The Currency of God's Kingdom

The currency of God's Kingdom is righteousness, and in Scripture

you go to Isaiah songs, to Paul's epistles, to Jesus's

words and the Gospels. They teach this foundational

truth that righteousness is the essential medium of value,

identity and relationship in God's Kingdom.

This is so important. Read this one more time.

Righteousness is the essential medium of value, identity and

relationship in God's Kingdom. Righteousness is what God issues

to us. It's what he values, it's what

he requires, it's what he forms in US and it's what he rewards.

And once you see the centrality of of this concept, you can't

Unsee it because it's the theme that runs all the way through

the Bible. It's the gospel, it's salvation,

it's reward. And so to help you understand

this, a few points. Righteousness in Scripture is

revealed to us. That's what Romans 116 is.

It's one of our favorite verses. It says, I'm not ashamed of this

gospel. Why?

Because in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith.

For faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith, the

righteous one shall live by faith.

It's revealed to us. Righteousness in Scripture is

pursued. It is the goal of Christian

maturity. It's the end of Christian

maturity. Second Timothy 222 So flee

youthful passions and pursue righteousness.

Righteousness is embodied. Paul commands the church in

Romans 6. Do not present your members to

sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present

yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to

life and your members as instruments of righteousness to

God. Why?

This is because you've been set free from sin and you are no

longer a slave to sin, but you are now a slave to

righteousness. Righteousness is a person.

Righteousness is Jesus Christ first John 2.

He is Jesus Christ the righteous one.

First Corinthians 130 Jesus became for us wisdom and

righteousness. He made him who knew no sin to

be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God

in Jesus. Righteousness is protective.

So interesting. It defends you like armor.

You're called to put on the breastplate of righteousness and

through that you can withstand all of the arrows that the evil

1 shoots at you in the world. Righteousness is relational.

What's the reason that Paul gives for why we don't marry

unbelievers? Why do Christians not marry

unbelievers in this world? He says, What fellowship does

righteousness have with lawlessness?

So righteousness creates boundaries in the Christian

world that it governs our relationships and our

associations. Righteousness is trained.

Why do we have a Bible? Why do we have Scripture?

Because it says all Scriptures breathed out by God, and it's

profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for

training in righteousness. We train ourselves unto this.

It's rewarded. Righteousness is rewarded.

It says that laid up for us in heaven is the crown of

righteousness, which the righteous judge will award to us

on that day. Righteousness is God's delight.

Psalm 11/7 For the Lord is righteous.

He loves righteous deeds. Jeremiah 923 I delight and

steadfast love and injustice and in righteousness.

Righteousness is the purpose of Jesus life and death.

Why did Jesus bear our sins? Why the cross first Peter 2/24

He himself bore our sins, that we might die to sin and live to

righteousness. Righteousness is the hunger and

thirst of our soul. If you're a Christian, it ought

to be. God pronounces this blessing and

the beatitudes. Jesus says blessed are those who

hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And then finally Jesus says righteousness is the priority of

the church. He tells the church, seek first

the Kingdom of God and his what righteousness and all these

things will be added to you if you would just seek his Kingdom,

submit to him, do his will, seek for his righteousness.

Everything else he will take care of.

It's like a breastplate. It will guard you.

And so I hope you see the significance of this concept of

righteousness cannot be overstated in Scripture.

It's all through Scripture. And Isaiah uses this word in 66

chapters, 59 times. And so if you'll open to Isaiah

59, you're going to see this theme come alive.

And in connection to the theme as Isaiah uses it, turn to

Isaiah 59. And I want to remind you what he

said in Isaiah 5 with the parable of the vineyard, the

parable that Jesus is drawing on when he preached in Matthew 21.

Isaiah had a love song back in chapter 5 and he he sings it in

verse 1. He says, let me sing from my

beloved, my love song concerning his vineyard.

It's amazing how many types of literature are in the book of

Isaiah. It's been awesome, this love

song. He says, my beloved, my beloved

had a vineyard on a very fertile hill and he dug it and cleared

it of stones and he planted with choice vines.

He built the watchtower in the midst of it and he hewed out a

wine VAT in it and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it

yielded wild grapes. What was the song about what is

this fruit that he was looking for?

He said in verse 7, for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is

the House of Israel and what is the fruit?

The men of Judah were his pleasant planting and he looked

for justice, but behold bloodshed.

He looked for righteousness, but behold an outcry.

That's we've seen it even in Jesus.

He, he gave this vineyard, he, he redeemed this people so that

they would produce fruit. And the fruit was supposed to be

righteous deeds and justice and mercy.

And he says he looked for it, but behold, he looked for grapes

and he got wild grapes. And it was kind of corny in the

original, but he says he looked for grapes and behold, stink

berries. He didn't get what he was

looking for. It was putrid.

And so he says rhetorically, you may remember this, I looked for

justice, but I got bloodshed. I looked for mish pot.

I got mish pot. And he says I looked for

righteousness, but instead I got an outcry.

I looked for saw the car and instead I got saw a car.

I didn't get what I planted. My people did not produce the

fruit. Ida lied in.

And we can ask just to catch you up from last week.

What was what would this fruit look like practically?

What does righteousness look like practically in the world?

What does it look like to do righteousness?

Isaiah 58 said it clearly and powerfully.

If you missed last week and you want to know, go back and watch

that message. To sum it up, he said

righteousness is to lose loose the bonds of wickedness.

It's to undo the straps of the yolk.

It's to let the oppressed go free.

It's to break every yolk. It's to share your bread with

the hungry. It's to bring the homeless poor

into your home, to cover the naked, to not hide yourself from

your fellow man and your fellow flesh, to take away the yolk, to

pour yourself out for the hungry and to satisfy the desire of the

afflicted. And that's the summary statement

of Isaiah 1. He summarizes this all in verse

17 when he says this is the the end of mankind.

Learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring

justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

Jesus says hunger and thirst for this.

You have to do this first. Jesus says seek this first.

And this is what it looks like practically.

We sum it up as a church all the time to provide, to protect and

include the orphan, the widow, the prisoner, the soldier, and

the sick. That's what loving your neighbor

means, giving a hand up a leg up to anyone who's in need.

Jesus is seeking this fruit from his church.

And as you look at Isaiah 58, there's no break, there's no

section break. That's it's, it goes straight

into Isaiah 59. No breaks in thought.

The subject is still righteousness.

It's a it's a long chapter, but I want to read it together.

Read with me Isaiah 59. God says, Sir, Isaiah says,

behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save or

his ear dole that he cannot hear.

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and God.

Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not

hear. For your hands are defiled with

blood, and your fingers with iniquity.

Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.

No one enters suit justly. No one goes to law honestly.

They rely on empty pleas, They speak lies, They conceive

mischief and give birth to iniquity.

They hatch otter's eggs, They weave the spider's web.

He who eats their eggs dies, And from one that is crushed a Viper

is hatched. Their webs will not serve as

clothing. Men will not cover themselves

with what they make. Their works are works of

iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands.

Their feet run to evil, and they're swift to shed innocent

blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of

iniquity. Desolation and destruction are

in the highways. The way of peace they do not

know, and there is no justice in their paths.

They have made their roads crooked.

No one who treads on them knows peace.

Therefore justice is far from us.

Righteousness does not overtake us.

We hope for light and behold darkness and for brightness, but

we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the

blind. We grope like those who have no

eyes. We stumble at noon as in the

twilight, among those in full vigor.

We are like dead men. We all growl like bears.

We moan and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but there

is none for salvation. But it is far from us, for our

transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify

against us, for our transgressions are with us.

We know our iniquities, transgressing and denying the

Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking

oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the

heart lying words. Justice is turned back, and

righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the

public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.

Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself

a prey. The Lord saw it, and it

displeased him that there was no justice.

He saw there was no man, and wondered that there was none to

intercede. Then his own arm brought him

salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.

He put on righteousness as a breastplate and helmet of

salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance

for clothing, and wrapped himself in a in zeal as a cloak

according to their deeds. So he will repay wrath to his

adversaries, repayment to his enemies, to the coastlands he

will render repayment. So they shall fear the name of

the Lord from the West, and his glory from the rising of the

sun. For he will come like a rushing

stream, which the wind of the Lord drives.

And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those and Jacob who

turned from transgression, declares the Lord.

And As for me, this is my covenant with him, says the

Lord. My spirit that is upon you, and

my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of

your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the

mouth of your children's offspring, says the Lord, from

this time forth. And forevermore.

So if you remember last week, the people were complaining

because they're doing religious things and they weren't getting

the answers from God that they wanted.

He wasn't answering their prayers in the way that they had

hoped. And so their conclusion, look at

verse one. Maybe God can't hear us.

Maybe he lacks awareness or maybe he lacks the the power to

do anything about our prayers. And you hear the same complaint

in our own day. You hear it formally stated from

atheists or agnostics where they say we believe three things as

Christians, but only two of them can be true at the same time.

It says evil exists in the world, God is good and God is

powerful. And they would say only two of

those could be true. Because if, if sin exists and

there's only a few people or groups of people that are stupid

enough to try and argue that the world is not evil and then sin

doesn't exist, you've got to be New Age or Christian Science or

something like that to try and to argue for that.

So they say if sin exists, then God either is not good so he can

do something about it, but he doesn't care.

Or he's not powerful and he would love to do something, but

his arm is too short and he can't.

And what you have here in verse 2 is God responding, or in verse

one, God's responding to their culture and to our culture

saying, behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it can't

save, nor is his ear dull, that it cannot hear.

His inaction is not due to inability or lack of awareness.

The problem, God says, is not with him.

The problem is with you. Your sins have separated you

from God so that he does not hear you.

Verse 2 says your iniquities have made a separation between

you and your God. Your sins have hidden his face

from you so that he doesn't hear.

And I want you to pay extra close attention.

This passage hinges on the pronouns that Isaiah is using,

and it reminds me of Andy Stanley.

He has a book called A Communicating for a Change.

It's his attempt at a preaching book, but he's got this method.

He calls it me, we, God you, we, me, we God you, we.

It's how he works his way through a message and he says he

starts with me. You start by building report

with people. You, you, you tell a story and

you, you invite them in and you get them in.

And then you move on to we or you involve the church.

And now it's all of us together. It's not just me, but it's us.

And then once you've included the whole audience, you

introduce God and his word and what he says about the issue at

hand. And then once you have the

opportunity and you've you've brought God and his word into

it, then you lean and you say you, you must live your life

this way. You ought to live in light of

the word. And then he moves finally back

to what we are to do with it as a community.

And we could say this is a very popular contemporary preaching

strategy. It's a very soft preaching

strategy. And as you read through

Scripture, you'll see it's not frequently used.

It's rarely scriptures approach in the Bible, only in very, very

pastoral situations. Maybe a Romans 7 would he use

this. And you see, Isaiah doesn't

start this chapter with I. He doesn't build rapport.

He starts by pointing the finger.

It's offensive. He says you, your sins have

separated you from God. You could think of Peter.

You have killed the Lord of glory.

You've murdered him and so he starts with you listen to what

he says. Your sins have made a

separation. Your sins have hidden has hidden

his face from you. Your hands are defiled with

blood, your fingers are defiled with iniquity, your lips have

spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.

You are the problem. Quit blaming God and what Isaiah

does over and over. We're in chapter 59 and we've

seen it multiple times. He points out frequently, always

the iniquity of the culture and the horrible things that

Israel's doing and the culture is doing and the foreign nations

are doing. And then he always includes

himself in that list, in that iniquity.

That's His order. So He always starts with you.

You are wicked. And then he moves to I and I am

also, and then to God. But he is merciful.

Remember back to Isaiah 5 and the parable of the vineyard.

He pronounced all of these woes. Woe to the greedy, woe to the

drunkards, to those who enjoy good things from God and excess.

Woe to those who mock God. Woe to those who call evil good

and good evil. Woe to those who are wise in

their own eyes. Woe to those who corrupt our

society. And that brings you into chapter

6. And what's the 7th and final woe

that he pronounces? Woe is me.

I am undone. And he says I'm a person and I

have unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of

unclean lips. And so he says they're evil, and

so am I. He brings himself.

And so these these pronouns as they shift through 59 have led

the church to see 3 distinct sections in Isaiah 59 because

the pronouns shift majorly twice.

And so they tie in with the theme of righteousness because

every time a section ends, he makes a statement about

righteousness to teach you more about it.

And so I want you to see the first section is in verses 1 to

8 and pronouns important. Verses 1 to 8 is the depth of

your ruin. And the section concludes with

this statement. Therefore, justice is far from

us and righteousness does not overtake us.

You move to the second section, verses 9 to the first part of 15

is the cry of our hearts. There's the depth of your ruin.

And then all of a sudden he brings in it's us.

Now once you understand that, once you repent, it's the cry of

our hearts. And it concludes with this

statement. Justice is turned back.

Righteousness stands far away. And then finally 15 to 21 is the

gift of his righteousness. And you see this, it's

incredibly powerful rhetorical. Jesus moves from heaven to put

on breast righteousness as a breastplate and righteousness

pursues you. It's amazing.

And the helmet of salvation is on his head.

But it starts in verses 1 to 8 with the depth of your ruin.

And he reminds you what he reminds you last week, that you

can't expect the blessings of God when you're trapped in sin

and you fail to produce and to pursue righteousness.

He says sin has created a chasm between you and God.

It's an eternal fixed chasm Canyon.

And it can only be healed, repaired through repentance.

The only means across is repentance, the only means of

healing. Verses 3 to 4 show practically

what that means. Their whole person, their

intellect, their heart, their hands and their feet are all

bent towards sin. Look at verse three.

He says, your hands, or you could read it as your palms are

defiled with blood. Your fingers are defiled with

iniquities. You can use this as an exercise

for yourself. He says, look back and think,

what if my hands done? What if my fingers touched?

What? What are my fingerprints left

on? Have you done righteously that

God would bless you? He moves on to your lips.

He says your lips have spoken lies.

Your tongue mutters wickedness. Listen back to the words that

you've spoken. Were they uplifting?

To quote Paul, Were they gracious and seasoned with salt?

Did they build up or were they polluting?

You can skip ahead to verse 7. Your feet run to evil.

They're swift to shed innocent blood.

He says, where have you been? Where have your feet taken you?

Innocent blood? When he uses his calls to mind

Cain and Abel. Where Cain murders his brother

for the sole reason that his his offering was more righteous than

his brothers. He had done nothing wrong.

It was innocent blood. He was jealous.

It brings to mind Jezebel's plot to take Nabis Vineyard and to

falsely accuse him. He did nothing wrong.

It reminds you of David and Bathsheba.

You say, why did he try to murder Uriah the Hittite?

He was innocent. He was serving.

It was to cover up his adultery. And so where do your feet take

you? Do they take you to places of

righteousness? Do they take you to places of

Christian service? Do they take you to worship?

And finally, he says your thoughts are thoughts of

iniquity. What's your thought life like?

If the church was able to read your thoughts on the screen for

20 minutes, what would we see? Righteous things, What are your

hopes and your dreams? Are they aligned with God?

Are they righteous? And Isaiah 59 are the exact

words that Paul uses in Romans 3 to demonstrate the godless human

way. When when humans refuse to

acknowledge God, he says this is the result.

I want to read it with you. It sounds so familiar.

Romans 39 to 18. Paul says none is righteous.

No, not one. No one understands.

No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.

Together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one. And then Paul does exactly what

Isaiah does. He's taking his cue from Isaiah.

He begins to use metaphors of the body, and he moves on.

Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to

deceive. The venom of ASPs is under their

lips. Their mouth is full of curses

and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed

blood in their paths are ruin and wizardry in the in the way

of peace. They have not known there is No

Fear of God before their eyes. I always remember this this

section because you know the verse that says out of the

abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

So whatever comes out of us is just part of what comes into us.

And what Paul is saying is what is in US is a dead man.

It's a rotting sepulcher. It's an open grave.

And when you open your mouth and the air comes out, I picture the

pathway that of of this passage as as air coming out of your

lungs. And it says that it's it's

corruption coming out. It moves from the throat, coming

out of your throat. He says it's an open grave.

It's corruption and filth coming out, and it's what's in our

heart. And it moves from the throat to

the tongue, which he says deceives.

It moves from the tongue to the lips, which he says is like

poison, then to the whole mouth, which he says is the whole thing

is full of curses and bitterness.

And then you imagine it coming out and pouring over to your

feet. And he says your feet are swift

to shed blood, and then out from your feet is the pathway.

And he says in your pathway are ruin and misery.

The way of peace. You have not known.

Think of the refrain of Isaiah, as he says over and over after

every major section. There is no peace, says my God.

There is no peace, says my God. For the wicked there is no

Shalom. It's because your heart is

corrupt and your sins have separated you from the Lord of

glory. And so Paul says, like Isaiah

says, and that's me, I'm not righteous.

I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips in the

midst of a people of unclean lips.

Like the tax collector, I have to say God be merciful to me.

A Sinner in Romans 315 is Isaiah 59 seven.

Swift are the feet to shed blood.

Romans 316 is Isaiah 59 seven. Destruction and distress are in

their ways. Romans 317 is Isaiah 59 eight

and the way of peace they have not known and it sums it all up

in verse 18 saying the reason for all of this, there is No

Fear of God from before their eyes.

Sin breaks fellowship with God. Sin causes him to hide his face

from you. And he's saying in Isaiah it's

it doesn't just createspace between you and God, your sin

does it, but it also poisons society.

It undoes the justice that we're supposed to be doing for the

poor and the vulnerable. It poisons the world.

It stains the world. And he's going to emphasize

here, it destroys societal justice.

And as you go into verse four, he gives you a practical

illustration of this. What does it mean that sin

pollutes our culture and our society?

He takes you in before to the justice system, the legal

system. He says, you want an

illustration? Look at this.

No one enters lawsuit justly. No one goes to law honestly.

They rely on empty pleas and they speak lies and they

conceive mischief and they give birth to iniquity.

Is that true in our culture today?

You go to the courtroom and what is it?

What are the insurance companies do?

They've got a slogan, delay, deny, defend, right?

They're not there for justice. They're there for money.

What do we call personal injury lawyers?

Ambulance chasers? It's pejorative because they're

they're not there for upholding the just.

They're not there for the sake of the poor.

They're there to make money at the expense of the poor, McKay

says a verse 4A commentator. This describes a society whose

procedures are distorted and whose energies are perverted in

pursuit of what is empty and depraved, he says.

The individual suffer, the societies suffer.

There's no benefit to the culture in the community.

Isaiah moves from the depth of their ruin, talking about body

analogies and look at verse 5. And he moves to an interesting

place. Animal analogies.

They hatch adders eggs. It's a snake.

They weave spider's webs. He who eats their eggs dies.

And from one, from one that is crushed, a Viper is hatched.

He's talking about the fruit of your works, the fruit of your

laborers, the fruit of your hands, the fruit of your

righteousness. And I know this because he uses

the word works three times. He repeats it three times for

emphasis. Their behavior patterns are

destructive. Their achievements are

insubstantial and useless. The adder is a Viper.

It's a venomous snake. He says all that the the people

hatch is characterized by poison.

If you eat one of their eggs, it means you become a victim of

them and it brings you down to death.

It says if you try to stamp out their plots by crushing their

eggs, a snake will hatch from it.

Poison yields more poison. This is the fruit of the

culture. And this is exactly the context

when Paul needs to describe the society in his own day.

He says the only thing that describes how wicked my society

is is Isaiah 59. And you Fast forward to today,

even in our own culture, when Paul Hanson's looking at our

culture, he says the only way you can describe us now is

Isaiah 59. It's the same, he says, in our

own era, repeats the same in our society as well as theirs.

The hopes and expectations of many are raised by glorious

promises of prosperity, peace, and divine favor, only to be

dashed on the rocks of poverty and marginalization.

So we have to confess in light of this that the stain of Adam's

sin is on everything and will continue to be until Christ

comes to make all things new. That's what the passage is

teaching. And added to that, you are

guilty and you have to face the reality that your throat is an

open grave. You have poisoned the world with

your sin. The depth of your ruin is

eternal. And there's only one response to

understanding this. This is the pathway of the

gospel. You cannot have salvation.

You do not understand until you recognize this is you.

And the only response for understanding what you have

contributed to the the wretched state of the world is lament.

And that's what you see in verses 9 to 15.

It's communal lament. It's our lament.

The pronoun shifts. Verse 9 to 15 is the cry of our

hearts. And verse 9 is a summary of

their estate. The section ends in verse 9.

You can read it with me. There's no righteousness and

hear the words of the people corporately.

But therefore justice is far from us.

Righteousness does not overtake us.

We hope for light and behold darkness.

We hope for brightness but behold, we walk in gloom.

And So what you're going to see in the next 6 verses is heart

wrenching because it's people having to confront themselves

and be honest with themselves about the state of their own

heart and swallowing your pride and admitting you.

You've done wrong. That's what they're doing.

And it's the hardest thing to do to say I was wrong.

What are the hardest words to speak in the whole world?

I'm sorry I hurt you. You're right and I was wrong.

No excuses, no justifications, just the words.

I'm so sorry and read this whole section with me.

This is their lament. They understand.

They they see their sin. Verse 10 continues with the

lament. We grope for the wall like the

blind. We grope like those who don't

have eyes. We stumble at noon as in the

twilight, and among those in full vigor.

We're like dead men. We growl like bears, We moan and

moan like doves, for we hope for justice, but there is none for

salvation. But it's far from us, for our

transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify

against us. Our transgressions are with us,

and we know our iniquities. Transgressing and denying the

Lord and turning back from following our God, speaking

oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the

heart lying words. Justice has turned back and

righteousness stands far away. For truth has stumbled in the

public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.

Truth is lacking. And he who departs from evil

makes himself a prey. And so the finger that was

pointing to society in verses 4 to 8, he now points back to

himself, saying again, woe is me, I'm undone.

I'm a man in of unclean lips, living in the midst of a people

of unclean lips. They are corrupt and I am

corrupt. And here you have God's people

communally lamenting we are complicit with our wicked

society. It's not that they're wicked

outside these walls, it's that we're wicked within them.

And what are we supposed to do? There is no righteousness

because of us. There is an absence of divine

blessing. Verse 10.

The condition is dire. They grow, but they don't have

eyes to see. They can't see because they're

blind. And together as a nation,

they've stumbled, and they've stumbled because they couldn't

see the spiritual obstacles that were right in front of them.

Verse 11, they're waiting for divine intervention and there is

none. And so they lament.

Verses 12 to 13 is beautiful when you realize that they don't

shy away from their specific sins.

And so as you all know, the words I'm sorry don't mean a

whole lot if you don't add anything to them.

You're sorry for what? What are you sorry for?

And the more specific you are, the better the apology and the

deeper the humility. It shows who you're repenting

to, what you're repenting of, and that you understand it and

that you get it. You see your faults, you see

their consequences. And so they say we're sorry, and

they add to it. For transgressing and denying

the Lord, for turning back from following God, for all the

oppressions, for the revolts, for conceiving and uttering

lying words in verse 4 to 14 and 15, for the role that we played

in poisoning society, for the stain that we left, for the

corruption in society. This is our fault.

And at that exact moment, God reveals Himself to them.

He hides Himself from the proud. He reveals Himself to the

humble. At the moment that they they

lament, at the moment that they repent, you have a model of it.

You see that God reveals Himself.

Verses 15 to 21 is the gift of His righteousness, and so the

previous point ended with a statement of righteousness, and

it guides us to this final statement.

Verse 9, Isaiah concludes the first point by saying therefore

justice is far from us. Righteousness does not overtake

us. He moves to the second point and

concludes it with this. And verse 14.

Justice has turned back. The righteousness stands far

away. He says he finds no one to

intercede for the people. He says they have an utter

inability to live righteously, and it's at this moment when

they recognize they're unrighteous, when they recognize

there is no righteousness, their utter inability to do it,

righteousness pursues them. This is the rhetorical force of

all of this. He says at this moment Jesus

puts on the armor of a warrior. He wears righteousness like a

breastplate. He puts on zeal as a cloak.

He puts on a helmet for salvation, and righteousness

pursues you. Look at verse 17, He says that

he put on righteousness as a breastplate, a helmet of

salvation on his head, garments of vengeance for clothing.

He wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

Go down to verse 20 and a Redeemer will come to Zion, to

those in Jacob who turn from their transgressions, declares

the Lord. And he has this absolutely

beautiful covenant promise to all of those who repent and turn

and submit. Bow the knee to Jesus Christ.

He says. And As for me, this is my

covenant with them. This is the gospel in the Old

Testament. It's the same gospel, my spirit

that is upon you and my words that I've put in your mouth

shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouth of

your children or out of the mouth of your children's

children, says the Lord for this time forth and forevermore.

And I want you to see the the full circle of these pronouns

that come. He begins in verses one and two.

And he says your iniquities have caused a divide between you and

God. They've separated you from God.

They've hidden his face and he comes to this final section to

the same people he was talking to in verses one and two.

Those who have repented of their sins put their faith in Jesus.

He's addressing these same people.

He now says, my spirit is upon you.

My words are in your mouth. It shall be forever more you.

And he extends it and your children and their children from

this time forth and forever. And you ask what healed the

chasm between God and men? It answers for you.

It was the Redeemer acting through your repentance and

faith and don't miss it. He says a Redeemer will come to

Zion to those who turn from transgression.

And so if you've never done that, today is the day.

This is the morning. If you've never turned from your

sins, the model is there for you.

And 9 to 15, this is the cry of your heart to say, I'm sorry.

It's so simple to submit to Him and allow His righteousness to

pursue you and to those who repent.

Verses 9 to 15, God will come to you.

He will cross the chasm. He will bring righteousness on

your behalf. Look at verse 19.

His glory will come from the rising of the sun from the far

West, He says, to the rising of the sun, which is the Far East.

Verse 19, He will come like a rushing stream driven by the

wind of the Lord. This is a a powerful, powerful

metaphor. It's an image of overwhelming,

uncontainable power. And he, I've, I've told you

before of the, the time we went to Multnomah Falls at the

snowmelt and we get out of our car a half a mile from the river

and you can hear it roaring even from the car.

And that's the illustration, this, this massive uncontainable

river. And it adds to that.

It's not just that the river is flowing, it says it's also

driven by the wind of the Lord. And so it's saying that it's a

divine agency. Salvation and blessing and

judgement will come by the Lord's own doing, and it will

come according to His timetable. Yahweh's coming.

He will put on righteousness like a breastplate, salvation

like a helmet, garments of vengeance for clothes, and he

will wrap himself in zeal like a mantle.

And when he comes, he says it's, it's going to be salvation for

some, it'll be the salvation of the church, and it will be the

judgement of the wicked. And those are the same event.

It's the two sides of the same coin.

And the decisive event that determines how you will meet the

Lord on that day is whether you have turned from your sins and

submitted to the lordship of the King of glory.

A Redeemer will come to Zion. And here's the final the, the

conclusion of that promise. As for me, this is my covenant

with them, says the Lord. My Spirit, which is upon you,

and my words, which I put in your mouth, shall not depart

from you, nor your children, nor your children's children.

From this time forth and forevermore, His Spirit and His

Word will be with you, and He will not take them away.

They will be permanently present with His people across

generations. Remember the rhetorical question

that he asked in Isaiah 5? What more was there to do for my

vineyard that I had not done in it?

I looked for righteousness, but behold an outcry.

I look for justice, but behold bloodshed.

What more could God do when righteousness didn't overtake

them? What more could He do when

righteousness was far away and didn't have to answer that

question? But he answers that question in

Isaiah 59. He says He redeemed His people

Himself. The answer was redemption.

To send a Redeemer. You've been bought with a price.

That means the burden that you had has been shouldered by

somebody else. First Corinthians 1:30 Because

1 Corinthians 1:30

of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us righteousness.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might

become the righteousness of God in Him.

And you were redeemed, Scripture says, not with corruptible

things, not like a prisoner of war, not like a slave.

You're not redeemed with corruptible things like silver

and gold or money, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a

lamb, without blemish and without spot, the depth of your

ruin. The cry of our hearts are

answered by the gift of His righteousness to those who

repent. Go back to the beginning.

Remember, righteousness is the currency of the Kingdom.

Righteousness is the essential medium of value and identity and

relationship in God's Kingdom. Remember all the points it's

revealed to us. It's to be pursued, It's

embodied by the church. It's a person, Christ.

It's protective, It's relational.

It's trained. We train ourselves for this.

It's rewarded. It's God's delight.

It's the purpose of Jesus's life and death.

It is to be the hunger and thirst of our soul.

It's the priority. And it's utterly out of reach

for you. And the depth of your ruin is

eternal. But for those who lament and

repent and fall on Jesus Christ, who is the righteous, 1 He will

redeem you, and he will give you what Martin Luther called an

alien righteousness, emphasizing this is not yours.

It was out of reach, it did not pursue you, but it has been

given to you as a gift. Your price of your freedom has

been paid. You have been redeemed.

You are now a slave of righteousness, and you're the

response of your heart not to be Jude 24 to 25.

Now to him who was able to keep you from stumbling and to

present you blameless. To the only God our Savior,

through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and majesty and

dominion and authority forever, Amen.

The cry of your heart should be First Timothy 117 To the King of

ages, immortal, invisible, to the only God be honor and glory

forever and ever, Amen. Pray with me this doxology

first. First Chronicles 29 Yours, O

Lord, is the greatness and the power, and the glory and the

victory and the majesty. Yours is the Kingdom, O Lord.

And now we thank you our God, and praise your glorious name.

Continue to pray with me. As we say, Lord, we see the

value of righteousness. We see how utterly far it was

from us. We confess to you, and we we

lament corporately that This Is Us.

This was our doing. This world is a it's beautiful.

It has just this image of you. It declares your glory, but it's

it's marred by sin. God, everything has been

corrupted by sin. And we confess to you in this

moment, it's our fault. I'm sorry.

We're sorry for the sins that we've sinned against you.

The specific sins, Lord, we confess those to you in our own

hearts. We're sorry for not loving You

well. We're sorry for not loving our

neighbor as ourself. And we thank You that when we

were lacking in righteous, when there was no righteousness, when

we were groping as if blind, You have made us to see

righteousness pursued us. You put it on as a breastplate,

Lord, and there is nothing we can say except we love You and

thank you. Teach us to be trained in

righteousness. Teach us so that when you come

again in glory and you look to the earth and you will see that

there is fruit. You've given it to the Gentiles

and we have not neglected to to care for those whom you most

cared for. Lord God, we love you and we

thank you for your righteousness which comes in your Son, Jesus

Christ. Amen.

Thanks for listening.