Jehovah Series: Part 7, Jehovah our Righteouesness

Well, Saints, we are in part seven of these Jehovah titles, tonight being Jehovah our righteousness.

Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all the promises of God.

Again, to start with our verse, or verses from 2 Corinthians 1, verses 19 to 20.

2 Corinthians 1:19–20

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me, Sylvanus, and Timothy, was not yes and no, but in him was yes.

For all the promises of God in him are yes, and in him amen to the glory of God through us.

All the promises of God find their yes and amen in Christ.

And this is how we came to these Jehovah titles.

Because God promises to be toward his covenant people who he is.

So you find that the basic points about who God is in these Jehovah titles.

That he is to us our healing.

He is to us our sign or banner, you know, ensuring our victory.

He is to us our sanctifier.

He sees and provides for us.

He is our peace, like we covered in the last session, and then tonight, he, Jehovah, is our righteousness.

Well, not forgetting that the title Jehovah refers to God and covenant relation to his people, God's characteristics toward his people, we will now study Jehovah Tsidkinu, which means God our righteousness.

God is Jehovah to us through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In other words, apart from Jesus Christ, we would be left void of every promise of God, being excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

That's a quote from Ephesians 2.12.

That's where we would be apart from Christ.

And not only that, saints, but forever.

Separated out, being strangers from these covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

We would forever be in that state apart from Christ because we surely couldn't earn it.

We are now in covenant relation to God through Christ.

So now all these Jehovah titles become applicable for us.

They become fitting for us because God is now in covenant relation to us through the blood of Jesus Christ.

This title, Jehovah Our Righteousness, is used two times only, and both of them are in Jeremiah.

Now we're going to look at this first one here because it basically gives us all that we need to understand about this title.

In Jeremiah 23, verses 5 and 6, as you have them on your paperwork there.

Jeremiah 23:5

Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch.

Now this is a prophecy of the Christ.

So he's saying, I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely.

Remember in Revelation 19 says that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of Lords.

He is going to reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.

And this is the name whereby he shall be called, Jehovah our righteousness.

In other words, our righteousness is going to come through this promised branch, the righteous branch, the promised Christ.

And this is what the trail of the Bible leads you to.

Is there are two ways to become righteous.

One is by keeping God's perfect standard of the law.

The other, the only other, is by God making you righteous because you believe what he says to be true.

Both of these are found throughout the scriptures.

Both of them can be found very clearly in these two sections of Romans 10, verses 3 and 4, and Philippians 3, verse 9.

Romans 10:3 Philippians 3:9

It handles these two kinds of righteousness or two ways to be righteous.

So righteousness is simply doing or being right according to God's standards.

So we're going to primarily be looking at this second kind of righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, which comes by faith in Christ Jesus.

The other kind of righteousness, our own righteousness, comes by way of keeping the law of Moses perfectly.

So again, we're going to handle this other one of what the faith through Christ produces the righteousness of God for us.

So, apart from righteousness by faith, man must do rightly to be righteous.

Okay?

By believing regarding Jesus Christ, we receive God's righteousness by faith.

The state of being without error or mistake by way of faith.

Wow, imagine that God would make us be in this state of being without error or mistake.

This is not man's perspective, this is God's perspective.

And we appropriate this by simply believing what God says is true.

In other words, we believe the message and God makes us righteous.

What a privilege that is, as we're going to see.

For us, God is the means for righteousness.

We are not the means for righteousness.

We accept that God provided his righteousness to us through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Adherence to this truth produces right living or righteous living.

So adherence to the truth that we are made righteous through Jesus Christ produces right living.

So this first section we're going to look at to gather an understanding of Jehovah is our righteousness, is to understand the blessings of being righteous.

So that first one there is from Psalm 512.

For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous.

With favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

Boy, look at that truth.

What a blessing that is.

For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous.

The righteous get blessed.

With favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

So God favors the righteous.

He even compasses encompasses the righteous one as with a shield.

The second one from Psalm 37, verse 16, a little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked.

Psalms 37:16

God just blesses the righteous.

From Psalm 37, verse 17, for the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.

Psalms 37:17

The Lord upholds the righteous.

So since we are made righteous through Christ, he upholds us.

A little that we have seems to go a long way, whereas the riches of many just seem to dwindle and not go very far.

And the Lord blesses us with favor and encompasses us with as with a shield.

Wonderful truths.

The fourth one here is Psalm 37, 25.

I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken.

I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

God's people, the righteous, not forsaken, always provided for.

From Proverbs 11 5, the righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way.

From Proverbs 11 6, the righteousness of the upright shall deliver him.

The righteousness of the upright shall deliver him.

It's wonderful what a privilege it is to be made righteous by Jesus Christ's work.

Because we get to see all these things in manifestation.

And see, every one of us has records of what happened, what has happened in our lives regarding these points.

Being delivered, you know, having our way directed by God.

You know, being not forsaken, or not ever having to beg bread, or being upheld by God.

All these points.

From Proverbs 12, verse 28, the way of righteousness is life.

Proverbs 12:28

In the pathway thereof there is no death.

That is hit very strongly in the New Testament.

The way of righteousness is life.

It's life.

Proverbs 14 9 tells us fools make a mock of sin, but among the righteous there is favor.

Second time we've seen that.

God favors the righteous.

So when somebody believes on Jesus Christ and they're made righteous, God favors them.

From Proverbs 28:1, the wicked flee when no man pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.

Proverbs 28:1

How many times have we seen situations where all of a sudden this boldness came out of nowhere, so to speak, to help us address a situation where we needed the boldness?

Well, because we are righteous, we are bold as a lion.

Now think about how many things does a lion cower to?

Exactly.

Can't think of one.

All these things are true because the righteous are blessed, blessed of God.

And these are just points that were pulled from the scriptures, saints.

There are many more of these points of how blessed the righteous are.

Can find many of them in our church epistles.

But to move on to the second point needs to be addressed.

For Israel, under the old covenant of the law, doing rightly was required.

In other words, the focus of the old covenant of the law of Moses is doing rightly.

Doing rightly, doing things right.

Well, we are not under the old covenant, praise God.

But look at these verses regarding being under the old covenant.

From Deuteronomy 12 25, thou shalt not eat it, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.

So it's talking about doing what is right.

You see it?

From verse 28 of Deuteronomy 12, observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee.

See, observe and hear all these words, and it will go well with you, and with thy children after thee forever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God.

So doing what is good and right.

From Deuteronomy 13, 18, when thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God.

From Deuteronomy 6.25, this is one of my favorites to show this point, and it shall be our righteousness, our righteousness.

You know, to make ourselves righteous, it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as he hath commanded us.

So just from these four verses that were pulled from the Old Testament, you can see that righteousness is involved under the Old Covenant with doing what is right.

Well, Christ had not yet come.

So this is apart from Christ.

Being under the Old Covenant is apart from Christ.

So you have to do what is right to be right.

Because remember, in Christ, we don't do right to be right.

We accept Christ's work in our behalf and we are made right.

But apart from Christ, we might also ask, as in Job 25, 4, how then can a man be justified with God?

Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?

Well, good question.

How can a man be justified with God?

Apart from Christ, they were seeing it's impossible.

Because a man can't do things rightly all the time.

Or how can a man be clean that is born of a woman?

You're born into this world.

How can you be clean?

You know, men mess things up.

Well, it's interesting that the first place this word righteousness shows up in the Old Testament is regarding Abram, who later became Abraham.

And it's in Genesis 15, 6.

Now watch how he became righteous.

And it says, and he believed in the Lord, and he, the Lord, counted it to him as righteousness.

So this is the first place, saints, that righteousness shows up in the Old Testament.

And it's regarding Abraham believing in the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness.

Well, we too, according to Romans 4, believe in the Lord, regarding what he says is true today, that Jesus Christ died and was raised from the dead, and we are made righteous.

Or that righteousness of God is counted unto us also, just like Abraham.

Wonderful thing that's the first use of the word righteousness in the Old Testament.

You see there with that first use how the Lord is our righteousness.

Jehovah, our righteousness, comes into play by believing in the Lord.

Believing in the Lord.

Remember Jehovah, our righteousness, as used in Jeremiah 23, is in the context of the promised Christ.

Well, that's a clear indicator that the righteousness of God was going to come to us through the Christ.

Very clear.

So this is how, through Christ, that Jehovah is our righteousness also.

So that next point on your paper on page 2, through Jesus Christ is righteousness, which is justification by faith.

You see this very clearly in Romans 10 10, where it says, For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Again, for with the heart man believes unto righteousness.

This is a wonderful phrase.

Believes unto means that man believes regarding Christ, and God brings you unto righteousness.

Our part is simply to believe regarding Jesus Christ, and God makes us righteous.

From Romans 3.28, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Well, praise God that is written.

We are justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Therefore, by faith.

By faith, by simply believing.

From 2 Corinthians 5 21, he made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, us who believe, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

See, saints?

In Christ we are made the righteousness of God.

In him, in Christ.

We are made this way.

So now we are this way.

This is why Romans 8 33, the next reference, says, Who shall bring a charge against God's elect?

Against us?

Who shall bring a charge against us?

It is God who justifies.

By the way, that word justifies means it's right a right now reality.

God is justifying.

See, who can bring a charge against God's elect?

It's God who is justifying.

Based on Christ's work, God continuously justifies us.

Wonderful truth.

Well, again, it rests on Christ's work and not our own.

Therefore, our own works don't produce righteousness, even the best of them.

As it says in Isaiah 64, 6, all of us have become like something unclean, and all of our righteous acts are like a polluted garment.

Wow.

All of our righteous acts, righteous acts, the right ones.

All of our righteous acts are like a polluted garment.

All of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.

That's Isaiah 64, 6.

See, the best of our best works make us like a polluted garment.

Because we don't quite match up by our own ability.

So praise God that God made us righteous through the work of Jesus Christ.

So our works couldn't make us this way, therefore he had to make us this way.

In this next section, you see why.

Adherence to being righteous through Jesus Christ produces fruit.

What fruit does it produce?

Watch these verses from 2 Corinthians 6, verse 7.

2 Corinthians 6:7

By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left.

The armor of righteousness.

Talk about a benefit, a fruit of righteousness?

Armor protects saints.

That's the point.

Righteousness protects us.

Look, if you can't bring an accusation against somebody because they're right, you can't accuse them.

You can't bring something up against them and lay it at their feet to bring a charge against them.

Because they're righteous.

So righteousness, the state of being right, protects us.

It protects us.

From Philippians 1.11, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.

There are fruits of righteousness.

We hit some of them up above, like the righteous are bold as a lion.

Talk about a fruit.

So we become bold as a lion as a fruit of righteousness.

And this is by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.

See, we find favor with God.

We God favors us.

Why?

Because it's a fruit of righteousness.

Being favored comes by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.

You can plug any fruit into that verse right there, saints.

It's all all or every one of these fruits is by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.

Why?

Because Jesus Christ's work produced the righteousness, and this brings glory and recognition to God.

From 2 Corinthians 6.14, you get into probably the main point of being made righteous right here.

Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion has light with darkness?

Saints, God is righteous.

God is light.

We were in darkness.

We were unrighteous.

God had to make us righteous to bring us into his playing field, so to speak, to bring us into his category.

He wanted partnership, fellowship with man from the very beginning.

That's why he designed the heavens and the earth.

Well, if he's righteous and man is unrighteous, he's light and we're darkness, either he had to come down to our level and become unrighteous and dark, or we had to be brought up to his level.

Well, he couldn't come down to our level.

So he

To bring us up to his, and that's exactly what he did.

He did that through Jesus Christ, and praise God, didn't require us to get there by our own abilities.

We are made the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ.

So now God has compatibility in man.

He has man as a partner, a worker together with him.

And the first verse of that chapter says just that.

We then, as workers together with God, is in the context of being made the righteousness of God.

What a great truth.

Saints, now you and I can work together with God in any situation.

Why?

Well, this is why not.

Because it's not by your works that you can have that kind of partnership with God.

If it rested upon your and my works, we would be in trouble because there wouldn't be any partnership with God.

But it doesn't rest in our works, it rests on the work of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, you and I can enjoy partnership with God in any and every situation.

Well, the next reference from Hebrews 8, verses 10 to 12, state this in another way.

Hebrews 8:10–12

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

This is what God looked forward to, saints.

That he would be our God, and we would be his people.

This is what he was aiming at.

Then verse 11, stacked on this, and they shall not teach everyone his fellow or neighbor or everyone his brother, saying, Know the Lord, know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

Why will all know the Lord?

To know him, that says intimately knowing the Lord, to know him intimately.

Why?

For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

See that I will remember.

Remember means bring to mind.

I will bring to mind their sins no more.

Saints, God was after a people who would believe him, trust in what he says is true.

This people is made the righteousness of God.

The righteousness of God.

What does God now have?

Partnership, companionship, oneness with this people who believes what God says is true and accepts that they are made the righteousness of God.

God will bring our sins and iniquities to mind no more.

This is what every man is looking for is somebody, anybody out there, who will never hold anything against them.

Mankind finds this in a God who forgives their errors, lets go of their faults, dismisses their sins, that anything that is wrong or could be held against them is immediately dismissed.

This God, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is now our God.

He has befriended us through the work of Jesus Christ.

Why do I say befriended?

Because look, saints, someone who doesn't hold anything against you is what everybody's looking for.

This is the kind of friendship people crave.

You know, any b any of you that are married, you didn't marry somebody that holds things against you.

Especially if they relish the thought.

You married them or you befriend somebody who doesn't hold things against they dismiss it because the friendship or that love means more than any fault or any error.

So it's immediately overridden.

Well, this is what God does with us, saints.

He overrides, he dismisses anything that would be brought up against us in his courtroom.

We are dismissed because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

So anything, any thought that comes up that's contrary to being made the righteousness of God, where God holds nothing against you, any thought that's in that category needs to be brought up against the blood of Jesus Christ, so it immediately gets dismissed by the blood in your mind, in your thoughts.

This must take place.

Look, there's a verse in 1 John chapter 3, verses 20 or 21.

1 John 3:20

It says, Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.

See, then we have confidence.

If our hearts condemn us not.

It's not saying about God condemning us.

He's Jehovah, our righteousness.

He's already made us his righteousness.

He's not condemning us, but if our hearts condemn us, then we don't have confidence with God.

Well, flip that around, saints.

If your heart is not condemning you, then you have confidence toward God.

And whatsoever you ask, you receive of him.

See, God is looking for people who will just believe him.

That he holds nothing against them.

So this partnership develops, that mankind would know the Lord.

See, for this reason, God is merciful toward our iniquities and he brings our sins to mind no more.

It's over with.

Well, this is why God wanted to make us his righteousness.

That we would accept this and walk in this great light in life.

This is why the last reference in that section, Romans 8.10, the second part of verse 10, reads, But the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Without righteousness, saints, there is no life with God.

Apart from being made the righteousness of God through Christ, there is no partnership, no life, no oneness with God.

None.

But because we have been made the righteousness of God, we have life.

The Spirit is life because of righteousness.

We have partnership with God.

So what do we do with it from here?

We enjoy it.

We walk in it.

See that last paragraph?

How is Jehovah our righteousness?

Jehovah is our righteousness through Jesus Christ.

This is how we became, quote, the righteousness of God in him, end of quote.

In Christ.

This is how we continue in righteousness.

We accept the truth that we are made the righteousness of God in Christ and live accordingly.

When we become aware that our thoughts have drifted to guilt, condemnation, shame, inferiority, or anything like this, we bring our thoughts back to the truth of Christ's death in our behalf.

He died for the purpose of our sin, saints.

Therefore, when we have any of these contrary thoughts to being made the righteousness of God, we bring our minds back to Christ's death in our behalf and say, Thank you, God, for having your son die for the purpose of that error also and all of my errors.

I'm completely cleansed by his blood.

See, our own works didn't achieve our state of being righteous.

Therefore, nothing we are going to do is going to maintain this state.

Our lives purely rest on the accomplished works of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In him, all the promises of God find their yes and amen.

Even the righteousness of God.

This is how Jehovah is our righteousness.