Sunday Morning, November 3, 2019 AM

The Lord Is Our Righteousness in Jeremiah 33

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I thank you for those you've gathered here today. Thank you for having us set aside this time to give you praise. Thank you for setting aside us to be your praise givers.

Lord, it is true that there's nothing we bring, nothing we've done, for which we can praise you in our salvation and in your goodness. Father, it's all because of your grace. It's all for your glory. I pray that you would remind us of that today as we gather around Christ's table to commune with you by your Son and through your Spirit.

I pray that you would be pleased in our fellowship, that we would truly be one in Christ. I ask now that you would give us, by your Holy Spirit, understanding of your Word, that you would do your work in us through your Word, that you would give us a clear view of your Son in your Word, that we would look like him in this world.

Father, we ask for all these mercies, looking only to Christ alone, the one with whom you are well pleased. Amen. Invite you to open your Bibles to Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 33. Jeremiah 33. And I'll be reading for us in a moment verses 14 through 26.

Jeremiah 33 verses 14 through 26. The title of the sermon comes from the passage itself. The Lord is our righteousness. The Lord is our righteousness. This particular word was given to Jeremiah in a time where he most needed to hear some good news.

Israel, for generation after generation, has been a wicked nation. Judah has been a wicked nation. They endured five decades of great wickedness by King Manasseh, and it was said that he filled Jerusalem from one end to the other with innocent blood.

His son was not much better. But then came Josiah. Josiah was a good king, a man after God's own heart. And he did things that no other king before him did in turning the nation back to the Lord. He wanted to be a faithful king living in accordance with the Word of God.

But God said, even though Josiah is a faithful king and has done all of this, he said, still yet, I will not turn away my wrath and my judgment for all that Manasseh has done. The judgment will not fall during Josiah's reign, but in the days after Josiah.

And it is now coming to pass. The kings after Josiah were also wicked. Jehoiakim was wicked. Jehoiakin was wicked. And Zedekiah is wicked. At this point in time, Jeremiah is under arrest. He is in the royal guard, the house of the royal guard.

He is surrounded by soldiers. He has been falsely accused of colluding with the Babylonians, of being a traitor. Of course, he wasn't a traitor. He was simply preaching the Word of God. And the Word of God, the one pleasant to hear was this.

The Babylonians are coming. The Babylonians will conquer your city. The Babylonians will destroy you. You will not escape the Babylonians. And that's what God said. That was God's Word. And Jeremiah was God's prophet.

And so he was saying it, had been saying it for quite some time. And the people finally grew tired of hearing it and arrested him so that his voice would no longer be heard. God has affirmed to Jeremiah the need to walk by faith and not by sight.

So Jeremiah has bought a piece of property from his cousin. Even though he will never look at it and he'll never be able to use it. He bought it in faith. Because God promised that the people of Judah would return again to this land.

And land would be again bought and sold in this land. And so he's walking by faith and not by sight. But he's troubled in his soul. And he's been praying to God. He's been pouring out his struggles to God.

And God has responded essentially by saying, you think you're angry. You think you're angry. And has responded by listing the many evils that has been going on in Jerusalem and in Judea. But God has compassion.

God has made promises of a restoration. That he will show mercy. That things will turn around. That there will be good. There is a future for this people. And he has given us this formula. When the foundations are destroyed, we are to take refuge in the Lord.

And he has this promise. Call to me and I will answer. And that's where we have left the story. And God has not stopped speaking to Jeremiah. He has even more specific promises. Good promises. Good news for Jeremiah.

And that's where we pick it up in Jeremiah chapter 33 beginning in verse 14. If you're able, I'd like to invite you to stand in honor of the reading of God's word. For herein the Spirit of Christ is speaking through his prophet Jeremiah.

Here are the words of our King and Savior Jesus Christ. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

In those days, and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch of David to spring forth. And he shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety.

And this is the name by which she will be called. The Lord is our righteousness. For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. And the Levitical priests shall never lack a man before me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and prepare sacrifices continually.

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, Thus says the Lord, if you can break my covenant for the day and my covenant for the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, then my covenant may also be broken with David my servant, so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne and with the Levitical priests, my ministers, as the host of heaven cannot be counted and the sand of the sea cannot be measured.

So I will multiply the descendants of David, my servant, and the Levites who minister to me. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, Have you not observed what this people have spoken saying, The two families which the Lord chose, he has rejected them.

Thus they despise my people. No longer are they as a nation in their sight. Thus says the Lord, if my covenant for day and night stand not, and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have not established, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David, my servant, not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, I fully expect to be sitting around very crowded tables in the near future. And wherever we're gathering, whether my family is gathering down with Uncle Ronnie at Sherry's house down near Ada, or we're gathering here at Sunnyside for our church family Thanksgiving meal, or we're meeting over at my house for Christmas.

We're all going to be sitting around a very full table. And sometimes we're counting chairs and wondering if there's going to be enough room. Are they coming? When are they coming? How many chairs do we have?

Do we have enough seats at the table? And especially when we're nervous that there's not enough seats for all of us to sit together, we sometimes try to save our seats. And we'll see this here for the early birds that show up to the Thanksgiving meal.

And this is just for those of you who haven't been there yet. So this is some insider information if you want to know how to do it well. If you show up a little bit early and start at the fellowship hall, leave your stuff where you want to sit and then come get in line.

That's the old pros do that. Leave their coats and their hats and their mittens and those kinds of things because we want to save our seats. And if we don't get to save our seats, we're always glad when somebody makes room for us and adds a chair to make sure that we can all sit together.

We all want to seat at a table. And we have a table before us this morning. We have a table before us this morning. It is set with a meal that satisfies, nourishes, celebrates, reminds, and declares. This meal, far more than any Thanksgiving meal or Christmas banquet, is the distinctively Christian meal.

By it, we declare our faith in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. By it, we remind ourselves of our Savior's bloody sacrifice and how he was broken under God's wrath. By it, we celebrate our forgiveness of sin and our deliverance from judgment.

By it, we are nourished in our communion together with Christ. This heavenly provision strengthens our faith. By it, we are satisfied in Christ. He is all that we need. He is the Lamb of God for the people of God, the bread from heaven, offering living water.

He is the honey from the rock. But no one may save their seat at this table. Nobody can save their seat at this table. You can't just leave your coat and claim your spot. There's no fundraiser ticket to buy, no pass to procure.

There is no cover charge. All the costs have been paid. There's only one way to receive a place at this table, and it's if Christ saves you a seat. No one can take it away. Christ saves seats at his table from his throne.

Christ saves seats at his table from his throne. And by that, we're not really saying anything different from the Lord is our righteousness. It's not very different saying that Christ saves us our seats at his table from his throne.

It's not that much different saying that to saying that the Lord is our righteousness. So how are we right with God? How are we accepted by God? Everything depends on Christ. By his merits, by his position in our union with him, we are righteous.

We are acceptable to God. We meet his standard. This means, first of all, that our righteousness is personal. And secondly, it means that our righteousness is permanent. First of all, in the passage in Jeremiah 33 verses 14 through 26, we see that our righteousness is personal.

It is well worth observing from these verses that our righteousness is not reduced to some kind of legalism. It's not some form of legalism here in this text by which God's people are righteous. Legalism as ever is rampant in our day.

If you were to do a study of all the religions in the world, they would all have this in common. They are all some form of how we, by our merits, make our way to God, nirvana, paradise, whatever. It's all about what we have to do.

The standards that we must meet by our efforts, by our character, by our merit. And this is the common denominator of all the world religions, which once was a one-world religion at Babel, as all the humanity together worked their way back to God, building the tower.

And God fractured humanity there. And so now we have many different world religions, and they're all saying, here's how you work your way back to God. Here's how you put your stones on the tower of Babel to help you get back to where you're supposed to be.

The exception amongst all of these belief systems is Christianity, wherein it is not about how you make your way to God, how you work your way up to God to meet his approval, but how God and what God has done in his work to come to us, to save us.

Legalism is rampant in our day. Secular paganism is the religion of our nation, and it's a very legalistic religion. The list of do's and don'ts grow rapidly. It seems every year we have a new list of do's and don'ts that is handed to us by the priests and the priestesses of the pagan secularism.

We are given pronouns and euphemisms that we are to use when talking about the basket of self-identifying dysphoric cases. We can't use certain pronouns of certain people. Otherwise, we're accused of hate speech.

We have failed to bring the utopia that has been promised. Also, there's a list of items that you must not buy. Foods you must not eat. Activities you must not engage in. All in order to save the planet from its man-made apocalypse.

On the list are things like plastic, beef, and procreating. All big no-no's in our day. There's a list of classifications which show on a scale who are the inherently more unrighteous and who are the more inherently righteous.

The more white and male and straight you are, the more wicked you are, and the more verbal and behavioral penance you must do for your unwitting participation in oppressing the colored effeminate queer proletariat.

We have many lists and they are never the same from season to season. They change with the fashions of the times. We never have an even one generation, a consistent list of do's and don'ts from any governing religious organization.

But the righteousness in this text, the righteousness which we celebrate at this meal, is not, this righteousness is not a list to keep up. It is a Lord who keeps us. It is a personal righteousness. Look at the person, verses 14 and 15.

Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch of David to spring forth and he shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth.

The righteous branch of David. Who is that? He is the promised good shepherd of Jeremiah 23. He is the promised Davidic king of Jeremiah 30. He is the branch whom Joshua and the priesthood of the second temple were called a sign in Zechariah.

He is the branch from the root of Jesse springing forth in that Christmas passage, Isaiah 11. He is the branch, the Natar, the Natzar, the promised branch man, the Nazarene, who grew up in branch town, Nazareth, Matthew 2, 23.

This one, he is our righteousness personally. And he says that he is the son of David, verses 16 and 17. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety. And this is the name by which she will be called.

The Lord is our righteousness for that says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. So he is the son of David, this branch, the righteous branch. This king is the promised son of David who will reign over God's people in God's place.

He is the one who personally executes righteousness and justice, not only in the land, but throughout all the earth. He is the ruler of the kings of the earth, and he personally fulfills all righteousness.

We've already received the promise in Jeremiah 31, 22 of God's only begotten son of a virgin bringing about the new covenant. Here is the person who fulfills all of God's promises in God's righteous reign.

Our righteousness is in Christ, thus our righteousness is personal. He is our righteousness. In other words, why am I acceptable before God? Because of a person and his name and title is Jesus Christ.

We are also righteous in this personal way through promise. It is God who personally promises to bring it to pass. I will bring it about, he says. I will fill the good word. I will cause the righteous branch to spring forth.

It is God keeping his promises in a personal way as to why we may be righteous. It's personal because it's God's personal promise. God's people were not right. The kings and leaders and priests and prophets and the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem were not righteous, and there was nothing any of them could do or even wanted to do to get things right with God.

It would be God, and it would be God alone through his promised new covenant that would make his people right. And how would he do that? Through this person, his promised person, the righteous branch of David who fulfills God's promise.

What was the promise given? That David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel. That was the promise. David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. And who fulfills that promise?

It says in the text, the righteous branch does. And we know who that is. We know who that is. That is Jesus Christ. Now, the promise that God gave to David that he would never lack a man to reign on his throne in 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Kings 2, 1 Kings 8, 1 Chronicles 17, Psalm 89.

Throughout the scriptures, that promise is conditional. The promise is conditional. 1 Kings and Psalm 89 clarify that as long as David's sons paid close attention to their ways, to walk before God in faithfulness with all of their heart and with all of their soul, then David would never lack a man on the of Israel.

It was warned that should they forsake God's law and not walk according to God's rules, if they violated his statutes and would not keep his commandments, then God would punish them. In what way did God punish them?

It was happening in Jeremiah's day. That's what was happening. The Babylonians are surrounding Jerusalem. Israel is gone. The land of Judah has been laid waste. The only portion left is Jerusalem itself.

And she's surrounded by Babylonian armies. Within there's disease and famine. People are dying everywhere. The Babylonians are about to come over the wall. Who's the king on the throne? Zedekiah. But he's the uncle of the real king, Jeconiah, who's in chains in Babylon.

This is the judgment God promised. It is upon them. The city is about to fall. The king is about to be executed. What of the promise? What of the promise? Jeremiah must be wondering. What about the promise?

You've said, oh God, you've said this city will fall. You've said Zedekiah will die by the hand of the Babylonians. You've said that David would never lack a man on his throne. But he also said if they broke his rules and abandoned him, he would punish them.

And this was coming to pass. So how is it that God will keep his promise? How is it that he will keep his promise that David will never lack a man to reign on that throne? He says it here. The branch.

The branch. The branch who would indeed pay close attention to all his ways. The reigning righteous branch who would indeed walk before God in perfect faithfulness with all of his heart and all of his soul.

This branch would be a righteous king so that he would never lose the throne. And to him is given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away. And his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. King of kings, ruler of the kings of the earth forever. And the promise. So the promise to David about his seed who would reign forever is kept in Jesus Christ who is the righteous king.

We also have a personal righteousness because of Christ as the person who is righteous. Because of the promise that God personally gave. But also because of our position. The promised righteousness in Messiah.

The promised righteousness in Christ. This promised acceptance with God is also personal because of the position that God's people have in the righteous king. The position they have in Christ. Notice the stress, the emphasis in the text on position.

Notice the position. They, by sending forth, by sending forth his son Jesus Christ the righteous branch of David through his person and work he would make God's people to dwell in God's place and they would be known by his name.

The Lord in, the Lord is our righteousness. So verse 14 he says I will keep the promise. Verse 15 he says I will send forth the righteous branch of David. Verse 16 he says in those days Judah will be saved.

Jerusalem will dwell in safety. And this is the name by which she will be called the Lord is our righteousness. And the people are gathered together into this place over which Christ reigns so that being gathered under his rule they are known by his name.

Those gathered under his rule are known by his name and his name is the Lord is our righteousness. We are known by that name. We have a seat at the table because of his throne. Christ is our Melchizedek in Jerusalem.

He is our king of righteousness in the city of peace. So it's precisely because, as we see in verse 18, it's precisely because of their position in the reigning righteous one that these Levites in verse 18 never lack a man before God.

That's a position. That's a place before the presence of God. In his presence there will never be a lack of Levitical priests, he says, to offer burnt offerings, grain offerings, and to prepare sacrifices continually.

Notice the connection between the promise God made to David and the promise he makes about the Levitical priests. They are tied together. As long as David never lacks a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, so there will never be a lack of Levites to offer their sacrifices of praise.

So they are tied together. Not a breath about Levites is given in the previous promises about David having an heir on the throne. Not once do we hear or get a little parenthesis about, oh, and the Levites will be there too.

This is the first time we hear about it. And that so often is the case. God is always free in the expansiveness of his promises. His promises always end up larger than when first spoken. Always. They are true.

His promises are true. His promises come true. And they come far more true than we ever thought possible. Here in particular, it is because of the righteous reigning position of the son of David that the Levites have their position before God offering him praise.

It's their position with David that makes them acceptable before God. In other words, it's the position of those who are in Christ that make us acceptable before God, positionally. Positional righteousness is not, as is fashionable to claim from time to time, depending on which way the wind is blowing, positional righteousness is not an exclusive theme to the apostle Paul, per se.

It is not what people love to drop into their conversations, an overly Western idea. It actually thrums through the whole of scripture from the moment that God casts out of place Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden and then covers them with the skins of first sacrifice.

This is at the heart of the gospel. Consider a parallel text to Jeremiah 33, a global gospel call in Isaiah 45, 22 through 24. Listen to this. Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.

I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will of God. I will not turn back. That to me, every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. Do you see the throne?

Now listen, they will say of me, only in the Lord are righteousness and strength. Men will come to him and all who are angry at him will be put to shame. Only in the Lord is righteousness. You must come to Christ who is king, name above all names, and in Christ, as he reigns from his throne, you will find your place at his table, righteous before God.

These two hang together. Is that your personal position in Christ? Is Jesus Christ the reigning king whom you confess? That your allegiance is to Christ. You know where he is. He's on the throne. He's at the right hand and that you're with him and that you're fully accepted to God because of your position in Christ.

There is no seat for you at this table unless you are submitted to Christ as your Lord. That's Paul's testimony. Is it yours? Philippians 3, 8 and 9. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing, listen, Christ Jesus, my Lord, my sovereign, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and so that I may gain Christ.

Now listen, and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that righteousness, which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness, which comes from God on the basis of faith, a righteousness, the very righteousness of Christ.

The Lord is our righteousness. I'm not my righteousness. My resume is not my righteousness. My list of good works is not my righteousness. My good personality is not my righteousness. My family's thoughts about me after I die is not my righteousness.

My righteousness is in Christ and that's all the praise goes to God. It's a final consideration how this righteousness is personal. I want us to think on how it manifests itself in our lives personally.

If indeed we are in Christ through faith, we are members of the new covenant. The old has passed away. All things have become new for the new creations in the new covenant. Now, one of the books of the Bible that helps us understand that the most is the book of Hebrews, which is called a brief exhortation at the end, about 50 minutes long.

We will not be that long today, but there we learn that Christ is indeed enthroned in Jerusalem over the people of God, who are gathered to him and they are known by his name. The Lord is our righteousness.

We learn that the old system of the Levites having to offer burnt offerings and sacrifices year by year, that that old system is obsolete. And when the writer of Hebrews was writing, said it was ready to pass away.

Of course, when the temple was destroyed and the sacrifices went away, it has passed away. The covenant has passed away. So what then does this promise in Jeremiah 33, 18 of Levitical priests, never lacking a man before God to offer burnt offerings, great offerings, and to prepare sacrifices continually.

What does this promise have to do? How is this promise then fulfilled? You ask really good questions. It's an excellent question. It's meaning agrees with every other such promise in the old Testament for as many as are the promises of God in Christ, they are yes.

Second Corinthians 1 .20. Even as we keep the Passover feast in our communion with Christ, even as we have a circumcision, which is in Christ, even as our Sabbath keeping is in Christ, even as our gathering into Jerusalem is in Christ.

So also our holy standing before God and offering up of sacrifices to his praise is in Christ. Hebrews 13, 14 through 16. Listen, for here we do not have a lasting city. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come through him, through Christ.

Then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips to give thanks to his name and do not neglect doing good and sharing for with such sacrifices God is pleased. It's through Christ that what we offer to God is pleasing to God.

It's through Christ that we may stand before God to be in his presence, to be accepted to him, and to offer up sacrifices to him. Our righteousness is personal. And by the way, I checked, nobody has taken the name for a band David and the Levites, but I think it's excellent.

So if you're hunting for a band name, David and the Levites is available. But the point is we're in the band. Christ saves us seats at his table from his throne. The son of David will never lack Levites before him to give praise to God.

And what do they sing about? What is our praise? Salvation belongs to God and to the lamb who was on the throne. By his doing, we are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.

And that's what we do at our communion on this day. Do you want to know how our righteousness is permanent? Come back next week. Come back next week. Our righteousness is personal because Christ is on his throne.

From his throne, he saves us seats at his table. Let's worship him together at this meal. Father, I pray for those who are here, and I thank you that you have gathered us to hear this word, that Jesus Christ, the holy righteous branch from David, that he personally reigns over us, and that in his reign we are known by his name, and that we may together confess that the Lord is our righteousness.

Focus our attention upon your most worthy son here this morning. We pray these things for his sake. Amen.