambles of justice, a bloated corpse of righteousness [or, in the TNIV, 'You have turned justice into poison and righteousness into bitterness.']. 

This speaks to me on a few levels: 1] the importance of facing the evil of the day; and 2] how that is unjust and lacking righteousness.  

Recently the Lord has been transforming my personal level of compassion for others to greater levels – it is still a work in progress – but before this I was quite settled with letting whatever happens happen because I figured the world is supposed to get worse before it gets better, so why fight it?  But what I am coming to see and understand is the evil that is apparent in our world and growing bigger affects people differently than it affects me.  How can I sit back and let that happen?  How can I lounge on my couch and enjoy my choice foods and strum away on my guitar, jam with the boys, drink my wine and take care of my body, all the while there are others being travestied by this great evil that is invading and attempting to rule our world?  

You see, the world is going to get worse before it gets better – but there should be hope stood upon for others.  I shouldn’t settle for allowing these poor people to go on living with out hope, to allow them to feel despair.  There’s a difference between choosing and being affected.  I get the joy and privilege of choosing every day – but some don’t, because they do not know.  

If I continue on the way I have been I will be as guilty as those Amos was addressing – I will make a shamble of justice and righteousness a dead, bloated body lying next to me.

Exploring man’s varying responses to righteousness:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear

Amos 5:

“This is what the Lord says to the house of Israel:

‘Seek me and live;
do not seek Bethel,
do not go to Gilgal,
do not journey to Beersheba.
For Gilgal will surely go into exile,
and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.’

Seek the Lord and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour them, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.  There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground.  He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land– the Lord is his name…Seek good, not evil, that you may live.  Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.”

This might say to us:

“Seek God and live – do not look to your money, do not look to your entertainment.  I promise that your money will be worth nothing and your entertainment will comfort no one.  Seek the Lord and you will live – but if you don’t you will experience his glory in his wrath and no amount of money will be able to buy your way out of it.  Because of that, there are those who choose to be bitter about God’s justice – there are those who would rather throw his righteousness away because they have sold themselves out to the follies of money and entertainment.  But He is the one who formed the stars into their shapes, who brings the dead of night to the brightness of morning and who causes the same brightness to become the blackest dark of night, who floods the land with the oceans – he is the Lord.  Seek good, not evil, that you may live.”

I use money and entertainment as stand ins because they are the things that easily distract me and call out to me for dependence on for living, for making my life suitable.  Often I’ve wondered why it is so easy for me to dispel the justice and righteousness of God for “joy” found in buying more things, or “contentment” found in wasting days away with games or TV.  But it’s plain as the day coming out of night: whatever I sink my teeth into will be the thing that calls me to…well, whatever it is that the result is.  So as I indulge more and more into the justice and righteousness of God, it will call me home to itself – a love of righteousness and the justice of God.  No bitterness, no rejection of the things of God.  

You can cast righteousness to the ground – you can become bitter about the justice of God.  But I don’t want to be the one who says that God is with me only to find myself cast away from him just as I casted him away from me.  I choose life.

Exploring man’s varying responses to righteousness:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear

Isaiah 51:

“‘Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth.  When I called him he was only one man, and I blessed him and made him many.  The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.  Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.’”

Isaiah is calling his people who are sticking it out in rough times to look to the past.  There is only a small number who chased after the righteousness of God in that day – many turned away because of their despair because they felt that God had turned his back on them.  But Isaiah tells those who are chasing righteousness to think of their father Abraham and their mother Sarah.  I would guess that it’s because Abraham lived righteousness by faith, and he was the only one in his time to do so – and God blessed him, still to this day, with offspring greater than the numbers of the stars in the sky.  

An interesting thought – though there is always talk about a remnant [even today you hear churches talk about how they're the only ones doing it right, that they're the remnant and they will be the ones blessed and in heaven while everyone else burns...] – it’s not just the remnant that God wants saved.  He wants those saved to be more numerable than the stars in the sky and the sand on the earth.  He wants that number of people to be Abraham’s offspring.  And we, in our “righteousness,” declare that we’re the good ones and no one else deserves it like we do.  I know I have acted and thought that way.  Isaiah tells us though that, “The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins…” I have a feeling that those of us who think we’re good to go might be pulled up short a bit on that day of judgment.  

And so the question becomes, “Do those of us who are ‘righteous’ truly pursue righteousness?”

Exploring man’s varying responses to righteousness:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear

Proverbs 8:

“Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling? … ‘You – I’m talking to all of you…Don’t miss a word of this – I’m telling you how to live well, I’m telling you how to live at your best.  My mouth chews and savors and relishes truth – I can’t stand the taste of evil! …You’ll recognize this as true – you with open minds; truth ready minds will see it at once…The fear of God means hating Evil, whose ways I hate with a passion…Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics; I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out…You can find me on Righteous Road – that’s where I walk – at the intersection of Justice Avenue.  Handing out life to those who love me, filling their arms with life – armloads of life! … God sovereignly made me – the first, the basic – before he did anything else…I was right there with him, making sure everything fit.  Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause, always enjoying his company…Mark a life of discipline and live wisely; don’t squander your precious life.  Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me, awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work.  When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of Go’ds good pleasure.’”

When I first wrote down this passage as one on righteousness, I did not know that it was Solomon’s words of ‘Lady Wisdom.’  But suddenly I see – suddenly I know what makes one righteous: the pursuit of wisdom.  Like righteousness, wisdom is inherent in God.  He is the very source of wisdom, as he is righteousness.  But wisdom is the link to righteousness – with out it you only have foolishness, and with only foolishness you have no ability to live rightly.  One would only live as a imbecile.  

So it is quite obvious that wisdom is the thing to pursue, because as you pursue wisdom, you, with out realizing it, walk out the ways of righteousness.  Purposefully the right ways of the Lord are then pursued.  I don’t know how else to say it, so I am going to stop here.

Exploring man’s varying responses to righteousness:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear

Psalm 45:

“You love righteousness and hate wickedness;
therefore God, your God,
has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.”

I was thinking yesterday about my life and how I love to indulge in certain “pleasures.”  But I was not always that way – some of the things that I try to love now are things that I abhorred when I was younger.  Why?  Because I had never tried them before or experienced those things.  The only reason that I enjoy them is because I have allowed myself to indulge in them.

I heard a great story about a guy after he had gotten married.  Before his wedding he mostly ate fast food burgers and even when he went to a nicer place to eat, he would eat some time of meat.  But shortly after he got married his wife decided that he was going to eat healthy and she made him eat salads.  He hated it.  Couldn’t stand it.  But he did it.  And after about six months of eating salads all the time [or at least healthy] he was out of town on a trip, away from his wife, and he thought, “Now is my chance to eat some fast food.”  So he went through the McDonald’s drive through and sure enough – it was the most disgusting thing he had ever eaten!  He couldn’t believe that he had ever eaten something like that on a regular basis.

He went through the process of learning to love something else – of forsaking his love of something unhealthy for something healthy.  It’s the same with righteousness and wickedness.  The king we find in Psalm 45 loves righteousness because he worked at applying it in his own life – and he worked at rejecting wickedness in his own life.

Exploring man’s varying responses to righteousness:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear

Job 29:

“When I went to the gate of the city and took my seat in the public square, the young me saw me and stepped aside and the old men rose to their feet; the chief men refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands; the voices of the nobles were hushed, and their tongues stuck tot he roof of their mouths.  Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me commended me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist them.  Those who were dying blessed me; I made the widow’s heart sing. I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban.  I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame.  I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger.  I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth.”

Job is describing a time before he had lost everything he had.  What you see is the tremendous amount of respect that all the people had for him because he was a righteous man.  He himself said he wore righteousness as clothing.  Most days when I wake up I do not even consider what to wear; a shirt and some pants will do just fine.  It is a natural thing to simply find anything and put it on.  Yet there are certain parts of my closet that I do not touch, some shirts I only wear for doing yard work and some pants I only wear if I am “dressing up.”  It is an intentional thing, the clothes that I wear, but there is not a lot of thought put into it passed what has already been decided.

It’s obvious that for Job and righteousness it was the same way.  At some point in his life, whatever the circumstances, he chose to wear righteousness every day, never abstaining from it.  It became natural for him to simply act out of righteousness because he made one choice for it to be important.  

Just a few days ago I had a day off and I had had a long week at work, and I spent the day as a couch potato, soaking up the solitude of doing nothing but vegetating.  But surely as the day had gone by I found that I was not rested, I was not ready for work the next day the way I could have been, the way I should have been.  And it occurred to me that in order for me to have a “productive” day off I needed to think about what it was that I needed to do to truly be rested.  I needed to think of it before it happened, otherwise time slides away from you and you reach the end of the day with out fully engaging in it.  

How many days do I wake up with out actually thinking about what i need to do to be righteous in the way of the Lord?  Too many, it needs to be a natural decision, as natural as me putting on clean underwear in the morning…

This series at first seemed to be the same thing as the last, Our Right Response to God’s Righteousness, and yet I remember now why I separated the two: man’s response isn’t always right.  Also, I had not come to the understanding yet that all of righteousness is really God’s righteousness.

1 Kings 10:9

Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.”

2 Chronicles 9:8
Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the Lord your God. Because of the love of your God for Israel and his desire to uphold them forever, he has made you king over them, to maintain justice and righteousness.”

Job 29:14
I put on righteousnessas my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban.

Psalm 45:7
You love righteousnessand hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.

Pr 8:20
I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice,

Isa 51:1
“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousnessand who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn;

Am 5:7
There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousnessto the ground.

Am 6:12 
Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousnessinto bitterness–

Zep 2:3
Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.

Mt 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Mt 6:33
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Mt 21:32
For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

Joh 16:8
When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousnessand judgment:

Joh 16:10
about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer;

Ac 24:25
As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.”

in summary, man’s varying responses to righteousness are:

1. an act of putting on righteousness as clothing
2. a love of righteousness
3. an act of walking the way of righteousness
4. a pursuit of righteousness
5. a casting of righteousness to the ground
6. turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness
7. hunger and thirst for righteousness
8. fear