Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

There is a movie called US Marshalls & Wesley Snipes is the actor who gets falsely accused of a crime that he didn't commit.

The movie is about a US Marshall who is determined to track him down no matter what the cost.

In the end, the Marshall starts to figure it out that Snipes is innocent.

The bad guys who framed him get captured or killed and Snipes is proven to be innocent.

At the end of the film, after the court hearing, a reporter interviews Snipes outside on the steps of the courthouse and asks him how he now feels.

His reply said it all: He says, “righteous, very righteous”

- After all he had been through, it felt so good to be vindicated of any wrongdoing

- v.33 in our passage today, speaks somewhat to this feeling of being vindicated

- One horrible aspect of life is to live with shame

- When we say & do wrong things, eventually, we have terrible regret & wish we could take those things, we regret, back

- The corollary to this is shame – we feel ashamed

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- There are a few different ways that people have devised to compensate for this sense of shame

- The first way is denial – some people have managed to lie to themselves for so long, that they truly believe against evidence & against the truth, that they are innocent

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- The second way is deflection – some people, instead of denying the obvious.

deflect blame on to someone else instead

- This is becoming more & more of a reality in today's world

- Serena Williams behaved appallingly in the US tennis final, yet, she justified her bad behaviour based on her take on the referee being racist & sexist

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- The third way is what I'll call scaling – some people way up their behaviour on a set of scales

- To alleviate the shame, some people throw themselves into “holy” work in an attempt to outweigh the shame they feel

- The end result is that the good feeling of doing good will counterbalance the bad feeling of shame

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- There is another way of avoiding the truth & we find it in this passage

- Instead of accepting the right ways of God, which is faith in our Lord & Saviour Jesus, Israel had settled on another way

- Israel's reliance on the works of the Law was their way of claiming God for themselves & keeping the Gentiles out

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- The law & circumcision became a fence – let's call this fence, Jewish righteousness

- This fence of “Jewish righteousness” was a fence, Paul implies, that was NOT erected by God

- In constructing a “fence” of the law, they were attempting to keep God within their boundaries

- It became their, not God's, way of staying right with God

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- This message is about the true righteousness of God & this rightness of God has always been there, but was missed big time, by the Israelites

- The right ways of God are, in fact, revealed in Jesus Christ, not the law

1.

Losing Sight of Where God's Righteousness Lies (vs.

30-33)

Q.

What is God's righteousness?

- It all seems very technical, but let us try to break it down to the nuts & bolts

- Righteousness contains the word “RIGHT”

- It has a range of meanings depending on where you use it

- But we get an inkling of it when we consider the word “righteous”

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Q.

Who is the “righteous” person?

- The person who does the right thing – correct!

- But the right thing can mean different things to different people

- Israel certainly thought that they were on to the “right thing” when it came to abiding in the law

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- When it comes to politics, the “right thing” for conservatives & the “right thing” for liberal-minded people, actually, can be polls apart

- One lot believe in open borders, the other believe in tightly monitored borders

- So where & when is the “right thing” the “right thing”

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- When Paul speaks about God's righteousness, he is speaking about the “right ways” or “rightness” of God

- This can be quite at odds with a man's understanding of “rightness”

- A typical illustration of this right ways of God as opposed to the so-called “right ways” of man is in Isaiah 55

- For a man or woman to return to the Lord or repent unto the Lord, they need to change their ways & their thoughts

- If you seek a pardon from the Lord, you can receive it as you are, but you cannot stay as you are

- Staying as you are, is the reason you need pardoning in the first place

- To be in a relationship with God means that that person ought to adopt His ways & His thoughts

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- The righteousness of God, however, must be understood relationally

- It is not just doing the right thing for when righteousness involves God, it means being in a right relationship with Him

- Doing the right thing is good, but that means little if a person isn't in a right relationship with God

- Now the rightness of God – the way He accepts people – is shown in Jesus & His Gospel

- The right ways of God or His righteousness is through faith

- It has always been through faith

- Going way back before the law came, the Scripture says that Abraham's faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness”

- Israel, like many people today, seek to determine the basis in which they will be acceptable to almighty God

- There are reasons people do this – I mentioned some in the introduction – denial, deflection, scaling

- But THE one critical error in it all, is the reversal of Lordship

- It is determining for oneself what is & what can be, acceptance with God

- But God decides what makes a person acceptable to Himself, not man

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- Paul says here that the Gentiles who did not pursue a right relationship with God, found it, by faith in Jesus Christ – that is the acceptable way to God

- But Israel pursued its own home-grown righteousness & determined that God would be confined by this kind of righteousness

- Not that they thought they were doing that

- But in using the law as a tool of a home-grown righteousness, they have cut themselves off from God

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- We saw an example of that last week from Isaiah, in how Israel lent on multiple sacrifices, Sabbaths & elaborate festivals – all according to law – but in order to have God come to their aid

- But God's take on them is that their heart was far from Him

- It was empty ritual, devoid of truth in the heart, devoid of genuine love & faith to God

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Q.

How do we know this is the case?

- Because the well to do were ripping off the most needy people

- There is nothing wrong with making a profit, but making a big profit from destitute people is wrong in the eyes of the Lord – that part of the law, they simply ignored

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- They were buying up widow's houses & fields for a song & making themselves very rich on the backs of these less fortunate then themselves

- This was the lot of the widows who had no husband to provide for her & her children & she was then forced into a quick sale of her property, which meant cheap sale – they took advantage of her plight

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- In rejecting Jesus, Paul says that Israel stumbled over the stumbling stone

- In other words, you have made falsehood your security & not Me, says the Lord

- But I am going to erect in Zion a precious cornerstone – a majestic & sure foundation stone that will last & endure

- He who looks to this, will not be disturbed – or the OT Greek LXX that Paul quotes from has “will not be put to shame”

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- We don't live in a world that regards shame as big thing anymore – yet shame used to be something to avoid at all costs

- People hate living with shame, but we have so many psychologists that, instead of dealing with the shame through repentance & restoration, tell us that “shame” is a false construct of an outdated Christian society – I'm exaggerating here (but this is Freudian psychology)

- But shame is real & it can be effectively dealt with through Jesus Christ

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- We have people dumping shame upon us for believing in Jesus

- They like to think that we are duped by religious superstition & outdated unscientific beliefs

- Israel, in the flesh, believed that Jesus was one of many false Messiahs

- They poured scorn on the notion that Gentiles can be God's people without having to become Jews

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- Yet, He or whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame

- I like the word “vindication” & if any of you have been falsely accused & shown to be innocent, you will know how wonderful it is to be vindicated – that is, shown to be in the right

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- This is precisely the truth for those who believe in Jesus Christ

- You may be ridiculed now for your faith, but your day of vindication is coming – where you will feel “righteous, very righteous”

- Your faith will have shown to have not been misplaced, but perfectly placed

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- The apostle Peter is very bold about Israel stumbling over Christ

2. Righteousness for All

- So the bulk of Israel is lost & it breaks the apostle's heart

- In chp 10:1 he says that they have a zeal, but not in accordance with knowledge

- Paul was once like this

- He was so zealous that he had the godly Christian, Stephen, killed

- In his zeal, he eliminated everyone would did not agree with Judaism