How To Be Righteous

The righteous shall live by faith. That is a Biblical truth. Do you know who said that? God did. Yes, literally those words came from the mouth of Almighty God Himself and they can be found in the book of Habakkuk. In Habakkuk 2:4 God makes this statement in response to the prophet who was crying out to God for answers. We live in a day quite similar to Habakkuk’s time for we live in a day when evil seems to surround us.

So we know that the righteous must live by faith. But who are the righteous? Many of us struggle with our own sinfulness. We go to church. We’ve been baptized. We read the Word and we pray our hearts out, yet we don’t find ourselves to be very righteous. Maybe we need to step back and revisit the Gospel. Maybe we’ve lost sight of its good news.

This week I began studying Galatians and in it we find Paul bringing a rebuke to Peter, for Peter had regressed in his faith and was leading the church back into the yoke of the law. In this rebuke we find the truth of the Gospel. It is good news.

Galatians 2:16
Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

“By works of the law no one will be justified.” No one. We are not saved by what we do; we are saved by what Christ did. Many Christians do not care much for theology. Some say it’s not important. Well, it is. Unless we understand the truth of the scriptures we cannot apply them properly in our lives and Satan, the master of deceit, will beat the tar out of us. Understanding justification is an imperative in our Christian lives.

To be justified means God has declared us righteous. This does not mean He made us righteous, though there is a different act that will occur gradually over our lives called sanctification that leads us to become like Christ. But to be justified means that God has imputed the righteousness of Christ upon us. This means when a guilty sinner comes before God and by faith alone accepts God’s free gift of salvation, from that point on for all eternity God sees that person as holy and righteous. This is what the blood of Christ does. It washes us clean in God’s eyes forever. While forgiveness is involved; it is more than forgiveness. It is immunity from needing forgiveness ever again because Christ died for all our sins; past, present, and future. If we are Christ’s we can never be seen as guilty again in God’s eyes for we wear His robe of righteousness.

Our faith in Christ not only brings permanent forgiveness, it brings permanent erasure of our sin. Unlike a criminal who gets a pardon and still has a record, we do not. Again hear what God has to say from Isaiah 43:25, "I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.”

And remember that it isn’t “good’ people that God seeks; it is sinners. Who does God justify? Read God’s Word for the answer from Romans 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” We do not nor can we work our way to righteousness in Christ. It doesn’t come from us; it comes from God. Romans 8:33 states that God is the one who justifies. And it is the ungodly He justifies.

We need to preach the Gospel to ourselves every day. We need to remember that it is God doing the work. So maybe you keep failing Him. Maybe you fall back into your addictions. Maybe you cannot stop worrying. Maybe you just feel like a failure in the eyes of God. Well, the good news is that if you are Christ’s then you are forever righteous in the eyes of God. Don’t let Satan tell you different.

No, this isn’t a license to sin. We Christians cannot live out our lives doing what ever we want. If you think that then you are not saved. We have freedom in Christ but that is not freedom to sin; it is freedom not to. But we can live in peace with God knowing that Jesus is there for us even in our human weaknesses. 1 John 2:1-6 says it best.
 

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.  We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.  The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him:  Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”

The righteous shall live by faith; faith in Jesus Christ. Don’t put any faith in me. Don’t put any faith in your pastor. Don’t put any faith in yourself. The only sinless man was Christ. Humble yourself before Him and confess your own sinful state and He shall cloak you in righteousness. Live by faith in Jesus and become righteous. It’s our only hope.