Jehovah Tsidkenu - THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Let's open to the book of Jeremiah chapter 23. Jeremiah chapter 23 and the title of this morning's message is

Jehovah Sidkenu. Jehovah Sidkenu which translated is the

Lord our righteousness. I think when people hear the word righteousness today they usually associate it with what?

It's been my experience that when the word righteousness comes up people sometimes associate that with self -righteousness and of course it's true there are self -righteous people out there you know they always feel justified and everything that they do in a religious context a self -righteous person these are the people who think they're going to heaven based on themselves in their own goodness in fact you'll hear people say things like well of course

I'm going to heaven because I the self am a good person you know that's self -righteousness but for the person who understands the gospel the only righteousness we have the only righteousness

I have is what the righteousness of Christ which is by faith so we're talking about this morning the

Lord our righteousness we're gonna look at several things the righteousness of God in salvation the righteousness of God and how people are to live their lives and what that looks like but first let's deal with this passage here that this is where you get that name of God God has many different names

Jehovah Sidkenu translated the Lord our righteousness but it also talks about the shepherds of Israel how they were leading people into unrighteousness

Jeremiah 23 verses 1 through 6 the prophet writes woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture says the

Lord therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people you have scattered my flock driven them away and not attended to them behold

I will attend to you for the evil of your doings says the

Lord but I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their folds and they shall be fruitful and increase and I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them and they shall and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed nor shall they be lacking says the

Lord behold the days are coming says the Lord that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness a king shall reign and prosper and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth in his days

Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell safely now this is the name by which he will be called

Jehovah Sidkenu and this is translated the Lord our righteousness let's pray father help us to understand your righteousness this morning

Lord this is at the heart of the gospel that we have no righteousness of our own that one day the nation of Israel and certainly your people today who have believed the gospel the only righteousness we have that true righteousness is the righteousness of Christ which is by faith

Lord if there's someone here who has never understood the inner workings of the gospel and how the righteousness of God is applied to the human heart

I pray that you would illuminate your word this morning and give them understanding and I ask this in Jesus name amen ok so again this is the name there's a lot of different names of God like Jehovah Jireh that's probably one of the most well -known and this was always one that I couldn't pronounce so actually it starts with a

T but the T is silent so Jehovah Sidkenu so I had to go online and see exactly how this was pronounced but that's how it's translated the

Lord our righteousness Jehovah Sidkenu it's right there in verse 6 is one of the names of Jehovah God but the context of this passage is how

God's people Israel had been led into unrighteousness by the bad shepherds and who are the bad shepherds well if you look at the context of the book it's not just the religious leaders which you would expect like the priests and the the false prophets it's actually also the

Kings and the civil leaders so that's definitely a problem that Israel was facing back then during the days of we know that Jeremiah is sometimes called what the weeping prophet he was that man who saw the destruction of Jerusalem when the

Jews were brought into captivity into Babylon so it's a really bad situation in these days and the people were led astray and judgment came upon the nation because essentially of the bad leadership and you know how that is if the leadership is bad that just trickles down and everyone's following the leader and the whole thing goes bad and of course this is still a problem that happens even to this day everything rises and falls on leadership so in making application

I'm not going to address the civil rulers this morning you know with our society but just on a religious level just a way to illustrate this

I think this is a major problem with bad shepherding in Christianity today case in point who's ever heard of a rummage sale okay you know we've heard of tag sales and flea markets well we went to a rummage sale yesterday in the basement of a church and you know is to my surprise that they were selling books about atheism they even had a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey if you don't know what that book is

God bless you I've never read it obviously but I'm thinking a church is selling this and my point is

I don't know the shepherd of this flock but they probably had a few things in common with the people

Jeremiah was talking about I think is safe to say Jeremiah 23 verses 1 through 6 let's just go through this he says woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture and we're all familiar with this the the pastor is what shepherd right

Jesus is the Good Shepherd the the congregation is the flock back in the Old Testament Israel was

God's flock Israel was the flock Jehovah God was the shepherd maybe but there are under shepherds there are people that God appoints as leaders of priests prophets kings and whatnot the judges as well so you see the dire situation in the nation of Judah here where God says woe to the shepherds why because they are destroying and scattering the

Lord's flock so the word shepherd again today it's the same as pastor if you have the new

King James Version it's going to say shepherd but if you have the King James Version the verse reads like this woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture saith the

Lord so the pastors or the the leaders I mean they're supposed to lead the people in the ways of righteousness not unrighteousness but this is what they were doing the passage goes along or as the passage goes along the

Lord promises a change in Israel and in Judah instead of these bad shepherds the

Lord is going to give them good shepherds and he's going to give them one Good Shepherd in particular and this is of course a prophecy about the coming

Messiah here he is called what he is called the branch okay that's another name for Christ the branch one day

Israel okay the descendants of Abraham the Jewish people one day

Israel according to the Bible will be led by Jesus Christ obviously this is in Jeremiah's future he's prophesying of future events but it's still even in our future because we know that the nation of Israel 2 ,000 years ago they by and large rejected

Jesus and they're still living for the most obviously there's believing believing remnant of Jewish people but one could argue that unbelief is as big a problem now or even bigger than it was back then but one day when

Jesus returns he is going to lead the flock of Israel he will be that Good Shepherd over his people

Israel when does that happen well Revelation chapter 20 speaks about this we call it the millennial reign of Jesus Christ he will lead a kingdom that according to the

Bible will last for 1 ,000 years the Bible says that Jesus will lead

Israel he will rule and he will rule with what a rod of what a rod of iron he will not tolerate injustice and isn't this what we're praying for every

Sunday the Lord's Prayer we pray what thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven so this of course in Jeremiah is a future prophecy about Israel in the coming of Christ the second coming look at verse 2 he says therefore thus says the

Lord of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people you have scattered my flock driven them away and not attended to them behold

I will tend to you for the evil of your doings says the Lord one commentator says this about verse 2 the shepherds had scattered the people first spiritually by leading them into idolatry let me ask you are there pastors today who are involved in idolatry in the in the church of course yeah it's a perennial problem so they had led them astray first spiritually by leading them into idolatry secondly the commentator says many had been literally been taken to Egypt with King Jehoahaz many in King Jehoiakim's time had fled there so these are kings of the nation of Judah and some of God's people had been led into idolatry others had been led into Babylon of course this is what happened on a large scale when the

Jews were taken captive it's like okay you want to worship idols is that really what you want

I'll make sure you go captive into an idolatrous nation this was all done for a purpose to bring the children of Israel to a place of repentance and thankfully that did happen and they ended up being restored after 70 years but it was the bad shepherds really that brought judgment upon the nation so God was their righteousness all they had to do is worship

Jehovah God he was their righteousness but instead they worship

Baal they worship Molech they had all these idols and it brought judgment to the nation

I like to say this you know of course I didn't come up with it but you know people are sheep right that's the analogy of Scripture and I mean it's so true people follow along with whatever agenda the rich and the powerful set it's always been the way it happens now it happened back then so these powerful kings they decided to worship idols they were worshiping idols what did most of the people do they followed along and the nation went into idolatry one more comment on the term driven away in verse 2 the commentator points out that good shepherds do not drive their flocks there's not a lot of shepherds today

I mean this isn't something that Americans know a whole lot about but a good shepherd doesn't drive the flock you might know this a good shepherd does what leads the flock he goes out ahead of the flock whatever threats there are he's gonna face the threat first right he's a defender of the flock he leads but here it talks about the shepherds driving the flock so he's mistreating them and of course there are shepherds today who you know we say they fleece the flock and it's all about what they can get out of the people instead of having a self -sacrificial spirit that Jesus did compare that with Jesus Christ the

Good Shepherd who did what he laid down his life for the sheep so this is a bad situation in the nation of Judah but there is hope look at verse 3 the

Lord speaking through the prophet he says but I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their folds in there and they shall be fruitful and increased now somebody might read that and say well

I thought you said you know it's the bad shepherds that are driving the flock and here the Lord said he drove them well that's true the

Lord did say that and what he means is the Lord drove the people you know into captivity

God sent them into Babylon there was a covenant this was the agreement the

Jews had with Jehovah God at Mount Sinai there was a covenant made through Moses the agreement was obey worship the

Lord and be blessed or disobey worship false gods and be what cursed and we know what happened we just talked about it so the

Lord allowed them to go into captivity I think this statement about the

Lord driving them it it speaks to both the sovereignty of God and the free will of man if you want to put it that way you see the people even if they're led into idolatry even if somebody led you into sin and they're the one who led you you're still responsible for your own actions so the people of the nation of Judah they were still the the shepherds are more responsible that's true but the people are still responsible so that speaks of the free will of man if you will but then also the sovereignty of God even though it's the false shepherds who are doing this it's

God who is allowing it you could say it's God who is doing it in that sense to allow it to happen for a purpose to bring them to repentance so again the sovereignty of God the free will of man side by side but the chastening of God is always meant for good look at verse 4 the

Lord says I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them so instead of bad shepherds driving the flock he will establish good shepherds who feed the flock and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed nor shall they be lacking of anything says the

Lord so the Jews went into captivity in Babylon but they would be brought back and if you know the story there was a great revival when they came back into the land they rebuilt the temple and for a season of time things were were were good and there were godly leaders once again men like Moses and Joshua and David perfect leaders no not perfect but good leadership but it's even better than that look at verse 5 behold the days are coming this is the prophecy about Christ behold the days are coming says the

Lord that I will raise up to David a branch of righteousness now

Jesus is perfect and a king shall reign and prosper and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth and of course this speaks of David's son the

Messiah the Christ you know it seemed like Israel was a tree and that Israel is depicted as a tree sometimes

I think of Romans 11 they were like a tree at this point that was cut down to a stump how many of you have ever cut down a tree and yeah you get this little stump left and sometimes that kills the tree right and it doesn't grow back but sometimes you cut down the tree the stump is left and what happens after a little while you start to see this little green thing shooting up that's what

Jesus said he is the branch and the tree Israel was restored and they will be mark it down this is the year 2024

Israel is living in unbelief and we need to pray for the peace of Jerusalem there's still a war going on last time

I checked right and even if there isn't we still need to pray for them but Israel will be reestablished when

Jesus comes back praise be to God you know that's just a wonderful illustration of God's righteous character do they deserve it

I mean none of us are deserving but God loves them he made a promise to them and he's going to keep his promise why because the

Lord is righteous and he does what he says verse 6 speaking of Christ in his days

Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell safely now this is his name by which he will be called

Jehovah Sid Canoe the Lord our righteousness so Israel will experience salvation through the

Messiah we read about this in Romans 11 Matthew 24 obviously Revelation chapter 20 19 and 20 but this is still in our future now if I can transition here we've been talking about the nation of Israel Old Testament things

I want to transition now to talk about the church and talk about New Testament things there's a difference obviously between Israel and the church

Israel was a physical nation and they experienced at times physical salvation another word for salvation is deliverance the church however is what we're not a physical nation we are a spiritual nation so the salvation that we most commonly speak of is spiritual salvation we talk about the salvation of our souls or the souls of men why do we need salvation

I mean you don't need deliverance unless there's something to be delivered from so as I always like to say and it helps us think about it more clearly before you can understand the good news of the gospel you first have to understand the the bad news and realize what the problem is of course the problem is you could say the problem is sin the same here back in in Jeremiah it comes down to rebelling against God the

Bible says the scripture says that what all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God Romans 323

Romans 623 the wages of sin is what death I mean death is the problem last week for Easter talked about the two great enemies death and unbelief so let's just talk about death for a moment death can be defined as separation well how is death separation well it's very simple when a when a person's spirit is separated from their body that's death you're only alive if you have your spirit within you if the spirit of the soul is separated from the body that's physical death but when the spirit is separated from God that's spiritual death that's called the second death here's the thing sin and unbelief causes both causes both the only remedy for this is the righteousness of what you righteousness of me know

I mean we already established that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God I have no righteousness

I might do some good things you might do some good things but compared to God and his holy perfect standard

I mean whatever we do whatever we amount to it's not much compared to God is it so God though he is perfectly righteous we have no righteousness of our own see that's the first thing a self -righteous person will never admit that I know it always gets flipped around right the devil he exchanges bitter for sweet sweet for bitter the devil the devil is able to convince people that the opposite is true so and there may be some

Bible believing Christians who are self -righteous I don't know I'm sure it happens but typically when people think of self -righteous people they think of Christians who believe the

Bible like you have a biblical standard well you're self -righteous even if you say I have no righteousness of my own

I'm a sinner saved by grace even if you say that and believe that you're still you still may be called self -righteous but the people who think they're okay by themselves they're going to heaven based on their good works they will never acknowledge that they have no righteousness of their own they think they're good they think they're all set you need to recognize that only

God and the end at the end of the day only God is truly righteous let's turn to Romans chapter 3 we're gonna kind of get back to basics this morning and and talk about what the gospel we know what the gospel is the death and burial and resurrection of Christ but how does that work

I want to talk about some of the details you know the inner workings of the gospel and how the righteousness of God is applied to me and to you so you're turning to Romans 3 what does the

Bible say about our righteousness our righteousness is as what filthy rags

Isaiah 64 6 Paul said in Philippians 3 7 through 9 he said but what things were gained to me these

I have counted loss for Christ yet indeed also I count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my

Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain

Christ and being found in him not having my own righteousness which is from the law but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness which is from God by what faith the only way we can be righteous in the eyes of God is if we have faith in Jesus Christ that's how the gospel is applied so how is a person declared righteous before God there's there's no self -righteousness

I can't brag or boast about anything that I have done all I can do is say I have put all my trust in him

I appeal to him he paid it all works come in well

God works the faith in and we work it out true for person has genuine saving faith in his atoning death and resurrection they will have a desire we will have a desire for good works but the source is not me the source of the goodness is always

God the righteousness which is only by faith look at Romans 319 now we know

Paul says that whatever the law says it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped in all the world may become guilty before God why did

God give Israel the Ten Commandments I mean some people say rules are made to be broken well that's not really what

God intended I mean he wanted them to obey but at the same time he knew they were not going to obey didn't

God know that in giving the law it was supposed to make them realize that they had broken the law right

Israel was supposed to walk by faith Abraham walked by faith as long as they walk by faith and believe

God everything would have been okay but they lacked faith God gave them the commandments to show them you know you're not really righteous and then they fell into a form of legalism thinking that well if I just keep these rules and if I don't do this if I don't do that then

I'll go to you know I'll be saved because of what I do and that's why Jesus had to come in and in the

Sermon on the Mount teach them the deeper implications of the law even if you're technically keeping the rule on the surface your heart is still the problem because you kind of want to break it sometimes even if people don't want to admit it

I mean that was the purpose of the commandments verse 20 of Romans 3 therefore by the deeds of the law because of that no flesh will be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin again the commandments are given so that you'll realize you're not keeping them the next section is titled

God's righteousness through faith he says in verse 21 but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe for there is no difference for all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom

God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance in his forbearance

God has passed over the sins that were previously committed I mean that word

Passover should make you think back to the children of Israel in Egypt what did they have to do they had to kill the lamb and put its blood on the doorpost and that night

God if you saw the blood he would pass over judgment would not fall because they were under the blood the

Passover was a picture of Jesus dying on the cross if we have faith we are under the blood judgment will pass over his blood satisfies the wrath of the father verse 26 this is done to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness that he might be the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus so who's the just one who's the righteous one you know

Jesus is the righteous one he is the just and he is the justifier verse 27 where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works no but by the law of faith therefore we conclude that a man is justified by what faith apart from the deeds of the law so if I can kind of put this in terms you can understand this is the great transaction that occurs when a person places their faith in Jesus Jesus took all of our sins upon himself when he died on the cross when he was on the cross he took all of our sins upon himself 2nd

Corinthians 521 says for he made him that is God made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him on the

Bible says in Galatians 313 Jesus became a curse he took the sin of the whole world upon himself and this is how

God demonstrates his love towards mankind and that while we were yet sinners

Christ died for us how do we know God cares because he sent his only begotten son into the world

Jesus took upon himself all of our sin so that when we place our faith in him he gives us in exchange all of his righteousness is not the best deal you've ever heard

Jesus takes all your sin deals with it on the cross pays the penalty we deserve death and in exchange we believe all we have to do is believe and he gives us all his righteousness therefore when we die and stand before God and by the way it's not really death because we just keep on living you know that right you're conscious here one moment then you're conscious they are the next so that when we stand before God God doesn't see us in our sin matter of fact

I'm not so sure he sees us at all when God looks at us on that day he will see his only begotten son he doesn't see me in my sin he sees the righteousness of his own son because it's been imputed into my account that's the great transaction that occurs in the gospel skip over to Romans chapter 4 we're almost done we see more of the same the

Apostle Paul explaining the inner workings of the gospel now he points to Abraham he uses

Abraham as sort of exhibit a if you will he says in verse one what then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh for if Abraham was justified by works he had something to boast about but not before God for what does the scripture say

Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness if you ever read the story of Abraham Abraham did a lot of things that he shouldn't have done

Abraham wasn't called the friend of God because he was used to use a good man compared to most people that's true that's that's not really what salvation is all about how was

Abraham justified before God it tells us how is he justified because he believed

God when God spoke to him even though what God said was absolutely incredible at times seemingly impossible when

God spoke to Abraham Abraham believed what God said do you believe what

God says this morning when you open the Bible when you read God's Word when you hear a preached accurately do you believe it

I mean everyone has their doubts that's true remember the man

Lord I believe help now my unbelief maybe that's you this morning but you believe you have doubt you struggle a little bit but you do believe you're saved if you believe so do you believe

God this morning you know it's like Jesus he said to the sinful woman in Luke 7 verse 50 he said to her woman your faith has saved you so before we go let me end with this application application is usually what you know you have to do or what you should do so what do we need to do well to be justified before God you don't actually have to do anything you have to what believe but still what you say well yeah but I know works is in involved in this somehow

I mean there's a lot of things the Bible says about works see we're in a process right if you believe you've been saved that's salvation right now what we're going through is what's called sanctification where we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge and become more like Christ hopefully you're more like Jesus than you were a year ago five years ago 20 years ago even with that we grow through faith not works you realize that you don't actually grow in the faith by just trying harder and doing more good things that's the result but it's always faith it's always by faith so here's what

I want to leave you with going back to Abraham Abraham believed God and it says it was accounted to him for righteousness but you remember when

God told Abraham to go to a land that I will show you what did Abraham do he went he went when

God told Abraham who is a childless old man at the time that his descendants would number as the stars of the sky and as the sand of the seashore it's like that's impossible but Abraham believed but still him and Sarah still had to come together and produce

Isaac and then when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac many many years later even though Lord was not about to let him go through with it

Abraham was willing he was willing what's the point Abraham was willing to take action because he believed you know it's one thing to say well

I believe but if there's no action behind it what does James say about that I even the demons you know believe and they tremble if you really believe there's gonna be something backing it up but that's the evidence so works it's always the evidence so if you have the

Holy Spirit within you this morning I just want to leave you with this you know Abraham was willing to take action because he believed when

God spoke to him Abraham believed he was willing to do something about it what's God saying to you this morning you say

I believe the gospel I know Christ amen hallelujah but what's

God speaking to you about what other things is he saying to you if a has the

Holy Spirit God is always trying to you know tell us something so to speak he wants us to do this or did not for salvation but he wants us to become more like right it's just a matter of do

I believe what God says number one and then number two the second question am I actually gonna take action and do something about it so that's the challenge

I'll leave you with whatever the Spirit of God may be laying on your heart today whatever it is it starts with believing that God is speaking to you in that way and that he wants you to take action but make no mistake about it the only righteousness we have is the righteousness of God which is applied through faith

I am NOT righteous you are not righteous he is our righteousness the

Lord our righteousness Jehovah Sid canoe let's pray

Heavenly Father I thank you for this truth that I don't have to strive we don't have to strive and struggle and work and work to try to gain your acceptance to try to earn your love

Lord you already loved us you demonstrated that on the cross when you send

Jesus to die but Lord because of your love we want to show you that we love you in return

Lord if there's some way something we can do this week to show others that we believe to show others that we love you and that we love them

Lord give us those opportunities to grow in the grace and knowledge of our