Psalm 23: Path and Person of Righteousness

So as we are working our way and contemplating our way through Psalm 23, we are now into Psalm 23, verse 3, the second half.

Psalms 23:3

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.

Now, Proverbs 12, 28 says this in the path of righteousness is life.

And in its pathway there's no death.

So live rightly and live good, do the right thing, and you will avoid despair and destruction.

You'll avoid shame and guilt.

You'll know life, right?

Like incredible, incredible.

Sign me up, right?

I mean, is anybody not signing up for that list?

Like, you know, like sign me up for that.

I mean, no shame, no guilt, you know, no destruction, no despite that.

That's amazing, right?

Like, there's one problem that I have with this, and you have with this, is that we are not always righteous.

This presents a pretty big problem.

The Bible actually says that we are stubborn and we are blind and that we are sinners.

So, point number one is this.

We can't talk about righteousness without talking about imputation of righteousness.

Now that sounds like a big word, imputation.

It's not really that big of a word.

We just don't think about it that much, right?

So imagine your friend Chuck loses his legs.

They're amputated.

Amputation, the taking away.

But your friend Chad, by an amazing grace of science, we don't know how it happens, Chad gives his legs to Chuck.

They are imputed onto Chuck.

Amputated, taking away.

Amputation.

Imputation, the giving over.

Now, remember David, who wrote Psalm, he didn't have Jesus' life, he didn't have Jesus' death or resurrection, he didn't have any of Paul's writings to understand Jesus.

He didn't have any of that.

So we have to let David lead us to Jesus.

The path of righteousness of life, David speaks of.

It's gonna take us to Jesus.

As a young teenager, I became a Christian.

I learned I could be forgiven, I could be absolved, I could be loved, I could be welcomed.

I mean, this was incredible news to me.

At some point in your life, it was incredible news to you.

I mean, I went to DC talk concerts, I was all in.

Wow, worship CDs, like pre-Passion, pre-Maverick City, wow worship CDs.

Like I had all of them.

I was all in.

And I learned all the rules, I learned all the things I should be doing.

And we're talking about good, righteous living.

That's what we're talking about.

But very quickly, the grace that welcomed me faded away.

What I did for God became the way that I understood my faith.

My performance.

It actually became the way I understood myself.

I thought I had to maintain my favor with God.

So what that meant was is when I was successful, I was actually self-righteous.

Which is really tiring.

And I lacked any real compassion on my friend Kenny, who couldn't get his act together.

Poor Kenny.

Just couldn't quite get it together.

And I couldn't really have compassion on him because why don't you just get your act together?

And then when I messed up, oh man, then when you mess up, it's even worse.

Because I did something or said something, or I didn't live up to the standard, the thing that I should be doing.

And then you just begin to frantically wonder what do I need to do?

Like, what do I need to do next, and how much of it do I need to do in order to be back in right standing with God, in order for God to smile on me again.

And some of you know exactly what I'm talking about, this amount of spiritual insecurity and spiritual anxiety.

I've yet to learn that the gospel, as Tim Keller says, is both for the non-Christian and for the Christian.

That grace is the way into the Christian faith, and grace is the way for the Christian.

I pulled this definition of imputation.

So remember Chad's legs onto Chuck.

If all this sounds too heady for you, just think about Chad and Chuck.

So I did it for you, so you don't think that we're just being too intellectual here.

But here's the definition of imputation.

It's from Westminster Theological Seminary website.

Imputation is the crediting of Jesus' perfect righteousness to believers by faith for justification.

Imputation communicates that believers are made right with God or justified on the basis of the obedience of Christ.

By Jesus' active obedience, he meets the demands of perfect righteousness God has always required of humanity.

By Jesus' passive obedience, he pays the penalty due to humanity on account of sin.

Additionally, beyond the imputation of Christ's full obedience to believers, imputation may also refer to the counting of believers' sins to Christ as the sin-bearing substitute.

That's a lot.

You can go look it up.

Just think about Chad and Chuck.

Chuck loses his legs, Chad gives his legs.

So we can think about it as my sin is given over to Christ on the cross, and his righteousness is given over to me.

Imputation.

Point number two is this as Christ is our very righteousness, we don't have to be our own righteousness.

Now that might be really challenging depending on what church setting you've been in.

But it's true.

Paul explains it simply in 2 Corinthians 5.21.

He makes it pretty simple in one verse.

For our sake, he made him to be sin.

So God made Christ to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

There's a story of imputation in John 1.

It's when Jesus first meets Peter, and Jesus shows up and sees him, looks at him, and says, You are Simon, son of John, you will be called Cephas, or Peter, or the rock.

I once worked out next to the rock.

It's a different story.

We are two very different human specimens.

And so Jesus shows up to Peter and calls him the rock.

It'd be like you showing up to me in calling me the rock.

Be like, no, no, no, not at all.

But Jesus shows up to Peter.

Peter has no resume, no record, and says, you're the rock.

It's his imputation because Jesus has deemed Simon something long before he actually was that very thing.

Now at the end of Jesus' life, Peter starts to act like a moron.

Does a few things.

Just being a human.

He denies Jesus three times.

Just selfish, cowardly, not the rock.

Not the rock.

Then we read in John chapter 21, the disciples have been out fishing.

John 21 · chapter mention

It's the next morning, they're on shore.

Jesus then approaches them.

And can you even imagine this moment?

Because Peter's just denied Jesus three times.

So the shame he'd been carrying, like any of us carry when we don't live up to what we want to be or what we should be called, and we carry shame.

And what was Peter expecting there?

I don't know, maybe to be shamed.

Or at least to be ignored.

But Jesus approaches him, he goes after him.

I mean he simply asks, he asked three times.

Simon, do you love me?

Simon, do you love me?

Simon, do you love me?

Never called him Peter in that little interaction.

I mean, to Peter, he was sort of like, hey, call me Peter.

I'd like to be called, you know.

What about the rock?

What happened to that?

He wasn't shaming him.

He was just, it was a way of reminding him with disruptive grace.

Very disruptive.

That wasn't how you're to live, is what Jesus was calling him to be.

Peter's being called back to who he truly was.

Peter! Don't just act like Simon.

Act like Peter.

And then later in the New Testament, when Peter starts to write these letters that we get that circulate through churches and they get bound up into the Bible, Peter begins to even introduce himself as Simon Peter.

He's taken it on himself.

He's embraced that for himself.

See, we slowly and perfectly become that which he has already deemed us to be.

And it will be slow and it will be imperfect.

But it begins with the fact that he deems us before we become it.

Psalm 23 keeps assuming that sheep are stubborn.

Verse 3 is filled with this language of paths, and it assumes the sheep will be stubborn and blind enough to just keep grazing the same hills until it's just wasteland.

That a sheep would do that.

Can you imagine behaving in such a way?

Sheep have to be disrupted by grace and led to paths that are better.

Just like you and I.

We have to be disrupted.

Our lives have to be disrupted.

We have to come to the end of ourselves.

And God interrupts us.

God is the actor and we are acted upon, right?

That's what we keep seeing in Psalm 23 over and over again.

He is the actor and we are acted upon.

This week, Christy sent me this New Yorker cartoon.

So we here we have perhaps me.

I don't know.

She sent it to me.

I don't know what she was communicating on the phone, and I can only presume watching fly fishing videos, because that's what I watch on my phone.

And she's doing the dishes, and she says, I don't mind doing the dishes every night.

It gives me time to deepen my resentment.

So Christy and I are now in counseling about this cartoon.

We're fleshing it out.

And we've all washed dishes like this.

Resentment toward your husband, resentment toward your wife, your awful boss, your difficult sister, who's still difficult.

And you just wouldn't have thought she could still be difficult, and she is.

Or that person who was in your life 15 years ago.

And you still hold resentment.

And you can just do the dishes and be resentful toward Craig or Marsha or whoever it was.

I don't know who it was.

It was somebody.

It was somebody you probably loved, that's for sure, and they did something.

Or just resentful to your child.

And you wouldn't have thought you could be resentful to your child when they were four because they just were four.

But now they're 14 or 18 or 24 and they drive you nuts.

And you're resentful of it.

But isn't it so much more freeing when we don't live in resentment?

When there's some change of heart and we forgive.

And everything's not perfect, but we l at least live in some measure of forgiveness and freedom.

And we can do the dishes and we can have Dave Matthews band, that's what I have on, and have it really loud and just wash the dishes.

Isn't that nice?

So the question is, is how do we change?

How could you possibly go from resentment to forgiveness?

Or how could you go from any one thing to another thing?

Because I think we want to change.

I'd like to be less anxious and trust more.

I don't like trusting God.

I would like to trust God more.

That would be nice.

So I'd like to stop washing dishes in one way and like to wash them in a different way.

Here's what theologian Gerhard Forday wrote about change.

For the point is that the unconditional declaration of justification, the imputation, the flat-out declaration, that which offends and shocks us, so that which shatters all our ambitions for something to do.

That declaration is our death and our life, the new beginning.

It is the act which recreates, redeems God's creation.

Death, you see, is put in the position of not being able to do anything according to the ways of the world.

The law, religion, the upward climb, with all its plans and schemes, they suddenly stop, come to an end.

I, through the law, died to the law that I might live to God.

Both our vices and our virtues come to a full stop.

The justification declaration is precisely that, a full stop.

You have died, says Paul.

It is all over.

So we try the world or rebellion and it doesn't work.

And then perhaps we try religion or performance, and it doesn't work.

Not for matters of the heart.

Not for justification or wholeness or a sense of identity.

But now we're ready to be done.

To die.

Into God's grace for us.

Life in Christ, not in our performance.

Titus 2, 11 through 14.

Great passage about change.

How do we change?

What does it mean to die?

What does it mean to change?

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.

Okay, great news, I'm with you.

It, so that grace of God, it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions.

So the grace of God is what teaches us to say no.

The grace of God actually leads us to godliness, into verse 12, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are very own, eager to do what is good.

So, people of grace are people of godliness.

It's the way in which we get there.

We are imputed righteousness, deem something we are not, and we are imperfectly, ongoingly, painfully slowly at times, becoming more godly.

Point number three is this.

We'll say it in two different ways.

Point number three is this your growth in righteousness is inside of your secure belovedness with God.

And that is so relieving if you've been around like a church world that's just about like you change and what you do and you're gonna cause your change.

But to know you're already securely beloved with God through Christ, you're already fully righteous.

And now within that, within that, you'll have your growth in righteousness.

We could say it this way: our transformation in righteousness is inside of our unwavering white righteous standing in Christ.

So our transformation is inside of our imputation.

Twenty years ago when I was in seminary, I had a seminary class, it was a leadership class, like a pastor leader type class, and within the class I had to find a pastor mentor.

And so I went at the time to a very large, big Baptist church out in Gwenp County.

There were like 15 pastors on staff, but I figured, you know, like you might as well shoot to the top.

It was 20 years ago.

I can remember going in the office I worked at at the time.

We only had one computer on the internet.

Some of y'all remember those days, whole office, one computer.

And so you went to the internet computer there in the middle of the office, and I went there and I sat down and I emailed Pastor Larry and I emailed him, hey, I'm taking this class.

You know, could I meet with you, you know, a handful of times through the semester and ask you questions and kind of give him that kind of thing?

And I really thought to myself, for sure he would not have time for me.

Because I was not from any sort of impressive family within the church.

And he probably still remembered the one thing I did at the beach retreat, the high school beach retreat when I was in high school.

So I just thought, eh, I'll shoot for it, but like he'll pass me down.

But Larry said yes.

And through that semester, I met with him many times.

I'd go and meet with him in his office, and I would just ask him tons and tons of questions.

And he would answer all of them very incredibly patiently.

And he never rushed me out of his office.

Never rushed me.

And you know, Baptists love revival weeks.

They love a good every night of the week, just keep you coming to church revival.

Baptist loving.

And so he would preach these revival weeks at all these country churches all around where we lived.

And he would invite me and say, hey, me and this other pastor, me and this other guy, we're going out to wherever.

Why don't you ride with us?

We'll grab some barbecue and go do the Baptist revival.

And so I'd ride with them.

Ride in the car, have dinner, go to the Baptist revival, get saved again.

No, I'm kidding.

Not possible.

They tried, but it's not possible.

See, I had no I had no resume for this.

That's the point.

I had no resume.

I had no resume to be in that car.

I had no resume to be in that office.

I had no record.

I had no position.

And you know what has happened?

It's been 20 years.

I'm telling the story.

I'm not as Baptistic as I used to be, but I talk really highly of Pastor Larry.

Isn't that amazing?

Because of unmerited favor.

That's what unmerited favor does over time.

Forgiveness, imputation, welcome, love, adoration.

God loves you and he likes you without requirement or response needed.

See, that will change you.

And that's why we say this.

We say we never grow beyond the love of Christ, we grow deeper into him.

One of our church's values is growth.

Here's the paragraph we wrote.

I can still remember sitting in the room with our leaders, just fleshing out.

How do we word what it means to grow?

What does it mean to grow in grace?

And here's our wording.

Let me read this.

Some of you have members amid through membership, you've heard it.

Let me just remind us.

We grow in the grace of God by living more deeply in the great wealth of our beloved identity in Jesus Christ, as we know it through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

The Holy Spirit uses this deepening to heal and transform us.

This is a rest from our self-reliant striving, as to know a spiritual growth that occurs only by God's work in our lives.

This growth in grace is a lifelong process filled with imperfection and grace, confession, and peace.

Author, Pastor Steve Brown, he says this about growth.

I remember when I read this, I read it, it's probably been 15 years ago.

I wrote it on a note card, it's still pinned in the back of my Bible.

It's how badly I needed these statements.

He said this you don't have to get better to get God to love you or to be counted holy in his sight.

So it's not about your performance, it's about him and Christ alone, is what we see.

And then he says this you will get better and you won't be able to help it.

He just says, Well, just focus on being yourself and live with God, and it'll happen.

Focus on just be yourself and live with God.

Walk with him, it'll happen.

But you don't have to have that paralysis of navel gazing.

Third thing he says: if you get better, hardly anyone will know.

Because none of us.

Really know what's in each other's hearts.

We've gotten pretty good at wearing masks that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

So we can stop worrying about trying to impress each other.

It's quite freeing.

And the last thing he says is if you do get better, you probably won't know it.

Not only are we good at fooling others, but the Bible says we're pretty good at deceiving ourselves.

So relax.

God loves you.

His grace is there for you.

And Jesus, who is your very righteousness, is calling you to walk with him.

And transformation will take care of itself as you walk with him.

One more thing, because there were four words at the end of our phrase in Psalm 23.3.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.

So the last point is this This world, your life and your righteousness is not ultimately about you and your strength.

We can only say for his namesake if all this other stuff is true.

Or else it is for your namesake and by your strength.

But if our change is inside of our beloved identity, if our transformation is inside of our imputation, now all of a sudden it is for his namesake.

And that's why the story from Genesis to Revelation, by the time we get to Revelation, like we studied when we went through Revelation in the spring, is we're around the throne and we sing for his namesake.

Isn't this amazing?

This is so relieving and is filled with rest as we realize that we are freed from the exhaustion of forming or maintaining our own righteousness.

And you're freed from making the whole world revolve around you or be about you.

And then, and only then, will we walk with him out of delight and have transformations from the heart, a heart that is healing, healed in healing, where change occurs.

And then we'll sing out of a heart's desire and a heart's gratitude to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace and mercy that you welcome us into your family as your beloved children.

And by your same inexhaustible grace, favor upon us, that we know in the imputation of our sin upon the cross and your righteousness, the very righteousness of Christ to us, that we are always yours.

We are always forgiven, always righteous.

The guilt is gone and the shame is gone.

Would you help us to rest even more freely in the greatness of Jesus, to walk with you, confess more freely, repent more freely, and to experience a transformation that comes from the heart outward.

May we be people of grace that we might be people of godliness.

We pray this for your name's sake.

Amen.