Tag: righteous

Your King Comes to You

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(Zechariah 9:9-10)

Rejoice and shout – two things that weren’t very prominent during the six weeks of the season of Lent. Even with the additional services on Wednesday evenings, the spirit of worship was not so much one of rejoicing and shouting, but rather repenting and sorrow. While this is an appropriate attitude and approach during a season marked by penitence and confession, Zechariah now implores us to turn the frowns upside down and rejoice and shout. And Palm Sunday, marking the start of Holy Week, certainly sets the tone for such exuberance, amidst processions of palms accompanied by shouts of Hosanna. 

Indeed, isn’t it always true that God’s people can rejoice and shout? Whether times are good or bad, the believer has every reason to rejoice and shout, doesn’t he… doesn’t she?

Or not? Is there too much gloom in our lives, clouding our view and keeping us from rejoicing or shouting? Does some past sin with its present consequences still haunt you today? Or does it trouble you that your sins don’t bother you more? Are you right now dealing with something so heavy that it feels like you’re in a fog and life just continues, not slowing down to wait for you to catch up? Is life in general just really putting the squeeze on you right now, so that one thing just seems to keep piling on another?

We often feel like this because we’re not so great at keeping the spiritual at the forefront of our lives. I tell people I have the easiest job in the world, which is true, but at times it’s also the most frustrating, because of how easily overlooked the spiritual side of things is in our lives. I get to listen a lot, so I hear lots of struggles and challenges. And, while I don’t want to diminish the role of pastoral care of discernment, as important as they are, I will say that an awful lot of what I do and say as a pastor is simply asking questions like, “Does the Bible say anything about that?” “Did Jesus provide us with any promises that might apply to that?” So what is the frustrating part? That we sometimes seem to be so incapable as believers of incorporating such questions and considerations into our day-to-day lives. 

Others may be better at looking to their Savior and his Word during such times… and still struggle to find reason to rejoice and shout. When we feel that way, it is probably for one of two reasons: 1) we’re trying too hard, or 2) we’re not trying hard enough.

We’re trying too hard when we imagine that Jesus came to make heaven possible, but that it now depends on us to get there. This can show itself when our own perfectionist tendencies don’t allow us to live in the joy of unconditional grace. We want the both/and of grace and rule following, and procedure, and policy, and consequences, and… etc. What may really get under our skin is our constant observation of others not really measuring up as Christians. “A Christian shouldn’t… a Christian should… that’s not very Christian… etc.” We know the Bible says Jesus did it all, but what that really means in my mind is that he’s now watching to see if I do my part. We’re trying too hard, and insist that the joy of Christianity is not found mostly in what Jesus did, but mostly in what he calls me to do. No wonder such Christians seem to lack joy in their lives!

We’re not trying hard enough when we treat forgiveness as an endless commodity that frees us to be lazy and unconcerned about living good lives. So, rather than allowing grace to spur us on and drive us to live stand-up lives, we’re quick to gloss over our sins with, “It’s OK, we’re forgiven.”

No, it’s not OK! Yes, we are forgiven, but sin is never OK, and never should we be OK with it or even comfortable with it. That’s not at all why God extends his grace to us. And when we try so little in our Christian living, and our effort is so minimal, should we wonder why grace and forgiveness have lost their luster? We no longer stand in awe of how loving and gracious our forgiving God is because we’ve lowered the bar so much in our Christian living. We don’t even realize how much we’re dragging God down and diminishing him when we do that. So why would a believer in that case find reason to rejoice or shout?  

God’s people at the time of Zechariah didn’t see much reason to rejoice or shout, either. They had already been centuries removed from their golden age under King David. Their nation had split in two, with the Northern Kingdom going into exile first, followed by the Southern Kingdom being transplanted to Babylon. Now that a contingent had been allowed to return back to their homeland, it was a far cry from what they had recalled. Not only did their homes need rebuilding, but what was left of the temple, their place of worship, only served as a painful reminder of how far from glory they had fallen. What was there to rejoice about? Why shout anything other than laments and cries of despair? 

Zechariah gave them a good reason to rejoice and shout. “See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (v.9). With remarkable precision, Zechariah brought into focus the blurry image of the future, the time when God’s people would experience a glory that wouldn’t simply rival that of King David, but would surpass it. That time would be when David’s greater Son, the Messiah, would arrive to fight the most important battle ever to be fought – the battle that would determine where souls spend eternity.

Zechariah gives us a good reason to rejoice and shout. Let’s avoid either extreme of trying too hard or not trying hard enough and look with fresh eyes and ears at what the prophet Zechariah is actually telling us. “See, your king comes to you…” (v.9). Pause. Let it sink in. Take note of the careful word choice the Spirit led Zechariah to use. This is not just any king, but “your” king. This is not some foreign superpower coming for conquest, coming to conquer you and subject you to his wrath or oppression; he is your king. 

And he is coming to you. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work! If there is a need or a request, it’s brought to the king. The people of the kingdom go to the king and humbly beg an audience with him to plead their case. They hope their request is not unwarranted or out of order, so that it doesn’t result in punishment or wrath. That’s how the relationship is supposed to work. The king sits atop his throne and hears this case and that as they are brought before him.

But the king Zechariah speaks of comes to us! What does that say about you and me? What does that say about him? How highly the king must think of his people to approach them and not the other way around (as it is with all other religions)!

And, how does he come? Backed by an army to destroy us and make us his subjects? Not at all, but righteous and victorious. To those trying too hard to stake a claim in their salvation by earning it, what is left to earn or work for if the king of righteousness – your king of righteousness – comes for you? He brings his righteousness with him, for you. He has no need of your attempts at righteousness. Ours will never measure up to his anyway. He alone is perfect. Holy. Righteous before God. Stop trying so hard to earn the righteousness he alone has secured and which he alone freely gives. Instead, rejoice! Shout! 

And to you not trying hard enough, can you really go about your life unaffected and unfazed by the victory he came to win for you? Can you treat it so casually and with such indifference that it doesn’t cause you to want to eagerly be his subject and serve and thank him in every way possible? Can we be so unresponsive and uncaring toward our king who came to bring us security and safety by his victory? Can we go through so much of this life without a yearning desire to know this king better and to prioritize our relationship with our victorious and righteous king?

Especially when we know him by name. We have the unique and blessed privilege of seeing Zechariah’s depiction come to life in Matthew’s Gospel. In chapter 21, Matthew tells us the crowds shouted (cf. v.9) and that the whole city was stirred (cf. v.10). Zechariah’s prophecy was unfolding on the first Palm Sunday! Yes, it was Jesus on the first Palm Sunday who entered Jerusalem “lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (v.9). Rejoice! Shout!

We know that Zechariah was talking about Jesus, and we know that Jesus came just as Zechariah said he would. And, we know why Jesus came into Jerusalem. It was to fulfill the rest of what Zechariah promised God’s people. Our king promised, “I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth” (v.10). But for Jesus to proclaim peace, he had to first secure it.

For those in Zechariah’s day, nor even in Jesus’ day, our king didn’t come to us to secure that peace on a battlefield or by some ground-breaking military strategy. It wasn’t a peace from worldly rulers like Pilate. It wasn’t to overthrow Rome. The peace he came to bring would require a cross and a sacrifice – his own.

You sense the crowd’s disappointment over the course of Holy Week as this reality sank in. The king of righteousness and victory rode into Jerusalem to finally restore Israel to its former glory, only to end up in what looked like defeat at the hands of Rome, hoisted up on display like so many others who tried to challenge Rome’s mighty power. 

Little did they know, and little do far too many still today know, he was victorious! He did secure peace! By the very cross that looked like failure, he extended not just his arms to die, but his very life to forgive the sins of all people, bringing reconciliation between rebel sinners and their righteous God. Yes, the events that unfold this Holy Week are why he is – and we are – able to proclaim peace to the nations. Rejoice! Shout!

Let that peace first dwell in your own heart. It will, when you take your foot off the gas and stop trying to manufacture the perfect life/marriage/family. It will, when you stop pretending that what you’re really looking for is on the other side of overspending, over-scheduling, over-working, and over-exerting yourself. You’ll find that peace when you stop looking for it and realize that in Jesus, it has already found you. “See, your king comes to you…” (v.9).

He came to you. He comes to us in baptism. He comes to us with his body and blood. He comes to us through his Word. Peace isn’t found in pretending our own self-righteousness gets you closer to him; it’s found in realizing he brought his righteousness and victory to you. That peace in Jesus, your king, is yours right now. Isn’t it time you started actually living in it? 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Live a Holy Life in Step With the Spirit

Holy Father,
When my life doesn’t reflect the holy life you have set me apart to live, it isn’t because I am unaware of what that should look like. And, it isn’t because you have failed to keep your promises to fill me with your overflowing grace that enables me to walk in step with the Spirit. Rather, my own lack of discipline and spiritual apathy work like quicksand to suck me into worldly living. And while it is often easier to walk in step with the world, the outcome is disappointing at best, and destructive at worst. Have mercy on me! Spur on the new man in me to consider each day what living righteously in my life looks like. Give me the determination to make the choices, speak the words, and take the actions that are in keeping with holiness. 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

Anointed to Be Our Righteousness

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(Matthew 3:13-17)

Jesus’ Resurrection would have been a significant enough event to have heard it. But there were plenty of even lesser miracles that would have been fitting. When Jesus changed water into wine at Cana, for example. When he raised Lazarus or Jairus’s daughter from the dead. Feeding the Five Thousand. Each of those miraculous events would have served as ideal occasions on which the Father’s booming voice of approval could have echoed from the heavens. 

Imagine the guests at Cana, gushing over the best wine ever, now realizing that the special occasion just got a lot more special because God’s voice confirmed they were in the presence of God’s Son! God’s approval would serve as the perfect exclamation point after a dead person just came back to life. The leftover loads of fish and bread that surpassed what they had even started with would have made perfect sense to the disciples if God’s voice had immediately emphasized that it was his Son who was responsible.

But it wasn’t any of those occasions on which the “voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’” (v.17). No, those words were spoken at Jesus’ baptism. An event which, by the way, seemed entirely unnecessary to some, including the one performing the baptism, John the Baptist himself. If anyone should be an expert in who should or shouldn’t need baptism, it would surely be the one whose very title denotes his experience and expertise in the area of baptism. Yet he was the one who was puzzled enough to second-guess Jesus’ request: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (v.14). All of this makes us wonder why this event was the one chosen by God to voice his approval. 

If we eavesdrop in on Peter’s sermon from Acts 10, he explained the significance of Jesus’ baptism and the events surrounding it: “You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached—how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power” (Acts 10:37-38). The Father’s affirming voice was the stamp of approval acknowledging Jesus’ baptism as his anointing into ministry. 

Still today, we have a special service when a pastor is ordained or installed. Other pastors join in laying on hands. But at Jesus’ baptism, instead of hands, the Father laid the Holy Spirit on his Son in the likeness of a dove. His baptism was his anointing, his ordination into ministry. 

Jesus also provides us with additional insight as to the significance of his baptism. It wasn’t just his anointing. “Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then John consented” (v.15). Jesus had to “fulfill all righteousness.”

Righteousness. It’s a big word. It’s an important word. In fact, we’d literally be lost without it. 

While it’s a little early in the church year for the festival of the Reformation, whenever the word “righteousness” is discussed, it can be helpful to recall the struggle that Martin Luther had with the term righteous in the earlier stages of his life. He knew that only righteous people could enter heaven, since the Bible teaches that only those who are perfect will enter heaven. But, he also knew that all efforts at achieving righteousness on his own were in vain.

This understanding that holiness is required for whatever is in the afterlife is still pretty commonly held to today in a very general sense: good people go to heaven; bad people don’t. But it’s that general understanding that will leave so many in trouble, because “good” is entirely subjective. When our natural inclination is to compare ourselves to the worst in society, people can feel pretty good about themselves. They hold on to a false confidence that they’re good enough to get into heaven. But there are no good people in heaven; just perfect people.

So, we had better make absolutely certain we know how that perfection, that righteousness, is acquired! That’s where Luther struggled. He took desperate measures to do everything he possibly could to achieve righteousness on his own. Do you know where those desperate measures left him? Desperate. In despair. Because by his own experience, he was absolutely convinced that he could never attain righteousness on his own. Indeed, he was experiencing exactly what the Bible teaches about righteousness: “the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal” (Romans 9:31). 

It seems logical to conclude that, if God gave the law, then abiding by it – doing what it says to do and avoiding what it says not to do – should be the path to righteousness. But, just like the Israelites, and everyone before or after them, the only realization one can arrive at is this: if the law is the means by which righteousness is attained, then no one will ever attain righteousness, for no one has ever come close to keeping the law!

So if righteousness can’t be achieved by keeping the law, but is still a requirement for us to gain access to heaven, then how do we come by it? “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith” (Romans 9:30). It is not the law, then, but faith by which a person obtains righteousness. Paul repeats this truth extensively throughout his letter to the Romans. “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known…This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Romans 3:21-22). “To the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness” (Romans 4:5).

But, for righteousness to be credited to us by faith, it first had to be attained so that it could be granted to us. That brings us back to the Jordan River. There, Jesus was not only anointed as the One chosen to secure our righteousness, but also took a major step in carrying that righteousness through his baptism. Had the Savior slipped up and sinned or failed to follow through with even the slightest requirement of the law, then he would not have achieved righteousness. And had he not achieved righteousness, then there would be no righteousness to credit to all who believe. 

But he did, and so he can – and does. By faith, the righteousness of Jesus is the righteousness of Abraham, Martin Luther, you and me, and all who believe.

So then, where does your baptism come in? What role does it play? Is it an outward act of obedience that shows God our righteousness? That would only make sense if righteousness could be obtained by the law or by any act of obedience. But since we just established that isn’t the case, then our baptism cannot be merely a display of our obedience or dedication, for that wouldn’t carry any weight before a God who only accepts perfection.

No, our baptism is so much more significant than that. Our baptism is like the floodgate that opens up all of the blessings that flow from the righteousness that Jesus already earned for us.

Buried and raised with him? Check.

Washed and renewed? Check.

Forgiven and saved? Check.

A loving Father who is pleased with us? Check.

Jesus’ righteousness had to come by the law so that our righteousness could come by faith. His baptism had to fulfill all righteousness so that our baptism could make us right with God. His baptism was to keep the law so that your baptism washes you from the curse of the law.

Now, wrapped in the double blessing of a baptism that is backed by the Savior’s baptism, we pursue living in the righteousness that reflects the gift of righteousness we’ve been given. Remember what Peter said in his sermon about Jesus’ baptism – that he was “anointed… with the Holy Spirit and power.” Too easily we forget or simply aren’t aware that the same Holy Spirit and power have been placed on us and are in us through our baptismal faith. We are so comfortable defaulting to Jesus’ perfection and righteousness that we fail to allow those blessings to spur us on to continue to pursue righteous living. 

We aren’t desperate. We don’t live fraught with despair that we’re not good enough, but are confident that in Christ’s baptismal righteousness, we are perfect! Our lives reflect that appreciation and confidence by looking the part. We don’t settle for walking and talking like the rest of the world, but are eager to pursue righteous living – because that is genuinely what we are in Christ: righteous.

Grace and forgiveness don’t prompt us to lower the bar in our living, but to raise it, to honor Jesus in every possible way by following in his footsteps. Jesus’ baptism – and by extension yours – doesn’t just change our status before God; it empowers our sanctification before him. When we take the time to remember and appreciate the significance of Jesus’ baptism, we more deeply treasure our own. So we raise the bar of righteous living to thank him who is our righteousness.

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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For Your Righteousness to Produce Righteousness in Me

King of Righteousness,
You came to be my sin and credit to me your righteousness. I now stand before you cleansed of all sin – because of you. I now stand before you in perfect righteousness – because of you. How can this be, but by faith! 

But my faith is not finished. Secure in your righteousness, my faith is driven to continue its pursuit of living in righteousness. Keep me in step with your Spirit, so that I do not wander from your paths. Strengthen my heart with the readiness and resolve to do the right thing, in everything, for you, my King. 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Manage My Anger

Lord Jesus,
When you saw your house being utilized as a marketplace for conducting business and carrying out transactions, rather than a place of prayer and coming into the Father’s presence, your righteous anger flared up. Such anger is truly only justified coming from you alone, as you alone are truly righteous. Therefore, your actions were not carried out in sin.

We can’t say the same. When our anger leads to sinful actions, we cannot claim any righteous anger or moral superiority. Sadly, more often than not, whenever my anger leads to sinful behavior, there’s very little room for any sort of excuse anyway (no matter how hard I might try!).

Remind me that I am the one responsible for my emotions and how I handle them. My rage isn’t permissible simply because someone else set me off. My temper isn’t anyone else’s fault but mine. Help me to control and manage my anger, to recognize when it is setting in, and to be cautious and thoughtful before allowing it to manifest into sinful words or actions. You, who had every right to direct your righteous anger toward every single sinner, chose grace and forgiveness instead. Help me choose the same.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Be Troubled by Unrighteousness

Lord Jesus,
As you saw your temple turned into a marketplace where conducting business was being prioritized over worship, you channeled your righteous anger to admonish and rebuke wrongdoers. While only your righteous anger alone is truly justified on account of your own holiness, I confess that I am too infrequently troubled by unrighteousness – both that of those around me as well as my own. I become too comfortable with a lower standard of Christian living and become accustomed to the world’s ways. Make known to me the things in me and around me that trouble you, and cause them to leave me troubled as well. Without allowing me to become a pharisaical pietist, help me to raise the bar of my own sanctification and to patiently encourage others to do the same.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

The Righteous One is the Right One (Sermon)

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Will you ever be good enough? What if you have all the right resolutions and actually keep them this year – will that be enough to find favor with God? The bad news? The answer is no. The good news? In Jesus Christ, the answer is a resounding yes! Relying on his righteousness is better than good enough.

Listen to the sermon audio here.

“The Righteous One is the Right One” (Isaiah 42:1-7 sermon), was preached at Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS) on Sunday, January 12, 2020.