The Righteousness of God

Psalm 119 and the Theme of God’s Righteousness

Psalm 119. We continue in our exposition of this longest chapter of the Bible. We come now tonight to verse 137. And after tonight, we only have four more stanzas left, so we're kind of winding down on Psalm 119.

But I want to speak to you tonight on the righteousness of God. And I think this is a fitting message before we partake of the Lord's Supper. Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word, Psalm 119, beginning in verse 137.

Righteous are you, O Lord, and right are your rules. You've appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness. My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words. Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it.

I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true. Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight. Your testimonies are righteous forever.

Give me understanding that I may live. Father, would you help us tonight to understand the text, prepare our hearts as we prepare to take the Lord's Supper. We pray tonight that we would be encouraged, equipped.

We pray that we would understand that we have righteousness, no righteousness in and of ourselves, and we need the righteousness of Christ. And then I pray that we would understand that those who rest in Christ's righteousness have the law of God written on our hearts, and we desire to do what God, what you have called us to do, according to your Word.

Help us to understand that you are the standard, not our culture, not our tradition. It's you, as revealed in your Word. We pray that you would help me preach this rightly, give me freedom. We pray, O Spirit, that you would work.

I need grace. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. So, a little bit different tonight, instead of, sort of, usually kind of walk through the verses, really kind of more a thematic sermon, maybe, in the sense that the theme of the text is the righteousness of God, verse 137.

God Is Righteous and His Law Is Righteous

Righteous are you, O Lord. Righteous are you, Yahweh. That's the covenant name of God used there. God is righteous. And then, as an outflow of that, right are your rules. So, God is righteous and His rules are righteous.

And the standard of righteousness is not popularity. The standard of righteousness is God. It's an immutable standard. That means it's an unchanging standard. So, let's walk through this together. First, God is righteous.

The text says, righteous are you, O Lord. We see something else about God's righteousness there in verse 142. Your righteousness is righteous forever. The righteousness of God, John Gill notes that it is essentially, originally, and of Himself, naturally, immutably, and universally, in all His ways and works, of nature and grace, in His thoughts, purposes, counsels, and decrees, in all the dispensations of His providence, in redemption, in the justification of a sinner, in the pardon of sin, in the gift of eternal life through Christ.

That's Gill. God is righteous. And everything that He does is righteous. All of His plans are righteous. All of His rules are righteous. All of His decrees are righteous. All of His providence is righteous.

Everything that God does, thinks, is, is righteous. This permeates the Scriptures. I'll read a few verses. Deuteronomy 32, 4. The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just, and the word just in Deuteronomy 32, 4 is the same from our text, just and upright is He.

Isaiah 45, 21. Declare and present your case. Let them take counsel together. Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord, and there is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior?

There is none beside me. And then Zechariah 9, 9, a messianic prophecy. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous, and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I'm just trying to show you there that the righteousness of God spoken of in our text, righteous are you, O Lord, permeates the Scriptures. God is righteous. Now what do we mean by that, though? What do we mean, how would you describe God's righteousness?

A lot of times we confuse, we conflate the holiness of God and the righteousness of God. These are actually two distinct attributes, if you will. We look at two different ways of looking at God, though there is certainly an overlap.

But the holiness of God deals with God's separateness. God is distinct. God is unique. The righteousness of God deals with something a little bit different. And we can think through this word by taking part of the English word, right?

We can take the root. What is the root word of the word righteousness? You can tell me. You can speak back. It's not hard. It's the only other word there, right? So the root word of the word righteousness is what?

Huh? Yeah, right. We can boil it all the way down. Right. The root there, we have this idea of rightness, right? So we think about this with righteousness. God is right. How often? Always. God is always right.

And everything that God does is what? Is right. God always does the right thing. God is right. Always. Now, obviously the word means more than that, but just an illustration there. God is morally perfect.

God has an internal standard, if you will, if you want to think of it this way, of rightness that He always acts in accordance with. There's not a righteousness outside of God that He conforms to. Rather, the righteousness of God is the standard.

He Himself is the standard. This is what it means for God to be God. Psalm 89, 14. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. If you want to think of it that way, God sits on this wonderful throne.

And what is this throne made of? The throne is made of righteousness and justice. These are actually overlapping concepts, overlapping terms. One theologian defines it this way. God's righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is Himself the final standard of what is right.

So the text, righteous are you, O Lord. God is righteous. He doesn't conform to an outward standard of righteousness. He Himself is the final standard of righteousness. Now, what we see then is because God is righteous, His law is righteous.

So sometimes you have this idea in your mind, and this is where we can really get in trouble with our theology. We can separate. So we have God over here, and then we have God's law over here. And so when we break God's law, we think, yeah, but God will jump over His law and whatever, break His law to rescue us or whatever.

False. God's law is a reflection of Himself. The law of God is righteous because God is righteous. The law of God is the standard of God's righteousness. It is a reflection of who He is. You have appointed, verse 138, you have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness.

If you go down to verse 144, your testimonies are righteous forever. God is righteous. He is all-powerful. He has all authority. He is sovereign. And His laws and His testimonies and His statutes and His rules and His precepts and His decrees and everything that He has said and everything that He has given to us is absolutely righteous.

It is a reflection of His character. So all of His commands are the standard of righteousness. Now, I'm belaboring the point, I understand. But you need to understand or you need to be reminded tonight that we live in a world that is not like this.

We live in a world that is full of subjective morality. So someone says, I like to go to church. Someone else says, Well, that's good for you. But what's good for you may not be good for me. Someone else says, I am a heterosexual male.

And I think that it's right for me to marry a heterosexual female and that would be one man, one woman for life. I think this is good. Someone else may say, Well, that seems like a good standard for you.

But what's right for you may not necessarily be right for me. So we live in a world of subjective morality. You understand, I don't want to get carried away. When I say subjective, all I'm saying is this.

We live in a world that says, I get to decide what is right. I get to decide whether or not my actions are right. And you don't have a standard. There is no standard. My standard is my own autonomy. But from the Christian worldview, you can think of it this way, especially you guys, your teenagers, the thing about Trey and Braden and Caleb and Kermit in here tonight, especially think about this.

The Christian worldview is this. What is right is right. Period. And it's right because God has said that it is right. So what is right is always right. Again, verse 144. Remember that your testimonies are righteous forever.

So everything that God says is always right. And it is forever right. John Frame puts it this way. God's moral standard is simply himself, his person, his nature. The standard of our moral behavior is not an abstract concept, but an infinite person, God himself.

So God is the standard of righteousness, and God has revealed his righteous standard through his word. In other words, we would say, am I a moral person? Am I a morally good person? Well, how do you know that?

Well, how do you think through that? Someone says, I'm a morally good person by the standard of my own morality. Well, that's a terrible standard. The standard is the morality, the righteousness of God.

He's revealed this through his word. You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness. So, we summarize it this way in our confession, and this is just the scriptural teaching, but the moral law of God is summarized in the Ten Commandments.

This is a perpetual duty of all mankind. This is God's standard. I'm actually going to go on a little bit of a tangent. I was thinking through this as we were singing. A little bit of a tangent. The Ten Commandments reflect the moral standard of God.

The Ten Commandments show us the righteousness of God. They summarize the righteousness of God. Do you want to know why people don't want the Ten Commandments posted places? Right? Do you understand? I know that there are some well-meaning Christians who say, hey, well look, we live in a democracy.

We don't need to have the Ten Commandments or whatever. I'm all for the public display of the Ten Commandments. Right? Because they reflect the righteousness of God. I think they ought to be shown in our schools.

I think they ought to be shown at the courthouses. I think they ought to be posted in communities. Why? To remind people, okay, you can't live this way in order to get to heaven. But to remind, there is a moral standard.

And that moral standard is the righteousness of God. In fact, boy, I could probably get in trouble on this. And maybe if we can delete this from the Internet if we need to. But I would say rather quickly, I could walk through the Democratic Party breaking all Ten Commandments.

Like openly. Right? You have no other gods before me. Democratic Party says the government is your god. Wrong. False. They've broken the first commandment. Second commandment, you should not worship idols.

They've made human autonomy the idol. The standard is human autonomy. Boom. Broken it. Third, you should not take the Lord your God name in vain. They do that all the time. They use Jesus' name as though He ordains and conditions these sins that they do.

Okay, done. Broken. Fourth, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. They've broken that all the time, right? Who cares if you go to church? Who cares if you do this? Fifth, honor your father and your mother.

They've desecrated the legacy of Americans over the last, however long we've been a country, 250 years. Broken it. Dishonored those who've gone before them. Sixth commandment, thou shall not kill. They slaughter innocent children in the womb.

Seventh, thou shall not commit adultery. Did you know that one of the campaigns that's going around right now against the GOP is if you vote Donald Trump, he's going to take away pornography. So that is a campaign that's being used by the DNC to try to garner up young voters to say, hey, you guys don't want to lose pornography, do you?

Seventh commandment, broken. Thou shall not steal. We're taxed into oblivion. Ninth, thou shall not bear false witness. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. You can trust nothing you watch on television when it comes to the news.

And then the tenth commandment, thou shall not covet. I'm just going through these. These aren't in my notes. I'm just going through these in my brain. Thou shall not covet. Yeah, well, the hardworking American, his lifestyle or her lifestyle, these are coveted, and that commandment is broken.

The point I'm trying to make is, obviously, the GOP has its problems. We could walk through several of these things with the GOP as well. I'm just saying we live in a society that is inundated with the breaking of God's moral laws, and we live under leadership that wants to look at you and wants to say, this is what's good, this is what's not good.

They call evil good. They call good evil. And it's all a desecration of God's moral standard. And I would even argue this and be careful, like, this is not a political sermon. Nothing about the election is not what I'm talking about.

But the reality is that when it comes to the righteousness of our land, we are absolutely morally bankrupt. The standard of right and wrong. Like, there used to be a standard in our country, right? Like, at least the sins of our country, they were always there, but at least the sins of our country were kind of hidden and kind of in the dark.

And the point is that today, our citizens of America, we parade our sins in the streets as though there will be no judgment. I'm just trying to argue here that the righteousness of God summarily contained in the Ten Commandments is absolutely the standard that we must judge our nation by.

And how are we doing? How are we doing? We're failing. Not only are we failing, but I would argue that our nation is presently, not going to be, but is presently under the judgment of God. How could you say our nation is under the judgment of God?

Look at our leaders. Look at the people that fill the pulpits. Look at the ear-ticklers. Look at the false teachers. Look at the standard in our land. We're under the judgment of God. And this is a terrible predicament.

I'll talk about that more in just a minute, but we need to press on. So when we talk about the righteousness of God, how do we respond to the righteousness of God? Well, there are a couple of texts. In verse 139 it says, My zeal consumes me because my foes forget Your words.

My foes forget Your words. The Apostle Paul talks about in Romans 1 how the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all godliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

So here's one way that men respond to the righteousness of God. They see the moral standard of God. They understand that God is righteous. They understand that His ways are the only ways. And what they do is they know God, but instead of admitting God and admitting their need for Him and repenting of their sin, they suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness.

This is the natural state of mankind. And therefore, as a response, we always act unrighteous. And we can get confused at this point, or folks can judge their experiences and say, hey, I know these unbelievers over here, and I wouldn't say that they're always unrighteous.

I wouldn't say every act that they ever do is unrighteous. But this is because we lower the standard for what is righteous. So you look at your friends, you look at your children, you look at your grandparents, or you look at your cousins, you look at your neighbors, your countrymen, and you think, well, not everything they do is unrighteous.

But the Bible says whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. And you understand that even trying to do good apart from God while suppressing the truth is actually itself sin. It actually is itself unrighteous.

So I'm saying one way that people respond to the righteousness of God is to perpetuate their unrighteousness. There is no righteousness in natural man. Unrighteousness cannot produce the righteousness of God.

I'll use this. Suppose you had a beautiful batter of brownies. Man, I don't know who made the cinnamon twist. I think it was Miss Lisa this morning. Oh, those were really good. But suppose you had a beautiful batter of brownies.

And you decided in that beautiful batter of brownies you were going to put four cups of salt. Four cups of salt. And if you put four cups of salt, I'm not a baker, but I think if you put four cups of salt in a batter of brownies, you could not cut one square inch of that batter of brownies without tasting the salt.

It would be salty everywhere. And that's the reality of the human condition. We are corrupted with sin from head to foot by our very nature. There's not a square inch of us that's not tainted with unrighteousness.

And then here's the kicker. Because God is righteous, because God always does what is right, He must punish sin. A lot of people in their arrogance say, I wish God would just get rid of evil. Well, if God got rid of all evil before the return of Christ, guess what?

He'd get rid of all unbelievers. He'd get rid of your children. He'd get rid of your grandchildren or whatever. He'd get rid of all evil, because men in and of themselves, apart from Christ, are evil.

So God is going to judge sin. And He must punish sin, because He is just. But God's solution for maintaining His righteousness and His mercy is what we celebrate tonight in the Lord's Supper. It's the cross.

Through the cross, God shows us that He is righteous by punishing our sin, but also merciful and gracious by providing a way for us to come to Him through Christ, and that He is righteous and fulfilling all righteousness for us in Christ.

The Human Response: Unrighteousness or Faith

So let me just mention this. That's the second way people should respond to God's righteousness. The first way people respond to God's righteousness is by being unrighteous themselves. But the second way, look at verse 40.

Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. 141. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Verse 143, skip one there and look at that. Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight.

The only people who respond to God's righteousness in this way are those who have recognized their lack of righteousness in and of themselves, and have fled to Christ in faith. Now you read the Bible, and you will find there are several references throughout the Bible of people being referred to as righteous, right?

It doesn't mean that they're righteous like God. It doesn't mean they're perfect like God. It means they've put their faith in the righteousness of God. It means they've put their faith in God's promised Messiah.

Even in this psalm, think about what's being prayed for at the end of this stanza. Verse 144. Your testimonies are righteous forever. Give me understanding that I may live. This is the psalmist's prayer.

Give me understanding that I may live. You are righteous, God. You are righteous. Your rules are righteous. But I'm not righteous, so give me understanding. Give me faith. Help me understand. Help me see.

Help me trust your promised Messiah. Those who come to Christ then, those who rest in Jesus, we have what the Bible calls imputed righteousness, whereby God's standard of righteousness and the perfect life of Christ is imputed to our account.

It is laid upon our account. It is credited to our account. When we come to Christ, when we understand that God is righteous and we are not, and we don't suppress that righteousness of God, rather we turn, we confess our unrighteousness, we confess our sin, and we turn to God in Christ, God credits His people with the righteousness of His Son.

That's what we're talking about. Jesus has fulfilled, the Lord is righteous, and Jesus has fulfilled the Lord's perfect standard of righteousness. I would say we see Christ in these verses. Look at verse 141.

I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Can't you see Christ there? Was there anyone more despised than the Son of God? You think about this. The Son of God came to earth. The eternal God, Jesus, came to earth, and yet it was of no fanfare, no account in the eyes of the world.

In historical writings, it's barely mentioned. And yet here He is, small and despised, but He did not forget the precepts of God. Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true. Verse 143, Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight.

Jesus was the man of sorrows. Jesus was the one acquainted with grief. This is what the Scriptures say. Jesus is the one that took the nails in His hands and in His feet, the crown of thorns upon His head.

Trouble and anguish found Him, but the commandments of God maintained His delight. We have all fallen short of God's righteousness, but the argument I'm making right now is that Jesus has fulfilled all righteousness for us, and He has made the perfect payment for our unrighteousness in His shed blood for sinners.

You need the whole Gospel. Tonight, Providence Baptist Church, we need the whole Gospel. We don't just need His death on the cross for our sins. We need His righteous life. We need His substitutionary life as much as we need His substitutionary death.

We need it all. We need Him to complete the law, to fulfill the standard, and then to die for sinners like you and like me. His life, His death, His burial, His resurrection. We need it all. The righteousness of Jesus imputed to our count by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone is our only hope to stand one day in the presence of God in His favor.

It's your only hope. Your only hope is Christ. It's not Christ and. It's not Jesus and. It's Christ. All our hope is in the finished work of Christ. Now let me say this too. We'll conclude in just a minute, not long.

But what does the life of those who rest in Jesus' perfect righteousness look like? Well, I think about verse 140. Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. Did you know that if you're resting tonight in the righteousness of God in the face of Jesus Christ, if you're resting tonight in the righteousness of Christ imputed to your count, if you're resting in what Jesus has done for you, then the Bible says that the law of God is now written in your heart.

And you love it. When you see the Ten Commandments, you don't think of this great burden. You think of delight. Because you're not under these Ten Commandments now as a covenant of works. You're not under these commandments as a means to get to God.

Rather, you see that in the Ten Commandments, Jesus has fulfilled those for us, and now you see, I want to live this way. Why? Because God has changed my heart. The law of God is written on our hearts.

God hasn't lowered His standard for us. Rather, He's fulfilled that standard in Jesus, and now those who rest in Jesus seek to follow God's righteous way. This is why the Ten Commandments are still important to us.

They reveal God's perfect moral law. We fall short every day, but we rest in Jesus, and we seek to follow Him by trusting His atoning work and walking in His ways. Let me read to you from our confession.

Chapter 19. True believers are not under the law as a covenant of works to be justified or condemned by it. Yet, it is very useful to them and to others as a rule of life that informs them of the will of God and their duty.

It directs and obligates them to live according to its precepts. It also exposes the sinful corruptions of their natures, hearts, and lives as they examine themselves in light of the law, they come to further conviction of humiliation for and hatred of sin, along with a clearer view of their need for Christ and the perfection of His obedience.

In other words, as we think about the commandments of God, as we think about our text here, righteous are you, O Lord, and right are your rules. For the believer, that brings delight to our heart because Christ has fulfilled this righteousness for us, and then we desire now to live out what God has worked in our hearts.

We desire to conform our lives to His moral standard. Guys, there is a moral standard out there. Also for Christians, there's still a moral standard. God hasn't changed. Remember verse 144. Your testimonies are righteous forever.

How long is thou shalt have no other gods before me righteous? Forever. How long is thou shalt not worship idols righteous? Forever. How long is thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain righteous? Forever.

How long is remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy righteous? Forever. How long is honor thy father and thy mother righteous? Forever. How long is thou shalt not kill righteous? Forever. How long is thou shalt not commit adultery righteous?

Forever. How long is thou shalt not steal righteous? Forever. How long is thou shalt not bear false witness righteous? Forever. And how long is, thou shalt not covet righteous? Forever. And this is how we want to live.

And we should not accept, and let me just speak to us in the state of our country, we should not accept, we should not accept the moral downgrade of our country. We should not just say, well, that's just how people are.

Well, that's just how politicians are. Well, that's just how, you know, hey, kids are going to be kids. I just was showing a video today of some kids in our community counting their beer cans. And I know some people would look at that and they'd be like, well, you know, kids are just going to be kids.

No, friends, we must not accept the moral downgrade of our society. You understand that little by little by little by little by little, this has happened. And now we wake up and it's 2024 and there's no, there's no righteousness in our land.

There's no standard. So we don't accept this. But the answer is not to legislate it, so to speak, though that we should legislate this, some of this for sure. The answer is we need the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The answer is we need the proclamation of the righteousness of God, fulfilled in Christ, his death for sinners, his resurrection. We put all our hope in what God has done through Christ. I'll wind it down this way.

One day God will judge the nations according to his standard of righteousness. None is going to come close to passing that standard because all have transgressed his perfect law. But for those who have sought refuge in the blameless life of Jesus, in his substitutionary death, in his victorious resurrection, they will enter into the joy of heaven, clothed in the white robes of the righteousness of Jesus.

Friends, do you rejoice in God's righteousness tonight? Let me say this too, because I do. It's still on my back of my mind going through the Democrats, breaking all 10 commandments. We have to understand that we need, not only, obviously we need to hold them to a standard.

We need to hold the GOP to a standard too. You need to let those that we're voting for, you need to let those that you know that are running for this or that position, you need to let them to know that what we expect is God's standard.

We don't want anything less than that. We don't want the murder of children. We don't want adultery to be okay in our land. We don't want pornography. Pornography is simply, you may think I'm radical.

I don't think this is radical at all. Pornography ought to be banned in all its forms. It ought to be against the law. It's wicked. We should have a standard in this country, and the standard is the righteousness of God.

I'm just encouraging us tonight as Christians that we should hold that standard. So do you rejoice in God's righteousness tonight? Have you forsaken your own standards of righteousness? Some of you need to listen to this.

You think that you're okay with God because you have met your own standard, right? So, well, yeah, I'm okay with God because I've met my own standard. It's not your standard that you have to meet. It's God's standard, and the only way that you can meet God's standard is realizing that you can't meet it and that Jesus has met that for you and that you must run to him.

Have you embraced Jesus as your all-sufficient and only suitable Savior and would you note tonight that this supper reminds us that all our hope is in Christ, his broken body, his shed blood, his righteous life, his victorious resurrection, the fact that he reigns now.

It is all, all our hope. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for tonight, and we pray that as we prepare to take the supper that you would be with us, that Christ would be exalted. We pray that we'd rest in his righteousness for us.

We pray it all in Jesus' name.