Jesus Christ: Our Righteousness

Righteousness.  A big word.  A confusing word.  An extremely important word.  Righteousness in its simplest definition is being in right relationship with God and with others.  To be righteous is to relate with God according to His standard of what is right.  To be righteous is to relate with others according to God’s standard of what is right.  God created us for the purpose of righteousness.  God is perfectly righteous and He demands nothing less than perfect righteousness from us.  Righteousness is not just a moral option we choose to accept or reject, it is something that our creator God requires that we possess.  There are eternal consequences for being unrighteous.  So, how do we obtain righteousness?

600 years prior to Jesus arrival on the earth the prophet Jeremiah said, “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 . . . And this is the name by which he will be called:  The Lord is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:5-6, cf 33:15-16).  Jesus Christ is the righteous Branch through whom we are able to obtain righteousness ourselves!

READ:  Romans 3:10-26

God’s ultimate plan for making us righteous was a person!  Right relationship with God and others is only possible through a relationship with Christ. Jesus Christ provides RIGHTEOUSNESS for us by paying the penalty for our UNRIGHTEOUSNESS on the cross!  Without Jesus Christ, we would be without hope of obtaining the righteousness demanded by God.  What has Jesus Christ done in order to be our righteousness?

Jesus Christ knows that we are NOT righteous (Rom. 3:10, 23) – The standard of righteousness is perfection.  This is bad news because we are more capable of jumping to the moon than we are capable of being righteous before God!  Instead of living righteously, we “sin”.  “No one is righteous, no, not one”.  Very simply . . . SIN = UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.  I am not righteous, you are not righteous, none of us are.  “All (of us) have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.  Knowing that we are not righteous and the necessity of us to be righteous, Jesus offered Himself.

Jesus Christ MANIFESTED righteousness to us (Rom. 3:21) – Through Jesus’ life, He reveals to us what perfect righteousness is.  We can see what it looks like with our eyes.  We can hear what it sounds like with our ears.  It’s been revealed to us in a clear and unmistakable way!  1 John 2:1 says, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.  But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”  Righteous is an adjective that describes Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ was not somewhat righteous.  He was not righteous for a period of time.  He was perfectly righteous, and for all of us who do sin, Jesus Christ is our righteous helper before the Father who demands sinless righteousness!

Jesus Christ graciously PAID for our righteousness with His blood (Romans 3:22, 24-26) – The word translated “justified” in verse 24 is simply the verb form of the noun “righteousness” or the adjective “righteous”.  Therefore, the word translated “justified” could also be translated “have been made righteous”.  To be made righteous is to be as if we’d never sinned.  By sending Jesus to be the propitiation for our sin by His blood, God justifies us or makes us righteous.  A propitiation is a sacrifice that satisfies the just punishment of God’s wrath.  Jesus Christ sacrificed His life by shedding His blood in order to satisfy the wrath that we deserve for our sin.  Jesus Christ willingly received the consequence and paid the ultimate penalty for our sin . . . with His blood.  Another beautiful aspect of the word “justified” is that it is in the passive voice which means that “all (of us who) have sinned” did nothing in the process of being made righteous.  God did the work of justification, making us right, through the blood of Christ.  We are simply recipients of this underserved gift of God’s grace!

CONCLUSION
Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”.  PEACE . . . any relationship unhindered by anxiety, worry, disappointment, frustration, bitterness, fear, anger, hostility, or violence.  Jesus Christ accomplished peace in our relationship with God and others by making us righteous.  Perfect righteousness is only obtainable through Jesus Christ.  We must receive the gracious gift of righteousness by putting faith in Jesus’ work on the cross (Rom. 3:22, 25-26).  Have you received the righteousness from Jesus Christ that allows you to be at peace with God?

Restoring Right Relationship

Relationships can be fixed. God has given us a way to mend a broken relationship.  It may seem impossible.  It may seem like there is no hope.  The sadness, disappointment, and the frustration may be too great.  The hurt, sorrow, and pain may go too deep.  The accusations and lies may have gone too far.  The insensitivity and cruelty may have been too much.  Don’t despair, just as the human body is capable of healing from physical injury and wounds, we are capable of experiencing relational healing as well!  The process is not easy, but healing starts in our relationship with God.  Let’s take another look at King David as an example . . .

READ:  Psalm 51:1-19

According to the title, King David wrote Psalm 51, “when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba”.  Psalm 51 is a prayer to God, revealing in greater depth, David’s attitude of repentance and confession that we first see in 2 Samuel 12:13 when he said, “I have sinned against the Lord”.  Psalm 51 provides us a practical example of how CONFESSING our sin to God RESTORES a right relationship with Him and with others!  After David was convicted of his sin, David recognizes there is NOTHING he can do to make things right, he can’t undo a pregnancy, he can’t bring a dead husband back to life, and so he humbly cries out to God for “mercy” (Ps. 51:1).  He acknowledges that the only acceptable response to God is a genuinely “broken spirit” and a “contrite heart” (Ps. 51:3-5, 17).  No matter what relational sin we have committed, when we confess it to God, He does all the work of forgiving us and restoring us back to right relationship with Him and others!  What does God do when we confess our relational sin and ask Him for mercy?

God WASHES us CLEAN from the stain of sin (Ps. 51:1-2, 7-9) – Water works miracles to remove dirt and stains.  That’s why parents’ demand that children take a bath/shower every day!  David uses several words including “blot out” (vss 1, 9), “wash” (vss 2, 7), “cleanse” (vs 2), and “purge” (vs 7) to describe the forgiveness he knew was necessary to remove the relational sin from his life.  1 John 1:9 says, “if we confess our sins, His is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (cf Mt. 6:12; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Tit. 3:3-7)”.  When we confess our relational sin to God, He mercifully gives us a spiritual “bath” and removes the relational “stain” of sin that is in our lives.

God creates a new HEART in us (Ps. 51:10) – Anne Frank once said, "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart."  While I think we would all love for this to be true, evidenced by all of our behavior, it is not.  Matthew 15:19 says, “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” When David was confronted with his sin, He did not try to justify his actions, he did not try to place blame one someone else, he understood that the source of his relational sin was his own evil and sinful heart.  David wrote in Psalm 24:3-4, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart”.  Being in right relationship with God and others requires a newly cleaned heart and God is the only one who is able, in His mercy, to give it to us (Jer 24:7; Ez. 11:19; 36:26).  When we confess our relational sin to God, He mercifully gives us a new heart which becomes our source of right relationship with God and others.

God removes the SEPARATION from Him that is caused by sin (Ps. 51:11) – Relational sin builds an impenetrable wall of division and hostility between us and God.  Every time we break one of God’s Ten Rules we cement another brick in the wall that separates us from God.  David recognized that his relational sin had built a wall that was preventing him from being in God’s “presence”.  By confessing his relational sin, David was asking God to knock down the wall that separated them.  Ephesians 2:13-16 says, “in Christ Jesus (we) who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For He Himself is our peace, who . . . has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility . . . so making peace, and (reconciling) . . . to God . . . through the cross, thereby killing the hostility”.  When we confess our relational sin to God, He mercifully knocks down the wall of hostility that exists between us allowing us to be in His presence.

CONCLUSION
The greatest benefit of right relationship is JOY, a deep inner sense of happiness or pleasure.  Too often, our sin interrupts the joy God wants us to share with Him and others.  Whatever sin we have committed to interrupt our joy with God or others, if we confess it to God with a broken and contrite heart, in His mercy, He will forgive us, restore our right relationship, and allow us to experience the joy of right relationship once again!  Is there any relational sin in your life that you need to confess to God that is preventing you from experiencing the joy of right relationship with God and others?