YAHWEH TSIDQENU
(pronounced: Sid-ken'-you)
The LORD, our Righteousness
When we hear the word, righteous
or righteousness, what pictures come to
our minds?
To some, perhaps, the starchy collared
Victorian men and women from the turn of the century?
The ‘holier than thou’ crowd?
Or, those with faces that are contorted by
their prideful aloofness?
Lips that are scrunched up as if they
had indigestion or eaten a plate of sour lemons? :O)
Or maybe we see a ‘know it all’ who has
all the answers and solutions to everyone’s dilemmas in
life?
The gossip, who, revels in elevating
themselves above other sinners and never looks introspectively to see their own
sin. They look into a glass mirror
and the reflection is not necessarily what is there looking back at them, but
how they see themselves. They see
what they want to see and are self-satisfied with whom they think they are.
These are only some illustrations of self-righteousness.
The question then is: What Is True
Righteousness?
According to Scripture, to be righteous is to be in a right relationship
with God. That is, to be in right
standing with God. It is a
relationship that goes deeper than the outward appearance and behavior of a
man.
To be rightly related to God would then manifest itself in being rightly
related to each other. Why? Because we would resemble a holy,
righteous God. When we are rightly
related to God, others, when they see us and interact with us, would see and
receive His faithful love, His mercy, His humility, His integrity, His justice and not anything that we have to
offer!
More importantly, I Samuel 16:7b
says: “for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man
looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the
heart.” There are all
kinds of hearts…sorrowful hearts, joyful hearts, understanding hearts, fearful
hearts, fixed hearts, seeking hearts, froward hearts, haughty hearts, merciful
hearts, trusting hearts, wise hearts, hearts of flesh,
stony hearts,
righteous hearts, and so on.
Proverbs
23:7a says, “For as a man thinketh in his
heart, so is he:...”
And also, in God’s book of wisdom, Proverbs
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of
it are the issues of life.”
The heart is our inner being and if God is in the equation, and we “keep”
our hearts “diligently” we will have spiritual vitality. We cannot hide who we truly are from
God. He is Omniscient. We could go to Psalm 139 and see the intricately encompassing
knowledge God has of us.
To go back to our beginning statement about what righteousness
is:
Addison
Leitch, Elisabeth Elliott’s second husband, said this
similarly:
Righteousness “is primarily and basically a
relationship, never an attainment…Christian righteousness is a direction, a
loyalty, a commitment, a hope
--and only someday an
arrival.”
[B] Jeremiah 23:5, 6 – Tells
us King Jesus: Yahweh’ Tsidqenu, The LORD our Righteousness.
[B] Romans 3:21-25a, tells us in
order to have His Righteousness, we have to have a relationship with Him and we
must place our faith in Jesus Christ.
Our belief in Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah who came to shed His blood
on the cross in my place: for me, for you, to take away my
sin, your sin and redeem us through our faith in His sacrificial
atonement.
When we confess our sin and accept Christ’s finished work for our sin, we
have His Righteousness. We have a
relationship that is not of our own doing, but of His doing. We then have God’s perspective on our
hearts…we are sinners and we agree with Him that we are in need of cleansing
from sin and accept His way as THE way to be cleansed from our sin. Our relationship of righteousness
begins.
Pastor has been preaching on the Beatitudes found in Mathew 5.
Matthew 5:6
says: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be
filled.”
As much as righteousness is not of our own doing, now that His
righteousness has been imputed to us, we have a responsibility to
strengthen and grow up, if you will, our relationship with God.
How are we going to have a oneness with God, a relationship with God,
become a reflection of Him, if we don’t feed and drink from His Word? It is essential. It is not only our nourishment, it is
our sustenance.
If we are to have His love,
His Mercy, His justice, etc., we must come to know
WHO He is! We must get to know His character, or we
cannot resemble a Holy God, that we don’t know intimately.
Of course, this is a big step, you see! Getting to know God intimately, and
accepting that God’s perspective of us will search us out to reveal to us by the
light of His Word, our sinful nature, our hearts need to be willing to accept
what He shows us of ourselves.
OUCH! Yes, it can be
painful, but in the measure that we love God, His Righteousness, His Word and
have a desire to obey Him, we will be blessed and our relationship with Him will
grow. It really is essential for us
to know the state of our own heart and then to replace it with God’s
Righteousness.
In [B] Job 42:1; and 5-6 Job sees God, Holy, High, lifted
up and sees himself before God, as he himself truly is. He is ashamed and despises himself.
Job confesses that He sees himself from God’s perspective. In verse 6, in particular, we see Job’s response to
this revelation of himself. Job takes the right action: he repents. Remember repenting is different from confessing. Repenting is doing that 360 degree turn away from
everything we have done and trusted in and walk in God’s direction for our
lives. It is an application of what
we have learned, understood and now we take action: we surrender our will to the
Lord’s Will.
Oswald Chambers’ Utmost for
His Highest (9/13) says this about
surrender: “The whole of a life
after surrender is an aspiration for unbroken communion with
God.”
Author, Ann
Spangler (Praying the Names of God, pgs.
290-1) writes
this:
“Do you want to be rescued from trouble, to be prosperous, safe and a
blessing to others? Do you want to
be crowned with God’s blessings? Do
you want God to answer your prayers?
These are just some of the fruits that come from living a righteous life
as described in the book of Proverbs.
To pursue righteousness is to pursue God himself through faith in His
Son, Jesus.” And then she quotes
Matthew 5:6: “Blessed are
they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be
filled.”
O
To Be Like Thee
1. O to be
like Thee! Blessed Redeemer,
This
is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to
wear.
Oh to
be like Thee!
O to
be like Thee,
Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou
art!
Come
in Thy sweetness,
Come
in Thy fullness
Stamp
Thine own image deep on my heart.
2. O to be
like Thee! Full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and
kind;
Helping the helpless, cheering the
fainting,
Seeking the wand’ring sinner to
find.
O to
be like Thee!
O to
be like Thee,
Blessed Redeemer, purse as Thou
art!
Come
in Thy sweetness,
Come
in Thy fullness
Stamp
Thine own image deep on my heart.
3. O to be
like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour
out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make
me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit
me for life and heaven above.
O to
be like Thee!
O to
be like Thee,
Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou
art!
Come
in Thy sweetness,
Come
in Thy fullness
Stamp
Thine own image deep on my
heart.