For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
Summary: There are four types of righteousness and two of them will get you to heaven. The only problem is that the third type is impossible to achieve and the fourth requires that somebody else achieve it and offers you a free pass. Fortunately for us, Jesus does both.
Pastor Rich gave a great sermon Sunday [Click here to see the video]. It was about the Three Chairs of Righteousness. The first chair is for the Unrighteous. Those who know that they are sinners and are very aware of their unworthiness. The second chair is for the Self Righteous. These are the people who don’t see their own sin and feel like they are better than others. The third chair is for the Truly Righteous.
Now you might be thinking that the first two chairs would get the most use, and you’d be right. Until Jesus died on the cross, all humanity was confined to a choice of Chair No. 1 or Chair No. 2. It wasn’t until God allowed Himself to be born a man that anyone was deserving of sitting in Chair No. 3, the chair for the Truly Righteous.
Righteousness comes in several flavors. Unrighteousness, the first flavor, covers a wide variety of behaviors. It can range from doing horrible things to other people to simply feeling bad about who you are.
Another flavor might be called “Technically Righteous.” The idea behind this kind of righteousness is that the rule is manmade. If a person allows all of these rules then they are considered “righteous” in a technical sense. The thing that makes this kind of righteousness work is that you have to be in charge of your own rules. If you are, then you can always adjust the meaning of the rules to fit your behavior. Like vanilla ice cream with different treats added, this kind of righteousness works for legal situations, administrative rules, educational institutions, etc.
The third kind, the “Truly Righteous,” abides by a set of principles more than rules. To make things more difficult, the principles are owned by God. Unlike the Technically Righteous, where the rules are managed by people, the standards for being Truly Righteous are something we can strive for but never fully achieve.
When Adam and Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit (Genesis 3) two things happened. The first was that they died spiritually, meaning that they had turned away from God. The second was that the “eyes” of their heart and mind were changed. Before, they were unaware of evil. Afterward, they could see evil was all around them, and they could not shut it out. Only God Himself, in the form of Jesus Christ, could be Truly Righteous in a broken world.
It was the arrival of Jesus on earth and his eventual crucifixion on the cross that led to the fourth kind of righteousness. The Bible refers to this as “imputed” righteousness (Romans 4:22 KJV) or “credited” (NIV). It is like being the nephew of Walt Disney when he was alive. Walt owned the whole theme park and if his nephew or niece was tagging along for the day, they got in for free. So for our purposes let’s call this kind “Free Righteousness.” It is not earned and it is not deserved in any way. We get it because Jesus paid the price to buy every soul that ever lived. He adopts us into His family if we choose to accept his gift.
Sitting in Chair No. 3 for the Truly Righteous is the only way to be with God. The only one worthy to sit there is Jesus, but Jesus offers us Free Righteousness and lets us sit with him in the Truly Righteous chair.
Application: If you have accepted Jesus’ offer of Free Righteousness, don’t get out of the chair! Stay close to Jesus.
Food for Thought: How do we make sure that we stay close to Jesus once we have accepted his gift of Free Righteousness?
Take up the cross daily.
I have to keep my eyes on him so I can follow him. He knows where I am going better than I do. If I am driving, following someone in another car to go somewhere. They know the way and I don’t, I better stay close and watch their every turn, or I will get lost. I need to do the same with Jesus. I can do that by daily Bible study, constant prayer, and fellowship with believers.
Laura,
Thank you for sharing this morning. Your example of following someone in another car is excellent. Stay close using the Bible, prayer, and fellowship! Well said. 🙂
It’s ironic that this is today’s topic. I have been struggling lately in many ways, especially through COVID. Prior to COVID, I was heavily involved in fellowship, at church two to three times a week. In the Word. Reaching out to others. The past couple of months, it has been more and more difficult. My time has become limited with working full-time, managing as a single parent, while caring for my aging parents. As someone who was strongly convicted to wait on Him for all things and who finally learned to find my worth in Him, I now find myself feeling very distant from Him. I see things working out for non-believers and I feel like I want life to work out for me, for just once. I know in my heart though, life has worked out for me and that the proof is there, when I follow Him closely, life has been better. Loneliness is a powerful pull to go back to earthly ways.
It’s like Laura pointed out though, when you’re following someone in a car and you don’t know where you’re going, you have to stay close to them so you don’t get lost. It is easy to get lost in the worldly ways when we lose sight of Jesus. Thankfully, He allows u-turns.
Darla,
I like the part about U-turns! That is so true. I also understand the part about feeling distant. That is really at the heart of today’s question. My thinking today is that it is our hunger to be close to Jesus that drives us. I also think that as we grow in our faith, things change. What was good enough a year ago may not satisfy us today. So maybe when we feel distant, as you point out, it really means we are growing in our faith.
Here lately,..that’s all I have been doing is sitting in a chair,..but I have also been abiding in Jesus while in this chair drawing closer with every word I read, every breath I take, move I make and prayer that is said,..
So that’s my answer,..abiding in Jesus,..that makes me a light for other’s to see so that they will come to praise our Lord and Savior,..even while I am sitting in this chair,..
John,
Your words are encouraging to me. I spend a lot of time in a chair, too. It is nice to realize that we can move closer to our Lord even when we are stuck in a chair!
Thank you for the devotion and all the comments.
I think staying close to Jesus is also like any other relationship. If I want to stay close to my wife but only talk about her and never listen to her or spend any time with her, I will not be growing closer to her.
If I want to be close to Jesus, I will need to spend time with Him in prayer, through reading His love letter to me, through serving Him out of love, etc.
Great example, Rich!
Thank you! I hadn’t thought of Scripture as a “love letter” but you are right, that is exactly what it is. 🙂
Rich – I love what you wrote. Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church. That’s the first thing I thought of.
How do we make sure that we stay close to Jesus once we have accepted his gift of Free Righteousness?
Jesus reached down into a cesspool and pulled me out.There were no Christians in my family, they were actually all against Christ. I joined BSF, was baptized and a member of a local church, but was left to find the boundaries without any human guidance.
I visited the Trappist Abbey Lafayette Oregon with another Christian occasionally. The monks there had taken a vow of silence. They spent their lives isolated from the world, did not talk with one another. They did their work, read their bible and devote their time serving God through prayer and meditation. They did allow one monk to serve and speak with visitors. He was assigned for 1 year, to greet visitors, fix all your meals and keep their sleeping quarters clean. It was a quiet, peaceful environment and in some ways attractive, but this was violating the command of Jesus to be IN THE WORLD but not of the world. So that was no good.
Somehow ended up with a lady friend who was not a Christian, but I knew I could lead her to Jesus which was my priority. We would on occasion attend parties with her friends, I felt this would be a great place to minister. Jesus ate with sinners, Paul wrote about our freedom in Jesus, so I was good. They would be drinking, smoking a little dope and to show them how Christians were not judgmental prudes, I would join them. Well this put me in the world but Jesus reminded me He also said BUT NOT OF THE WORLD. So that was no good.
We have Gods word, and the Holy Spirit to light up the right path we must walk to live in Gods will. God says “come as you are” which I did, and “He will clean us up”, which He has. But It has taken time, 43 years now. I don’t have the extreme swings anymore, but I am a long ways from perfect. Don’t just read but study, meditate on, and apply Gods word to our lives. Stay in a Bible based Church, have fellowship with believers, wear the full armor of God and listen to the Holy Spirit. And most importantly, minister to the world knowing our work is HOLY.
1 Peter 1:16, because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
Leviticus 19:2, Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
Ron,
Thank you for sharing more of your personal journey. You really are quite amazing!
Your summation hits on some important points; read, study and mediate on God’s Word. Apply it in life. Connect with a Bible church, be in fellowship, wear the armor of God (Ephesians 6), and listen to God’s Holy Spirit. Nice synopsis!
And be holy.
Lots to think about there. Thank you!
Jeff,
The Lord has been so patient, so loving and not only reached out to a guy like me, but has done all the work in me as I bounced off walls trying to be a servant in my own strength. I was so busy trying to do His work when all He asked was to get to know Him, get to trust Him in all things and HE would make me righteous. I guess I just finally wore out.
Love you Brother,
Ron
Ron,
It is funny you mention that. Lately I have been feeling like a sheep that has to be driven to water and pasture. The only good things I seem to be doing are those the Lord puts right in front of my nose. I can’t take credit for any of them. It does feel good, though, to realize that God has it all under control! 🙂
👍🏻