Proverbs 16 17 the highway of
the upright is to depart from evil He that keepeth his way
preserveth his soul Now the highway here is used as other words in
scripture as a metaphor for the course of a person's life your
way your your path your walk The highway is like that, it's
the same. And this is about believers,
first of all. Not first in importance, but
let's talk about that first. This is certainly describing
the sheep of God. God called Job an upright man. And look what else it happens
to say in the context of that. Turn over with me to Job chapter
1. Let's look at that verse together. Job 1.8. I want you to see how
that our text is included in this. Really, Job
is the very definition of our text as it pertains to the people
of God. Job 1.8. And the Lord said unto Satan,
hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like
him in the earth, perfect and upright man. That's a word right
from our text. Highway of the upright. He's
an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil. That word escheweth means to
turn away or depart. That's right from our text. The
highway of the upright is to depart. from evil. And so Job
sort of defines that. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4.7,
I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I've
kept the faith. And of course, if you take that
verse out of context, it sounds like Paul's bragging on himself.
But you see in the context that he's doing anything but. It's
all according to the grace of God. You can see our text in
that also, though. I've kept the faith. I've finished
my course. It says in our text, he that
keepeth his way stayeth on the path, preserveth his soul. In tonight's text, we have another
example of this. Let me read you this in 1 Kings
3.5. This is part of what we'll see
tonight. says in Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream
by night and God said ask what I shall give thee and Solomon
said thou has showed unto thy servant David my father great
mercy Now remember that word mercy as you as we as you listen
to the rest of this Thou has showed unto thy servant David
my father great mercy according as he walked before thee in truth
and and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart with
you." That's our text again, the upright man. And thou has kept for him this
great kindness that thou has given him a son to sit on his
throne as it is to this day. So David was an upright man,
but know that remember the word mercy. It's according to the
mercy of God. The example given of David here
includes the reason that any believer is ever upright in any
sense before God, walks in uprightness before God, the reason for that
is mercy. Not any goodness in us. We have
no goodness in us. It's the mercy of God. A believer
is a new creation in Christ Jesus by the mercy of God when God
saves him, when God shows mercy to a sinner. He's a new creature. There's a difference. There's
a change in The heart it's a heart work and It's not that with which
go within that defile of the man, but that which comes out
of the heart And God does a work on that heart and 2nd Corinthians 5 17 therefore
if any man be in Christ. He is a new creature that word
is creation He's a new creation Old things are passed away behold
all things are become new Nothing is the same anymore Once the
Lord Jesus Christ comes and has mercy on you Nothing is the same
You say, well, my old nature is the same. That's true, but
there's nothing about that that isn't new either in the expression
of your old nature. Not only can you not do any good
without sin, you can't do any sin without some good there because
you're gonna repent, you're gonna regret it, you're gonna be sorry
because Christ is in you, the hope of glory. Everything's new about you. And one of the things
that's new in the new man in Christ is that he's motivated
by the love of Christ for him, and in consequence of Christ's
love for him, he loves Christ. And he's motivated by both. He's
motivated by Christ's love for him and his love for Christ to
honor Christ in his life. That's exactly what Paul said
in 2 Corinthians 5 14. For the love of Christ constraineth
us. Is that talking about Christ's
love for us or our love for Christ? Well, take your pick, because
both are in the scripture. Both are taught. Both are true.
We love him because he first loved us. For the love of Christ
constraineth us. It motivates us. It causes us
to do what we do, act like we act, say what we say, even think
the way we do. He says that here because we
thus judge. We thus reckon things that if
one died for all of us, it's because we were all dead. We
were all then then we're all dead in that he died for all
that they which live Should not henceforth live unto themselves
But unto him which died for them and rose again So that's the
change that's the uprightness in us It's Christ and what he
did for us He's the cause He's the motivation, and he's the
goal of it. Now it's most important to understand,
though, that the uprightness in which a believer walks before
God is not meritorious. Now that's a big word that means
something very simple. It doesn't count as righteousness
before God. Even that which is inspired by
Christ, even that which is the fruit of the Spirit, which is
Christ in us, even that, it's not meritorious in us, because
we're sinners yet. Everything we do is mixed with
sin. It doesn't count as righteousness
before God, and if it did, we wouldn't want it. because Christ
is our righteousness. What else do you need? You have
the righteousness of God in Christ. I don't want what I do and don't
do to count before God. That's what Paul was saying,
not having my own righteousness. All of our goodness, and I say
that Because it's scriptural. There is such a thing as good
works. But it's all still corrupted
with sin. I like to think of it as relative
goodness. And I think that's just as simple
a way to say it as any. It's relative goodness. Would
you say it's relatively good to attend the worship of God
this morning? Opposed to not attending the
worship of God this morning. I'd say it's relatively good
to attend the worship Wouldn't you rather than be mowing my
lawn or washing down my driveway? Today well, well people are worshiping
God But is your worship perfect before God No, no, of course, it's not it's
relatively good to be here this morning and But even while we're
here, there's sin in our hearts. God can only accept holy, perfect
righteousness. And we don't have any of that.
Not in ourselves. Does this mean that our worship
is unacceptable to God? Yes and no. Yes, if it's just
us. Our worship is accepted in Christ. It's acceptable in Christ Jesus
Just like our persons are First Peter 2 5 listen to this
carefully I should have you turn, but we'll run out of time if
I do so listen carefully first Peter 2 5 ye also as living stones
all describes us as living stones in the church of God the building
of God and are built up in spiritual house, God's house, a holy priesthood. Remember, we're made kings and
priests under our God, by Christ. That is, if we suffer with Him,
we will reign with Him. We're children of the King, and
also priests, because only the priest can offer anything to
God. He does it on behalf of the people, but we now as priests
unto God in Christ To offer up spiritual sacrifices The sacrifice
of our lips is what thanksgiving unto God The sacrifices of worship
and praise and service and all the things that are done for
God for his glory We offer those up, but they're only acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ. Let me read it again, because
I commented so much, you don't know what was the scripture,
unless you're pretty familiar with that scripture, and it was
just me talking, but listen to it. Ye also, as living stones,
are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Nothing we ever do is acceptable
to God except by Jesus Christ Our persons and our good works
because God calls them good works. I'm gonna call them that Are
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ because He is the man in our
text Wait Chris you said it was us well it is but it's also him
and It's us in a sense, and we saw that's well established in
scripture. But what is also crystal clear
in scripture is that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only true
upright man, capital M, before God in this world. Christ is our uprightness. It talks about the upright man. That's not exclusively to be
understood of a single man, but it is to be understood of a single
man Turn with me to Philippians 3
very familiar, but this think about it again I say this all
the time, but notice how this very familiar passage in Philippians
3 is going to take on a little bit different aspect Reading
it in consideration of our text in Proverbs Philippians 3 7 Think about this the upright
man how in the world can we be called that even? Philippians 3 7 but what things
were gained to me and those I counted lost for Christ and the word
but there refers back to what he was talking about before which
is all of his sin no and All of his righteousness. That's
key here. It's key that we understand that
our righteousness is sin. It's loss. It's done. What things
were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless,
and I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. It doesn't mean he lost all of
his possessions like Job did. He's talking about the things
that he lost that he's mentioned in this chapter. His heritage,
his righteousness, According to the law he said
he was blameless nobody could find any fault with him Except
God the only one that counts And do count them but done for
this reason that I may win Christ and Be found in Not having my
own righteousness. None of it's worth having. He
doesn't say not having my own sin. I want to stress that. Not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ. The righteousness which is of
God by faith. Those two words, faith, that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith. Same word, but it has two meanings.
I want you to think about which meaning would apply to each of
these words. One of the meanings is this,
to be convinced of, to believe. That's what we usually understand
as being faith. I believe that's the second one.
The faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by Faith. God gives us faith to be convinced
of the truth of Christ in scripture. The other meaning is the character
of one that can be relied on. Character. Faithfulness. That's the first one. The faithfulness
of Christ. Character of Christ which can
be relied on man can't That's what he's been saying in that
whole chapter not mine, but he is The righteousness which is of
God by faith in Christ Jesus Christ our uprightness is our
motive for uprightness We don't run away from evil and
maintain that course, which is what our scripture says. We run
away from evil and stay doing that. Keep doing that. Persevere
in doing that. We don't do that in order to
be righteous before God. We do that because we are righteous
in Christ Jesus. Because of that free and mighty
grace that put us in Christ. We love him And we want to honor
him And by his grace we will to one degree or another we're
not going to serve this world It's not an option sin shall
not have dominion over you Not if you're his And not only are we motivated
by the fact that he loved us and gave himself for us That's
what we read where Paul said the love of Christ constraineth
us But I'll tell you this too. Just simply because of who he
is We love him To know him is indeed to love
him So we do want to honor him. And
that's the simple difference between life and death. If you
do what you do in order to please God, in order to establish a
righteousness before God, Romans 10, then you have no righteousness. But if Christ is your righteousness,
Grace through faith in him then you have the very righteousness
of God in him Amen