There was a part in the story that I was reminded of and is kind of the spark behind this post today. Harold Hill was a traveling salesman and a bit of a con artist. The story takes place in the early 1900’s and he travels by train to small towns pitching band instruments and uniforms for all the parents to buy for their children. The fact the kids don’t know how to play or read music is not an obstacle for Hill. He also sells them on the idea of his revolutionary system known as the ‘Think Method”. If the kids just ‘think’ hard enough, they can play.
Nothing new about that pitch now, is there? It has surfaced over the years in different forms…’Mind Over Matter’, ‘Positive Thinking’, and even the church world bought in to it with their ‘Name it-Claim it’ theology. They just used the word ‘believe’ in place of ‘think’.
Allow me to wade in to a subject matter today that has been the source of great debate and division in the Christian faith for centuries. It has to do with a particular word that gets confusing in discussion as a two sided coin of either we are “saved by faith alone” or are there ‘works’ involved. I’m not going to pretend to be some theologian who can wave my hand and the skies of confusion are going to clear up for all the world to see; but I do have a few thoughts from scripture for your consideration.
The term I feel led to address today is the word ‘righteousness’. Sounds like a big word that gets tossed around often in our religious discussions and studies. My hope is to keep this ‘simple’. And when God does the teaching/revealing, it really is ‘simple’. That is my prayer for this posting today…that He does the teaching.
The definition of the word, righteousness is: the quality of being morally right or justifiable. In our church circles, we are most familiar with the idea that it means to ‘be in right standing with God’. Someone else simplified it this way: ‘righteousness is doing what is right in God’s eyes’. That works for me as well.
So let me get some ‘it goes without saying’ truths on the table here first.
From God’s perspective, His assessment of mankind in their fallen state was that “There is none righteous, no, not one…ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:10,23)
Mankind was and is, incapable of doing anything that would deem us as being ‘righteous’, no matter how hard we try. Isaiah drove that point home saying any self produced righteousness was like ‘filthy rags’ in the eyes of God. (64:6) Think of it this way: have you ever had something that was stained so bad, that no matter how hard you scrubbed and washed and cleaned, that stain was not coming out? Yeah, that would be us. Sin stained us in such a way.
Sin is also what separates us from God (Isa 59:2) and is the source of death and suffering in our lives. Sin is an active feeding ground for the enemy,- the powers of darkness, to come in and steal, kill, and destroy our souls and bodies like decay and rottenness. Hence, the reason Jesus came to not only ‘cleanse’ us from that stain of sin, but to set us free from the power of sin where we could truly ‘go and sin no more’. (John 5:14) This seems to be a troublesome revelation and truth for so many Christians to embrace…that we could actually be set free and ….sin no more.
But back to this word and idea of being ‘righteous’ or ‘in right standing with God’. I am submitting that we have been duped by a ‘traveling salesman’ into thinking that we can be declared ‘righteous’ by using his ‘think method’ or ‘believe’ method.
It goes something like this:
“There is no good thing in me, but because of my ‘faith’ in Jesus Christ, I am declared to be righteous.’ (I hear whispers of ‘careful there Tony’, you are getting out on thin ice) :- )
Or “because nothing I can do can ‘make me righteous, God says He ‘imputes’ righteousness to me simply on the basis of what Christ did for me and it is a righteousness that comes through faith and not of works’.
Maybe you have heard this one: “It does not matter what I’ve done or do, when God looks down on me, He sees Jesus and His righteousness and because I believe in Jesus, I am righteous’. (This is where I want to whisper back - ‘be careful there, You are on thin ice with that)
So let’s examine this in scripture and I offer up verses, as usual, for you to study yourself and ask God for more insight.
Back in Deuteronomy 6, when Moses was teaching the importance of God’s law, he repeatedly drove home the importance of Obeying God and keeping His commandments. And he told the people that they were to observe/obey so that “Then it will be righteousness for us IF we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.” (25)
Now I know going back into the OT makes people nervous but hang with me here. We’re going to take a huge leap forward in to the NT gospels where Jesus was asked repeatedly what must folks do to inherit eternal life and He repeatedly pointed them to ‘the law’. “Do this, and you will live (have eternal life)” (Matt 19; Luke 10:28)
Then, we skip on over to 1 John 2:29 where he writes: “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who Practices Righteousness is born of Him”.
Again, he repeats: “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who Practices Righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. …In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does Not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.” ( 3:7,10)
“Practices” righteousness. It would sound as if there is more ‘involved’ here than the ‘think/believe’ method.
Jesus uttered this little warning in Matt. 5 where he stated: “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (20)
He was, in fact, suggesting there is ‘another righteousness’ that as Paul would correctly state…’a righteousness that comes by faith’. In Romans 3:21-22, he explains that this ‘righteousness’ does not come through the law, but this righteousness of God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe.”
Now folks, we got Trouble. Trouble I say with a capital ‘T’ and that rhymes with ‘D’ and that stands for ‘deception’. (If you are not familiar with The Music Man, just ignore this last sentence)
Simply stating or declaring that one ‘believes Jesus is the Son of God’, does Not make them ‘righteous’. James spends a bit of time on this subject. “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble!” (3:19)
I want to expound upon this further tomorrow (Lord willing)
The church has been intimidated to such a place where we cower in a corner to avoid being accused of heresy suggesting we can be ‘saved’ or ‘made righteous by works we do’, to the point that Satan has duped us to into believing that ’obedience to Jesus’ is a ‘work’.
Yet Hebrews 5:9 says that Christ “became the author of eternal salvation to all who OBEY Him.” (9) We are clearly told by Jesus Himself in Matt. 7:21: “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who DOES the will of My Father in heaven.”
Folks…God wants to remove some ‘golden calves’ and as long as I stick with His word, I feel pretty comfortable sharing here and will continue tomorrow with this subject. PLEASE…look up these verses in Your bible and ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart/eyes.
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