He is the LORD our Righteousness

And little John? Alright. Praise the Lord. Take your Bibles if you would. We're in Jeremiah chapter 23.

Jeremiah 23 verses five and six. I do have it up here on the screen as well this morning. Start a series couple weeks ago, what is God like? Last week well, the first week, he is an unchangeable God. He doesn't change.

Praise the Lord. He is an unchangeable eternal God. He is last week an almighty God. He is El Shaddai, God almighty. He is our creator.

He is sovereign. He is able to do anything that he desires for us. He is able to keep all of His promises because He is the Almighty, all powerful God. This morning, He is a righteous, a righteous God. Throughout human history, man has imagined many various gods to worship and serve.

Names such as Zeus, Apollo, Hera, Athena, Poseidon, Neptune, Jupiter, Mercury. Notice where we get the names for our planets from. Epaphroditus, Baal or Baal, Isis, Osiris, Ra, Apophis, Molech, Thor. All of these bloodthirsty gods, deceitful gods, immoral gods, selfish and frivolous gods made in the image of depraved humanity with the same moral failings as we. Gods who could not be trusted, who demanded much, provided little.

Gods, thankfully, who are not real, but just the imaginations of mankind. Praise the Lord, the true and living God is much different. It is we who were made in his image, not he that is made in our image. He is not like the false gods of men for he is holy and he is a righteous God. And therefore, he is the hope of mankind.

He is the friend of mankind. He is the savior of mankind. He is the Lord, our righteousness. If you look in Jeremiah or up on the screen, Jeremiah 20 three:five-six, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, a righteous descendant. And a king shall reign and prosper, and he shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

In his days, Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is the name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. Let's go to our Lord in prayer once more this morning. Dear heavenly father, thank you Lord that you are the Lord, our righteousness, that you are a righteous God. Who shares that righteousness with unrighteous man.

Thank you, Lord, that you are trustworthy and faithful, true and honest, fair and just in all your dealings with us. Thank you for what you did for us on the cross in sending your son. And if there's one here today that is yet to receive your gift of grace, of salvation through faith in your son, Jesus Christ, I pray that today would be their day of salvation. In Jesus' name we do pray. Amen.

He is the Lord, our righteousness in red here at the bottom on the screen. The Lord, our righteousness. This is a compound name for God like El Shaddai. We looked at last week. This is Jehovah Tsidkenu.

Okay? Here in Hebrew in the Old Testament. Jehovah, also pronounced Yahweh or Yehovah. Not exactly sure how God's name is pronounced. That's why in your Bible, whenever his name is mentioned, it's in its Lord in all capital letters.

But we do know this, this is the personal name for God. No other false god or idol or any has this name, only him. It is his and his alone. He is the covenant God of Israel. He is the I am that I am, the eternal self existing one.

He is Jehovah, Elohim, the one who made man in Genesis chapter two, the Lord God. Tsidkenu is an adjective of sorts here describing Jehovah. Jehovah Tsidkenu. Tsidkenu means our righteousness. So you put the two together and you get a name for God.

The name being Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. You can learn a lot about the character of God by the names of God as you go through both the old and the New Testament. It is quite a study in itself. We're not going to go through all of those names though. They will crop up from time to time as we talk about the nature of our God for his names reveal his nature.

And so we see that here in this passage today. In other passages, we also read about the righteousness of our God. Psalm seven nine, oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end but establish the just for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reigns. Psalm one sixteen five, gracious is the Lord and righteous, yea, our God is merciful. Our righteous God trieth the hearts of men and He has every right to because He is our creator, but also because he is righteous.

He is the righteous judge. When we judge others, sometimes we point the finger back at who? Ourselves. We're warned about that in scripture. Pharisees were very good at that, judging everybody but whom?

Themselves for some of the very same issues. Humanity has a habit of that. But we have a God in heaven who is a worthy judge because he is righteous and he is holy and that puts him in a good place, proper place to be our judge. And praise the Lord, he is because he is just and fair. And what does it say here in second of those verses?

He is merciful. Revelation sixteen seven, and I heard another out of the altar say, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments. Now this kind of puts the two together from last week to this week. Last week, we studied the Almighty God. This week, the true and righteous God.

He is one and the and the same. These verses and many others express two truths about our God in the least. Number one, he is a righteous God, meaning that he is just and fair and honest to his core in his very nature. But also in his dealings, his judgments, and in all his ways, we see the righteous acts of a righteous and holy God who is always just and fair and honest and true in all that he does. Does that matter?

Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Sad that so many in the world throughout history and some today still continue to worship these other gods that we mentioned and whom they cannot trust. A, because they're not real, but two, secondly, because by their own admission, they're not righteous. But the true and living God is and that matters greatly.

He is a faithful God. You can count on him because he is what? He's righteous. He is an honest God. So whatever he says, I can accept his truth.

Because he is what? Because he is righteous. I know that the promises he's made, he will keep because he is righteous. I know that when I stand before him at the judgment day, that he will judge me fairly and with mercy because he is a righteous God. Number two, the righteous God was declared unto us in the person of his son, Jesus.

Jesus whose name means Jehovah is salvation. Jesus who gave himself, his righteous self on the cross for us so that he might impart that righteousness to all who believe and trust in him. The Bible tells us for he, God hath made him Jesus to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. I can't die for you. It will do you no good in light of eternity or in light of your sin because I'm a what?

I'm a sinner. I have my own sin to deal with. Praise the Lord. I trusted Christ's offer to pay that price for me and he has dealt with it, but I can't die for you. Only Jesus could because he is the only what?

Righteous God who gave himself, who took upon him the punishment that was due to all of us. We'll come back to that verse in a little bit. But let's take just a moment to look at these two. God is a righteous God in his judgments and his dealings with man. And number two, specifically with the righteousness that's imparted to us by Christ.

So number one, God is just and honest in his judgments. God's dealings with mankind in general and particularly with Israel prove that he is a righteous, a just, and a merciful God. And I'm just gonna give a few examples this morning, but we could spend the rest of the day looking at God's dealings and judgments with mankind and how they prove that he is a righteous and holy God. So, just a few this morning. God told Adam what would result if he took fruit off of one tree.

He could take fruit off of any other tree, just not the one. In the day you of, you shall surely what? Die. And death in scripture is also related to separation from who? Separation from God.

So what did Adam do? Well, he sinned. He disobeyed. He took the fruit off the tree along with Eve. And God who was a righteous God had to act.

Now, God loved Adam. God created Adam and Eve to fellowship with him for all eternity. But a righteous God cannot simply overlook sin. And so God acted. He cast him out of the garden.

He cast him out of his presence. He allowed sin to infect this world because Adam chose it. Why? Because he is a righteous God. But yet he is also a what?

A merciful God. And the righteousness of God doesn't exclude his mercy. No, it includes His mercy. Sometimes we think of things like holiness and love as excluding one another. No, they're one in the same.

They're all part of the wonderful, glorious nature of our God. In His mercy, he gave a promise of hope to both Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would one day defeat the plans of Satan. And that man and God would be what? Reunited through the seed of the woman. Now we know that seed of the woman is who?

Jesus Christ. For God did that very thing when he kept his word. When the fullness of time was gone come, God sent his son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem us that were under the law. He is a righteous God. When the whole world had corrupted themselves and for hundreds of years chose to mock their creator, God who is righteous needed to bring judgment in the days of Noah.

But again, God showed what? He showed mercy to Noah and his family. I'm sure he would have done the same for any others who chose to join them, but they didn't. God once again kept his promise, his promise to Noah. He protected him and his family in the ark, delivering them to a new world after the flood wiped out the old one because he is a righteous God.

God who is righteous did not destroy Sodom before he had a talk with Abraham, before he sent angels in to deliver his children out, mainly Lot and his family, as God went above and beyond. I'm not sure Lot deserved that. I'm not sure we deserve that. But that's the kind of God He is, a righteous and merciful God. He even turned from the destruction of Nineveh in Jonah's day after He sent Jonah to warn them.

Nineveh was probably every bit as wicked as Sodom, but they repented and God relented and did not wipe them out. God even sent them a prophet to warn them. That's just the kind of God He is. He gave a child to Abram and Sarah as he promised in their old age and a land flowing with milk and honey to their offspring because he's a righteous God. That's what he told Abraham.

Follow me and I will make of you a what? Great nation. And so he did. They're scattered all over the world yet today. They number in the millions.

And, actually, they're back in the land, many of them. Later, he heard the prayer of Hannah and he gave her a son also. The righteous God both hears and answers the prayers of his people. That's the kind of God he is, a God who always keeps his promises. God gave warnings time and time again to Pharaoh to let Israel go before he brought upon them the judgment of the death of the firstborn.

He gave them ample opportunity, but Pharaoh would not. In judgment upon Egypt, God, the righteous God, kept his promise to Israel and Abraham. He delivered their firstborn and all of them from Egypt and then gave them the land of Canaan. He even waited five hundred years to do it like he told Abraham back in Genesis he would do because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. What did that mean?

God gave the Amorites, the Canaanites five hundred more years to get it right before he sent Israel back in judgment upon them. God warned Israel of their coming judgment at the hands of Babylon and Assyria generations in advance by the mouth of the prophets who He sent again and again and again and again, but they refused. And so a righteous God was forced to act in accordance with his previous instructions. Israel was torn apart and the people were scattered because he is a a righteous God. But also, as he foretold by the mouth of Isaiah and Jeremiah and others, God did not abandon his people.

No. Seventy years later, he sent them what? He sent them back to rebuild the temple and the city and the walls. And despite the attempts by continuous enemies from Haman to Hitler to wipe them off the face of this world, Despite their own rejection of their Messiah, they're still there because God is a what? A righteous God and a merciful God.

And he sent his son as he promised Israel. Jesus the Messiah, the Lord our righteousness. That's who this verse is talking about. The Lord, our righteousness. This is this is a prophecy concerning who?

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Lord, our righteousness, the righteous one. He sent Jesus, the righteous one, to prove his righteous character before men. He as we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. He bore their infirmities.

He faced temptation, but yet without what? Without sin. For he conquered and he proved himself to be righteous. And then the righteous one died, the sacrifice in my place to redeem me. Back to second Corinthians five twenty one, and he hath made him to be what?

Sin for us, who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Not only is God righteous, not only is Jesus righteous, but he died to share that righteousness with who? With us who so desperately need it. For he hath made him, Jesus, to be sin for us or that could be understood to be the sin offering for us. See, in the Old Testament under the the law, under the the shadow of the reality, under the symbolism that covered the sins of Israel until Jesus came to die on the cross.

They would bring a lamb after they had sinned to the priest and they would hand the innocent lamb who had done nothing wrong to the hands of the priest, and then they would place their hands on the head of the lamb to signify the transfer of their sin onto the lamb and then the innocence of the lamb onto onto them. And then the lamb was taken and slain in their what? In their place. And that's what God did for us in Jesus Christ. And if we will receive it, his death atones for whose sin?

For our sin. And not only did God place our sin on him on that cross, but when we receive him as savior, we also receive the righteousness of Christ accounted to who? Us. God in the Old Testament said of Abraham, he believed the Lord and it was counted to him for what? For the righteousness, the righteousness that he lacked via the righteous savior who would one day die on the cross for his sins as he did for us.

Which brings us to point number two, the Lord our righteousness Jesus Christ. God tells us in Psalm 60 four:six that our righteousness are as what? Filthy rags. That among men there are none truly righteous, no, not one. Now, maybe some of us get a little closer than hitting the mark than others do, but we still don't hit the what?

We still don't hit the mark. The only one who did that was Jesus Christ, the righteous. Jesus told his disciples, unless their righteousness exceeded that of the seemingly most righteous or pious among them, they would never enter the kingdom of heaven. So also Christ said, he had not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. One thing we must accept as scripture reveals is that we are sinners and we need a savior.

He is righteous, we are not. There are no good works that we can do to erase the mountain of bad ones. Only Jesus Christ can clothe us in his righteousness and make us acceptable in the sight of God. Turn if you would to Romans chapter three. Romans three.

I'll give you a minute. I want to read a few verses from there, and they're not up here on the screen. God lays it out. Paul lays it out here in Romans three nineteen. We had time, we'd read the first five chapters, but we don't have time for that.

So we're just going to have to take a little snapshot, okay? Romans three nineteen, Now we know that whatsoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become, word, guilty before God. What does the law do? It reveals that we are guilty of breaking God's law, that we're sinners. Verse 20, therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Keep trying to keep the law and make it to heaven. You're never going to what? You're never going to make it because there's always going to be some law that you what? That you break and you fail to keep. So the law can't save you.

It isn't your defender, it is your accuser. Verse 21, but now, praise the Lord. Often time I love when we get the passages, but now. It all looks pretty bad. But now, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets because they talked about the coming savior, did they not?

We just read about him in Jeremiah one twenty three, the Lord our righteousness. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifest being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Jehovah is salvation. Christ, meaning the Messiah, the promised one. Unto all, the righteousness of God, unto all and upon all them that believe.

Jew and Gentile alike, for there's no difference. For all have sinned and come short, missed the mark of the glory of God. Being justified freely by his, what? Grace. Not our works, but his grace.

Some denominations seem to teach that you got to do this and do that to earn grace. And you just add up graces. And in your graces outline, it doesn't work like that. That is a complete completely wrong understanding of the word what? Grace because you can't earn grace.

That's the whole point. God's grace is something he gives to us that we do not deserve and that we cannot earn because we're what? We're sinners. We're unrighteous. He is righteous, but not us.

Therefore, we need his what? His righteousness accounted to us. And just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness too, so we must believe upon all them that believe, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus based on what he did for us on the cross when he paid the price whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, a satisfying sacrifice of the wrath of God to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins, not ours, but his through the for that are passed through the forbearance of who? Through the patience of God. He waited patiently all those days leading up to the day that Christ came and died on the cross for our sins.

And now our we're forgiven, declared righteous in him as those in the past are also who lived before he came. To declare, I say this time his righteousness, not mine, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It's excluded. Why?

Because I can earn it. I'm not righteous. Praise the Lord. I have a righteous savior. Who wants to share that righteousness with who?

With us. That we might be justified in the sight of God, not based upon our works, but based on the finished work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary, our risen savior. The righteousness required by the law of nature and the command of God, we fall short time and time again. That's why the Old Testament law also required sacrifices to cover for their sins because God knew they would what? They would sin, as do we.

Therefore, Paul declared both to the Romans and to the Galatians that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. The law is the knowledge of sin, but it isn't the means to attain the righteousness that we need. The means to attain it is only found in receiving by faith the righteousness of Christ who became that sin offering for us. We were told and we are told in the scriptures that when we were without strength, spiritual strength, Christ died for who? For on the ungodly, to redeem us, to close clothe us in the righteousness of Christ with a robe that is invisible to our eyes today, but is nonetheless real and one day will be visible in heaven.

And I said unto him, sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, these are they which came out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of a lamb. There's like half a dozen of those verses in Revelation that emphatically drive the point home. They're not there. We won't be there.

We won't get there based on our righteousness. We must humbly by faith accept the righteousness of Christ and his sacrifice and trust in his promise. And we can. Why? Because he is righteous.

Let's try that again. Why? Because he is righteous and I can trust him. And I do. And he's preparing a place for me.

And he'll never leave me nor forsake me. That's the kind of God he is. But we must, Daniel did, confess our wickedness before the God of heaven and by faith, accept his offer of righteousness in his son, Jesus Christ. We studied this. We were here last couple weeks on Sunday night.

In Daniel nine, Daniel said this, therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil and brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is what? Righteous in all his works which he doeth. For we obeyed not his voice. Daniel said, we put ourselves in this pickle because we chose not to obey the Lord our God, our maker, our creator, our righteous God.

And because he is righteous, we suffer. But praise the Lord because he is righteous, he also keeps his promises. And a few years later, Israel went back to the land. Many of them are back there today because God is righteous. First John one eight through 10.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Which is it? Are you going to hold on to that sin and deny its existence?

Are you going to humbly accept the forgiveness of God? That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be what? Saved. Enclothed the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And what is it that you can do to add to that?

The answer is nothing because Jesus did it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Have you this morning confessed your lack before God?

Have you received God's forgiveness and righteousness in the person of Jesus Christ who died for you? Have you, in faith, symbolically placed your hands on the head of Jesus and received his righteousness and forgiveness for your sin? Who is your sin offering? Or are you still denying your condition or trying to get there on your terms? Accept God's offer today.

Jesus died to bring it to you. Our righteous God, our faithful God. For he can be counted on to do exactly as he says. He can be counted on to tell us the truth, to care for his own as he did Noah and Abraham, Moses and Joshua and Hannah and Ruth and Esther and David and Daniel. As he was faithful to care for them, he'll also be faithful to care for who?

For us. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not into your own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge him and he shall what? Direct your paths or make your paths straight. Why? Why should you do that?

Because he is a righteous God. Good. We got it. Trust him, rest in him, love and serve him all your days. Be willing to be honest before him.

Confess your sins, and he will take that burden from you and make you like him. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you, Lord, for your word today and your revelation of yourself as the righteous and holy God, merciful and just God who loves us, who died for us because it was the only way to redeem us for sin must be atoned for. You chose to take that responsibility upon yourself. And you've made many promises that beginning with for whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And we trust you today. And Lord, I pray that we would trust you tomorrow. We would trust in your guidance. You trust in your word. Remembering that the God we serve is a righteous God who never fails and whom we can trust, with whom we can be honest, who is a merciful God who forgives all of our sins, who is a loving God.

Thank you, Lord. We pray if there's one here today that is yet to receive Christ that they would come as we sing this hymn of invitation this morning. In Jesus' name we do pray. Amen. Take your