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The Righteousness God Desires: The 10 Commandments As A Compass To Righteousness (Part 3)
This is the final conclusion in the series The Righteousness God Desires and today, we are looking particularly at how we as christians judge others and try to determine other people’s standing with God.
We often focus on the latter parts of the 10 commandments as the basis for judging the righteousness of a person because that is often what we can see. We can determine with our own wisdom if a person kills, steals, commits adultery, covets, honours their parents but we forget that God looks at the heart and that is what makes the first four commandments and the first part of the Lord’s prayer so essential to the righteousness that God is looking for.
King David broke almost all the latter six commandments: he committed adultery, murdered his friend and coveted his friend’s wife but God looked at his heart and forgave him because he was still a man after God’s heart. King Saul on the other hand didn’t sin towards man, rather He pleased the people but disobeyed and rejected God in His heart and so God rejected Him in return. This doesn’t mean that the latter six commandments are less important, it’s just to challenge our perception of the kind of righteousness God seeks in a person.
In Acts 13, When the Holy Ghost met Saul and rebuked Him as an enemy of righteousness because he was perverting the ways of the Lord, Saul was quick to accept correction! Saul who thought he was obedient to the law and doing God’s will was quick to change because right from the start, although his actions were wrong, his heart was in the right place and He wanted to do right by God – that is righteousness.
If your heart is right, your actions will be right and when you get your actions wrong, you will be quick to accept correction! The compass of the law will be quick to point you back on the correct path!
The righteousness God desires is one that does not pervert the right ways of the Lord. The righteousness God desires from us is one that is full of total belief in Him and one that hopes against hope like Father Abraham!
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Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
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Everywhere in the Bible, scripture says that Abraham believed and it was credited to Him as righteousness! not for any other thing, but for his belief in God!
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Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
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And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
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What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
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And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
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It is total belief and trust that God counts as righteousness, not anything else.
Philippians 3 vs 8-9: What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ— the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
Living by faith is directly related to righteousness! Righteousness does not come from fulfilling the law but from understanding it, using it as a compass to guide us when we sin and recognising that because we are imperfect, we cannot find our way on our own. We must yield ourselves over to God so that we may be made instruments of righteousness through faith and belief in Christ.
| Romans 6 vs 13 |
Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.
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The 10 commandments (Law) will then be fulfilled in us because we are able to abide by the perfect law by walking not in our imperfect flesh but in the perfect spirit – The Holy Spirit.
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That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
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Those who struggle with self-righteousness are still under ignorance and are slaving away to no avail because it is impossible to establish the righteousness that God desires without complete submission to God.
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For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
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If it is possible to attain the righteousness that God requires of us through having the compass alone (the law), then Christ died in vain, and we definitely know that Christ did not die in vain!
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I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
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The law cannot give life! It cannot give the righteousness God desires!
Galatians 3 vs 21 – Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.
To quote Gary North, “What the ten commandments set forth is a strategy. This strategy is a strategy for dominion.” So although the law cannot bring righteousness, it can certainly act as a guide. If we apply the ten commandments to our lives daily, we will be on the right track to the kind of righteousness that God desires to see in our lives!
Hope you’ve enjoyed the series,
Selah!
The Gossip 4 Jesus Initiative 
Praise The LORD. Im immensely blessed by this sermon.
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