The righteousness of Christ is freedom-don t hold back Pastor Brenton Fiedler Good Shepherd Lutheran church Toowoomba 29/6/14 Which wire to the bomb do you cut? The red one or the blue one! Which one will defuse the bomb? The red, blue, red, blue Take a look at the short clip from the movie, Lethal Weapon. The situation is tense. There is a bomb, the timer is counting down, there are two wires, a red and a blue; which one should he cut! The two wires, the red and the blue, are like the two types of righteousness, the two types of works, or the two types of keeping the law, the 10 Commandments. We have no choice, the timer to the bomb of death and destruction has been ticking since the fall into sin, when Adam went against what God commanded, you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for you will certainly die. So here you and I are, faced with this bomb, with our timer ticking down, and we have two types of wires, the two types of righteousness connected. One type of righteousness will defuse the bomb, the other with detonate the bomb: but which one? Which one do we place our trust in? Which one are we prepared to trust, the red or the blue? The book of Romans is a book on the red or blue wire; that is, which type of righteousness saves and brings eternal life; which destroys and sets of the bomb! Righteousness is nothing more than our keeping the law. Righteousness, our keeping of the law, is what defuses the bomb, as explained in Mark 10, when a Pharisee asked Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus responded, You know the commandments: You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honour your father and mother. Keep every one of the 10 Commandments, and the bomb of our death is defused; and just as one wrong wire cut exploded
the bomb, break just one Commandment, and death comes, as Paul writes, the wages of breaking the law is death. One way people understand how to fulfil the law s demands is to keep it in the same way we keep human laws; we will call this way the blue wire. The other way to fulfil the law s demands is to keep it the way God expects, we will call this way the red wire. The blue righteousness is fulfilled by works, even though our heart is not in it. We keep the 10 Commandments by doing what s demanded; don t murder, don t steal, etc. in the same way as we would keep any human law, like, don t speed, don t litter. Human laws are kept simply by doing them outwardly, and we keep them by compulsion; for fear of punishment, or for love of reward. We think it is good enough for God to keep the 10 Commandments outwardly, even though our heart is not in it, and we don t want to keep them; righteousness that will be pleasing to God, is simply doing the law, but doing it under compulsion. The red righteousness, recognises that God does not judge or reward according to the outward keeping of the law, but by the motivation of our heart. The fulfilment of the 10 Commandments is not satisfied by just keeping the Commandments outwardly, but by keeping it perfectly in our heart. Not stealing doesn t mean, You shall not steal, has been kept! Red wire righteousness knows God looks to the heart and not to the doing. What point is there in not stealing, if I am a thief at heart, and would gladly be one outwardly if there were not for punishment or rewards? Paul asks this in Romans 2, You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, don t you steal? Red wire righteousness is complete and total pleasure, willingness and love for the law from the heart. Blue wire righteousness, is as the world understands about keeping laws, by outwardly doing them without heart.
The timer is ticking, we must be righteous, Jesus said in Matthew 5:48, Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Which righteousness will set the bomb off, which one will defuse it? Which colour are you going to cut? The blue or the red? Keep the law perfectly outwardly? Or keep the law perfectly inwardly? If I were to cut the blue wire of outward righteousness, I know I can t keep every commandment perfectly, and so the bomb of death would kill me. And because God demands I keep the law with my heart, I can t cut the red wire, because my heart doesn t perfectly love the law, but keeps it only under compulsion by fear or reward. Even if I try, God will label me a liar and hypocrite; which he does in Psalm 116:11, everyone is a liar, and Jesus says in Matthew 23:25 you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Therefore, I am doomed, I can t cut any wires, I can t achieve either righteousness in the way expected by God, and so Paul writes in Romans 3:20, Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. What we need is a bomb disposal expert. Someone who can defuse the destruction we are heading for. What we need is someone to give us the red wire righteousness of God, without us doing a thing. Christ Jesus gives you this righteousness before God, through faith in his blood shed on the cross. The wire is red, because it reminds us of the blood of Jesus, and it is the righteousness of God, given to you by grace through faith in Jesus. Isaiah foretold it in chapter 53:5, He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. St Paul proclaims it in verse 23, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus offers it to you, recorded in John 14:12, Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing,
and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. By the grace of God given to you in baptism, God has credited to you the fulfilment of the law. By faith in Christ, therefore, Christ s righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours; he, himself becomes ours, as St Paul said, Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. This is the good news right here; you have the same heart of Christ, you have the same righteousness of Christ, you are doing even greater things, because he has poured his life into you by the power of the Holy Spirit. Faith cuts the red wire that stops the clock and disarms the bomb. The demands of the law are totally kept, not by your works, not your heart felt intentions, but by faith in Christ, and the grace given to you in baptism. The pressure is off, the tension, terror and stress of cutting the wire of righteousness, by our own efforts is over, it s been cut by faith in Christ, the clock as stoped. Therefore, since you are no longer under compulsion, no longer under the law, you live under grace. Faith in Christ is another way of saying you fulfil the law with pleasure and love, without compulsion, because all you do, you do in Christ by faith. St Paul says, For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. And again, But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. Luther encourages us, Faith is a living, daring confidence in God s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God s grace makes us glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures. In other words, faith gives you freedom from the compulsion of the law, to live well and keep the law. In the words of Matt Redman s song 10,000
reasons, For all Your goodness I will keep on singing. Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find. Bless the Lord, O my soul. O my soul.