Ecclesiastes 2024

Okay. Well, we're gonna have, the reading that we're gonna be having this morning, rosy, the concrete is gonna come and read to us and after that, Rory will be will be preaching to us. Great. So we're continuing in Ecclesiastes chapter 7. And verse 15 to the end of the chapter.

In this meaningless life of mine, I have seen both of these a righteous man perishing in his righteousness and a wicked man living long in his wickedness. Do not be over righteous neither be over wise. Why destroy yourself? Do not be over wicked and do not be a fool. Why die before your time?

It is good to grasp the 1 and not let go of the other. The man who fears god will avoid all extremes. Wiston makes 1 wise man more powerful than 10 rulers in a city. There is not a righteous man on earth who does who does what is right and never sins. Do not pay attention to every word people say?

Or you may hear your servant cursing you for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others. All this, I tested by wisdom, and I said, I am determined to be wise, but this was beyond me, whatever wisdom may be, it is far off and most profound, who can discover it. So I turned in my mind to understand to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of Foley, I find more bitter than death, the woman who was a snare whose heart is a trap. And whose hands are chains. The man who pleases god will escape her, but the sinner, she will ensnare.

Look says the teacher, this is what I have discovered. Adding 1 thing to another to discover the scheme of things, while I was still searching, but not finding, I found 1 upright man among a thousand, but not 1 upright woman among them all. This only have I found god made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes. Well, good morning. My name is Rory.

Can add for those who don't know me? I'm 1 of the members of staff here. At Cornerstone. And and before we start, may I just, sort of go over again some of those notices. It would be great men.

If you could sign on to the men's breakfast, it will be an amazing opportunity to hear, from this this Matthew Roberts, who's written pride it's a very, very cultural, culturally relevant book, but very faithful, to the word of god. And so it would be well worth your time to come along to the men's breakfast. And again, if you haven't signed up for the away day, it would be really, really good if you did so. The the away day is so so brilliant, for getting to know 1 another for growing in our relationships with 1 of the, to be together as a family. I mean, there are a lot of exciting activities, but the best thing really is that we get to spend time together as a church family.

I met people for the first time properly when I went last time. So I met Simon and, and the 2 girls, I was great. I was like, I was sat next to them. I was meeting new people. It was fantastic.

I think I talked to to Roy for the first time. Properly at the away day. So it's really, really good just to get to know 1 another to eat with 1 another to do activities together. And it'll be a great, great day to be involved with. So please, sign on.

Do it sooner rather than later. And it will be a wonderful time as a church family together. Well, let's let's pray now as we come to god's word. Let's pray. Father.

We thank you so much. For the things that we've just sunk. We thank you for the reminder of who the lord Jesus Christ is. We thank you for all that we have sung of what he did and that now as a result of what he has done, we we journey on to eternal glory. And as we journey on to eternal glory, we we pray father that you will help us to have renewed vision of this glory.

We pray father that as we look at your words, you will give us a renewed vision of your lovely son, the lord Jesus Christ. And we pray father that the truths that we have just sung about We will see in your word today. Help us to fall in love with Christ all over again. And help us to long to live for him and long for his return. And so he prady sings in Jesus' name.

Man. Well, if you hear, last week, we were, considering really the first 14 verses of chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes. And you would have heard this sort of this sort of this theme of what is better in in in this world. What is good? What is gonna be better for us?

And surprisingly, maybe for for many of us, He says that death was better than life. The day of death was better than the day of birth. The day of that that the house of mourning was better than the house of of feasting. And so he's come to these conclusions, that actually it's it's better to reflect on our final destination than our our first sort of appearance in life. And and maybe as he sort of considered these things.

And as he's thought through the themes of life and death, and as he's thought through, if you look at verse 13, the crookedness of crookedness of life, and it doesn't quite make sense. And there's sort of this wrong and there's right. And and as he's considered the future and and not being able to understand what happens after this life as he's sort of thought about those things. He seems to have come across a paradox. A paradox.

And I think this paradox is 1 that we're all familiar with. Look with me at verse 15 of chapter 7. In this meaningless life of mine, I have seen both of these. The righteous perishing in their righteousness and the wicked living long in their wickedness. Have you seen or experienced that paradox before?

In other words, how is it that the righteous perish in their righteousness? How is it that the wicked live long in their wickedness. Why is it that bad things happen to good people? Why? And why is it that good things happen to bad people?

Why is it that nice guys always finish last? Why is it that we we we are familiar with this that we look in this world and we see good people that are seemingly good or we see young people and they die, and they suffer, and we think that is, that doesn't seem right. And yet, and we have phrases like, oh, he was taken, or she was taken too early, or or that person did just so much good. Why was it that they had to be taken from us? Is a tragedy.

And then on the other hand, we have those people that who are who are so clearly wicked or who are clearly so lawless and they seem to be getting away with all the the wrong things that they do. And some of them seem to live for a long time, and they, and they seem to have got a got a I mean, they've done wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong and then died and they've got away with it. And there's those who live of the suffering of others who gain wealth and riches and FAME on the backs of other people wrongly. And so why is this? What is going on here?

Why does this happen. And and and to be honest, the teacher, Solomon would have felt this even more acutely than maybe we do in our culture. Because so, because the teacher would have would have had god's law. He would have read tutor on me where it says that that that god god says to his people in his law, If if you are careful to follow my commands, if you're gonna obey me, then it will go well with you. You will prosper.

If you follow me and you obey me, you will live long in the land. So, but how how is that possible thinks thinks the teacher? He looks at the world. He sees the young dying young. He sees the righteous dying even though they they keep the law, and he sees these wicked people prospering.

It doesn't seem to it doesn't seem to add up. This paradox seems so so strange to him, so alien. And and if we think about scripture, we see examples of this, don't we? The good perish All it's actually 1 of the 1 of the first stories of the Bible. Caine and Abel.

Abel is the righteous 1. And he is killed in his righteousness. Caine, the wicked 1, kills his brother, lives long, multiplies, build a city. So I hope we've all felt this. I hope we understand and and felt this paradox and felt It doesn't doesn't seem right that we could prosper and live long and the righteous suffer and die.

So what are we to do with this? Well, here's my first point. Responding to the paradox, be an average Joe or Jay. Responding to the paradox, be an average Joe or Jay, read with me verse 15 to 18. In this meaningless life of mine, I have seen both of these.

The righteous perishing in their righteousness and the wicked living long in the wickedness. Do not be over righteous. Neither be over wise. Why destroy yourself? Do not be over wicked, but do not be a fool.

Why die before your time? It is good to grasp the 1 and not let go of the other, whoever fears god will avoid all extremes. So here he is, he's been faced with this paradox that he He he poses the question to us. How we might we try and respond to this to this paradox? How might we try and solve this?

How might we try and prolong our lives even though we seem to die in our righteousness or or prosper? And and the first 1 he comes to was in verse 16. And it's it's the it's the it's the plan of trying to be over righteous and the word actually over is like super righteous. Super wise. It's about law keeping.

It's about legalism. It it's about If I can just try and do x, y, and z, then also do all the rest of the stuff, I might be able to somehow get myself to life. I might be able to escape this paradox. And we see this all over the place, don't we? People trying to to work and work and work to justify themselves to prolong their lives.

It's everywhere. It might be in the career. I have to do, the more hours and more hours and more hours, and I take my work home, and I take my work home. I have less time for my family. I have less time for the leisure activities because I have to pour myself into my work.

And if I can just keep on working and working and gaining and gaining, I might somehow justify myself. Or in religion, if I only I if only I can do all the good things in life Whether it's given to charity or whether it's all the prayers that I can do or whether it's reading all the religious scriptures. If I can just do it all, maybe then. I will prolong. My life.

If only I can do my part to save this planet, If only I do all the right things in my sport or in my music, or in my studies, if I just do everything that I'm meant to do that the teachers tell me to do, I might prolong. I may have life, but the teacher says, don't. That's you? Don't. Don't.

Do you see that don't? Be over righteous. Neither be overwise. Don't do it. Why?

Why destroy yourself? See if this is you, You're trying to justify yourself. You're trying to get your own life. You're trying to do it on all your own back, and you work, and you work, and you burn out. And you lose everything.

See, the the the person who tries to keep all the rules and do it more than everybody else. I keep more rules than you. I'm better than you, except when they when they get it wrong, There's so much shame. There's so much guilt. There's so much embarrassment.

Pride comes before a fall, and so Then you have to ask you questions, well, have I done enough? Maybe I have to do more and I have to do more and I have to do more and I have to do more and it is exhausting. And it leads to destruction. So don't be super righteous. Oh, and don't.

Have your phone on. No. Don't be super wise. Don't try and just gain knowledge that knowledge you say to make yourself look. Better than everybody, but look at verse 17.

Do not be over wicked, and do not be a fool. Why die before your time. See, you might think okay. Well, I won't I won't bother trying to do all the righteous stuff. I won't bother then.

Trying to justify myself because obviously that doesn't prolong your life. If you just try and do a load of good things and try and keep all the laws, it it destroys you. Well, what I'll try and do is I'll go to the other end of it. The the the the the scale and I'll just try and do whatever I wanna do. And I will do what is right in my eyes, and I will chase all the things in this world, whether it's against the law or not, See, you had legalism on the 1 hand, but now we have lawlessness.

I would do whatever I wanna do. But he says, why die before your time? So you don't have to look far, do you? To see that the person of lawlessness is in great danger of death. It's 1 of the saddest things I used to work in in in East London.

And I used to work with kids that got kicked out of school, and they were doing all sorts of things that they shouldn't have been doing. But they were always threatened with the danger of death. It's so sad when you turn on the the news and you see another story about gang violence and another kid has been stabbed so young. I was watching him, Louis theroux, And he was talking about gun violence in Milwaukee. And it was like every other scene was a vigil for another young person who have been shot because they've been involved in drugs.

It's not hard to see if you go and try and break all the rules. You're in danger. And so he says, don't try and do that either. Look, they're the 2 things that people try. You either try and justify yourself by keeping a load of laws?

Or you try and justify yourself by doing it your own way, and every single person in this room We'll fall into that category at some point in their life. Are you trying to justify yourself by keeping the laws of this world? Or you're trying to make your own laws and justify yourself. The teacher says, don't do either. Don't do either.

And so he goes on in verse 18. It is good to grasp the 1 and not let go of the other. Whoever fears god will avoid all extremes. Now, he's not saying, he's not saying, look, just have a go at both. You know, put fingers in both pies.

Bit of wickedness. Bit of righteousness. Lovely. I don't know why you were swirled in pies. Sorry.

He's not saying that. He's not saying just try a little bit of both, but he's saying hold both of these truths in your hand. Hold the fact that if I try and be over righteous and I try and be legalistic, I will be destroyed. Holding the other hand just as tightly that if I try and do it my own way and I try and justify myself and make my own rules and do whatever I want to do that will to destroy you. Rather rather than those things with and with those things in your hand, sorry.

Say, actually, I'll be the average person. See that? Whoever fears god will avoid all extremes. Just be an average gel or j. Don't try and be super righteous.

Don't try and be super wicked. No. Don't try and be famous. Don't try and be infamous. Don't try and be notorious because of all the rules you keep.

Don't try and be notorious for all how bad you are. No. Fear guards and avoid them both. See, understand. I don't I don't think he's I think we remember he's under the sun still, but understand that there is a there is a god and that he is sovereign and that he is the 1 who is the god of life.

And so I just I can't justify myself. I cannot make myself have more life. He's the 1 who decides who lives and who dies. And so I must just live under him and avoid the extremes. Now why is this better?

Why is it better to be average? Well, he continues. He goes on in in verse 9. He says, where's the mix 1 wise person more powerful than 10 rulers in the city? Now, What he's not what he's trying to do here is he's trying to safeguard against wisdom.

Remember he says, don't be super wise. Now he's, and he's saying, but I'm not saying don't be wise at all. I want you to be wise, and to be wise is really good. In fact, to be wise is is better than being they're betting and having 10 rulers who are kind of super strong but to have wisdom better than than than power and strength. And and we see that later on in ecclesiastes, But he says, in wisdom, as you consider wisdom and the importance of it, and as you have wisdom to answer this question about why it's better to be average and to be ordinary, He realizes why this is the case in verse 20 to 22.

Read with me there. Indeed, there is no 1 on earth who is righteous. No 1 who does what is right and never sins. Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others. See, he's considered the person who is super righteous.

Why is it better to be to be ordinary than to be super righteous. Well, look at verse 20, there is no 1 on earth who is righteous. No 1 who does what is right, never sinned. See? And I I think the person who tries this knows it as hard as I try.

As hard as I try. I'll always get it wrong. Always. No 1 reaches perfection. No 1 is able to do perfection.

And so he he demonstrates that how do we see that people are not righteous? Well, in verse 21 to 22, he says, consider your speech She says, listen, don't listen out. I mean, isn't that a great commentary of our age, by the way, verse 21 to 22? Do you not? Do you agree?

You know, were people listening at what is he saying? What is he gonna say next? Let me see if I can catch him out in what he says. Let me trawl through his old social media post see if he said anything negative about anybody? And has he said anything racist or homophobic or transphobic or anything like that?

Oh, let me find out. But the hypocrisy of it all, because if you think about that person, and you see that they get their words wrong, and then you go, oh, actually. I've kind of got it wrong myself at times. That time that that person try to try to he was in my lane for the traffic light and then decided to try and move to the other the other lane when my light had gone green. I was cursing that driver.

I cursed them. And I was lee listening to the Bible at the time. I thought gosh, Great sanctification, Rory. On the on the on the on the sports field, and someone does something that you think was wrong and you curse them. You might not say out loud?

But in this heart, I've got a few words for you sunshine. We curse. We we examine our lips, and we realize that we are all guilty of sin, that none of us achieve righteousness, that none of us achieve perfection. This is really the argument of Romans 1 to 3. Romans 1 and 2 look at legalism and lawlessness, and then Paul comes to the conclusion in in Romans 3 in verse 9 Onwards, what shall we conclude then?

Do we have any advantage not at all, or we have already made the charge that Jews and gentiles alike are all under the power of sin? As it is written, there is no 1 righteous, not even 1. There is no 1 who understands. There is no 1 who seeks guards. All are turned away.

They have together become worthless. There is no 1 who does good, not even 1. How does Paul demonstrate that there is no 1 who is righteous, that there is no 1 who is good when he goes on. Their throats are open graves the tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.

Their mouths are full of cursing and business. Friends are lips betray our unrighteousness. Yes. I try and look like I the greatest but my my words show me up to be a sinner. In Matthew chapter 5, and verse 20, the lord Jesus says this.

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the pharisees, and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of god. You are not able. To be right enough to gain eternal life. You cannot prolong your life through your own efforts. So why is that?

Well, look at me with my second point. Researching the paradox, the reason. Researching the paradox, the reason. So he continues in verse 23. All this, I tested by wisdom.

He's just testing all the things that he's looking at. He's thinking about this paradox He's thinking about righteousness versus wickedness. And he says I am determined to be wise. He he he he is absolutely set on trying to work out why this paradox exists. What it means how it plays out.

What is the reason for it? And and did he notice the words throughout? He's determined to discover, to understand to investigate, to search, to find out, and he uses these words over and over again. He's he's like He's like a research scientist. I think we might have a couple of them in this congregation right now.

They're they're scientists looking at all the little bits and bobs trying to work out why this happens and why that happens. He's like an investigative journalist. Just trying to put all the the pieces together like a historian, what wonderful human beings they are historians history teachers. And, if you don't know, I am a history teacher, so I'm bigger myself up. Okay.

And all of those he's like a detective, like Sherlock Holmes. You know, when when you look at those those like those crime those crime things. They've got all the red dots and this Sorry. I could've lost the power of speech for some reason. All the string is all over the place, and it's like, I'm trying to work out.

What is this paradox about. But it's it's so hard from look with me in verse 24. Whatever exists is far off and a most profound who can discover it He said it's too in 1 sense, this is too hard. There's like there's missing pictures in my great graph with red pins and red strings and it's it's too deep. He says it's too deep.

It's like an ocean. The ocean is so vast. That we can't understand it. I looked it up today. Water covers 71 percent of this world.

We only know 5 percent of it. 5 percent. We don't even know our own world, and the teacher says just as the ocean is kind of too deep for me to understand as I try and get this, this paradox. And as I try and understand all of this stuff, it, it seems too deep. Yet, despite it being too deep, because I imagine there are some marine scientists who are like, I know it's a lot, but I'll give it a go.

The teacher too says, I know it's a lot. But I'll give it a I'll give it a crack. And so he does. And so he says in verse 25, so turned my mind to understand, to investigate, and to search out wisdom, and the scheme of things, and to understand the stupidity. Of wickedness and the madness of folly.

So there he is. He's gonna keep on going. He's gonna try and understand this stuff. And the first thing that he sees is the temptation of wickedness. Look with me at verse 26.

What a scary this what a scary verse this is? I find more bitter than death. What does he find more bitter than death? More sour on the tongue than the very enemy of death itself? What is it that's so sour to him?

The woman, who is a snare. Whose heart is a trap, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases god will escape her, but the sinner, she will ensnared. Do you see this picture? This is temptation and the wickedness.

Of temptation. Look at her. She is herself a snare. She's like a net waiting to catch you. Her heart is a trap.

The trapdoor's gonna come down as soon as you listen to her. Her hands themselves are chains that will wrap around you and grip you. And not let you go. She's like a Venus flytrap, isn't she? No Venus flytrap.

There they are. They they sit out wide like that. And I've got a little bit of juicy stuff for the fly. The fly comes in. He's got it.

That's this woman, and that's temptation. In Proverbs chapter 7, that talks about this adulterous woman, and you I I'd encourage you to read Proverbs 7, because it's a brilliant picture. But the conclusion of Proverbs 7 says, now then my sons listen to me, pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down.

Her slain or a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave leading down to the chambers of death. So there she it looks so attract she looks so attractive this woman. She promises so much. She says, come into my house, come in here, come and be seduced by me.

And so when the the fool, the mad fool, and the stupid wicked person goes and listens to her, and he walks in, and he thinks, Oh, what pleasures I can have from this woman, and yet in her basement is where he's gonna go and be part of the morgue, the cemetery of dead, wicked fools. There. That is tempt that is what wickedness does. That's why he probably says why die before your time. That's why he says you wanna avoid this extreme of being over wicked.

That's why he says Don't give in to the the the the the the temptations of this world. Don't give in to the the the the the sexual desires that says take a little bit of me, taste my fruit. And as soon as you've tasted it, you liked it a little bit, but now you're trapped and you're searching for that, that that that feeling again. Like the like the drug ad who who who wants that hit again and again and again don't be like that. Because it will lead you to be trapped and addicted.

And we so often find ourselves going for the temptations of this world, listening to the temptations, and we go for it, and it ensnares it, and it slaves us. You just need to look at your phone. What an absolute addictive thing that is? Many of you know, or have heard me talk about my young people Chelsea, I say, look, Lads, you've gotta revise. It's a bit hypocritical because I was a terrible reviser in school, but never mind.

I say, you've gotta revise lads. They go Well, sir, when am I gonna have the time to revise? I said, we'll get your phone out. Get on your screen time. They get the screen time out.

I said, look, look, how much hours have you spent on your phone? Oh, about 12 to 14 hours a day. Come this me. I said, okay. What is what is what is the most the thing that you're most looking at?

Is it the news? Is it history revision sites? No? TikTok. Gosh.

12 hours on TikTok. 16 hours on Snapchat, 40 hours on Instagram. Goodness me, and and it's we're not trapped and enslaved by these things, and we're giving our time to it, and there's people working at us keeping at it, and we're there. We're wasting our lives. We're wasting our lives.

It's goddess. It's trapped us. It's trapped us. It's trapped us. And it destroys us.

There's temptation of wickedness, but there seems to be an escape possible See, the 1 who pleases god seems to get away. The 1 who has a higher purpose, the 1 who has in view something greater is able to escape the temptation. It's a bit like the story of Joseph, if anyone's familiar with that. There he is. Serving potiver, and his pot of his wife is saying come to bed with me.

And he's like, I am not gonna be the fly. Who tastes that. So he legs it. He escaped because he's got a bigger view. So it's so they'rescape as possible, but there is temptation.

And I think if we're honest, we know that so often we fall into the danger of temptation. And so he keeps on searching. Look with me at verse 27. Look, says the teacher. This is what I have discovered.

Adding 1 thing to another to discover the scheme of things while I was still searching but not finding. Remember, this is an This is an unsearchable search as it was. He's really trying hard to to find out. He he's he's adding things up. He's trying to work out the sum of things.

He's got his equations and his workings out like a, a physician or a mathematician. And he's trying to see what's going on. He's trying to work out still, this righteousness and wickedness and this paradox. But he doesn't seem to be able to find much out, but he does find 1 thing. But with me at the second part of verse 20 a, I found 1 upright man among a thousand.

But not 1 upright woman among them all. Okay. Now, to our cultural sensitivities, we think gosh, what a misogynist. He's not saying. He's not saying that.

He's saying, as I look as I look amongst my peers, I find that there's no real righteous person. Among a thousand possibly 1, but really he's saying there's no 1 righteous. So I look at the men and I look at the women and there's no 1 righteous. It's the same conclusion that he came up with in verse 20. He said, look, there are people trying to be righteous, but they just can't do it.

That they seem to be falling for the wickedness of this world. So why is it that there is no 1 righteous Why is it that no 1 is right? Why can't he find an upright man? Well, look with me at verse 29. This only have I found.

God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes. So we've seen We've seen in thelesiastes that god is the sovereign guards, that he's put everything in its place. And and the teachers have sort of gone, well, what's going on with the future? And and why can't why is it such a crooked way? Why is Why has god made this world crooked?

And what's going on here? And the answer here in verse 29 is that god's created mankind to be righteous. It wasn't meant to be this way at the beginning. God, created man, Adam in the Eve, to be righteous. To people to be people who feared god, to be people who pleased god, to people who listened to him and followed his plan.

But end of verse 29, they have gone in search of many schemes. That's the problem. That's the problem. That's why none can be righteous. Ever since Adam and Eve said actually, I'm not gonna listen to your standard of good god.

I'm not gonna listen to your standard of righteousness. I'm gonna do it my way. I'm gonna take the fruits. I'm gonna decide what's right and wrong. Ever since that time, the way has been crooked.

Runt unrighteousness has reigned. And you go throughout the Bible and you just see mankind coming up with different schemes and different plans, you go, a few chapters on and you come to the story of Babel and there they are again, making their own plan. And we don't want to do with god. We're gonna make our own bricks. We're gonna make our own tower.

We're gonna make ourselves gods. You go on and you go to the judges and you go We're gonna decide what is right in our own eyes. You get people going, we're gonna try our own kings and our own kings and our own light. And we see people throughout history saying, we will decide what is right. We will decide what is right.

We will decide what is right. We will decide what is right. We will decide what is right. And so we're in a predicament here. Just as Romans 1 to 3 shows us that all the ways in which mankind try to be righteous, whether that is through keeping laws or it's through my own thing, we see in this chapter that there is nothing that we can do that can make us right with a sovereign god.

And so although we saw what might have looked like hope in this passage, in this passage itself, there is no real hope because there is none here who fear god. There is none here, who pleases god. There is none here, who follows god's plans. We all make our own plans. We all follow our own schemes.

We all do what we want to do. It's gonna be my career that I choose to do. It's gonna be my exams that I choose to do. It's gonna be my family that I want to build. It's gonna be my big perfect house that I want.

It's all about me, me, me. And so, therefore, we're not righteous. No 1 is righteous. None. None of us can prolong life.

And so there is no hope in this passage. None. Oh, actually, there might be 1. There is a glimpse. There is a springboard that I'm going to take.

Because verse 28, I found 1 upright man. Now, that might have been exaggeration. But there is 1 man. There's 1 man. And this is my third point.

Redemption from the paradox, the 1 man. There is 1 man. There is 1 upright man. There is 1 upright man who did fear god. Who said God will be at the front and center of my vision all the time who would get up early in the morning and go up a mountain and pray to that god and would live for that god.

There was 1 man, 1 upright man who pleased God all the time. So much so that when he was baptized, he said this is my son whom I am well. Thank you, pleased. There is 1 upright man who followed the plan to the detail who didn't deviate from it and didn't say my desires, even to the point where he was in gethsemane on his knees saying, this is so difficult, and he he shies away from it, but he says, not my will, but yours be done. There is 1 upright man brothers and sisters.

There is 1 upright man who in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30 is called the righteousness of God. He's the very righteousness of god. He is the law keeping, innocent 1. He is the 1 that never since. Here's the 1 whose lips were completely clean in 1 peter 1 22, it says he committed no sin.

And no deceit was found on his lips. There is 1 upright man who although was tempted to the very end. Never gave in, who escaped the temptation. There is 1 outright man who was killed young as a righteous man. There is 1 upright man who in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

And verse 21, it says this god made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him, we might become the righteousness of god. The lord Jesus Christ is the 1 upright man. The lord Jesus Christ is the righteous 1. The lord Jesus Christ is the 1 who never disobeyed the laws of god who never tried to go on on his own way, but always followed the father and the father's plan and lived to please the father and lived to fear, the father, and and and he did that so that he would go to a cross. That's the incredible thing that the the innocent righteous 1 would go to a cross, and they would say, put the sin on me, put these people sin here in this room, put it on me.

I will become their sin. I will become their sin and I will I will suffer the the the wrath and the judgment of you. And in return, You can have my righteousness, brothers and sisters. You can have my right standing with a father You can have a position where you walk into the courtroom. And god, the judge stands there with a gavel.

Even though all the things you have done, even all the times that you've tried to justify yourself and to try and live your own way, Even though you've done all of those things because of our lord Jesus Christ, the gavel comes down and says innocent. Justice. Righteous. And so because of that, we can live. The paradox has been untwisted.

The crooked way has been straightened. And so in colossians chapter 1, and verse 10, it says. Go from verse 9. For this reason, since today, we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask god to fill you with the knowledge of his will, through all the wisdom and understanding that the spirit gives so that you may live a life worthy of the lord and pleasing in every way, pleasing.

Do you see that? Pleasing in every way bearing fruit in every good work growing. In the knowledge of god. In Romans 12, you can now live your life as a sacrifice pleasing to him. We can please god now.

We can we can now fear god, and we can go we've been brought to into this relationship with the father god. And so now I I'm living for him. Now he is number 1. And so I don't I don't have to try and justify myself anymore. I don't have to try and do it my own way because Christ has done it all for me, and so I can live in the fear of him.

I can please god now. I can live a life that is pleasing to him. I can escape temptation. I can now say no to temptation, Ali. When the temptation comes and says, grab me.

Grab me. Grab me. I can say no because grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness. And so now I can please god and escape the temptation. I can consider god and follow his plan.

I don't have to say it's all about my plan. I can now follow his plan that he will make me more like his glorious son, the lord Jesus Christ. And do you know what? That's ordinary. That's not great feats now.

We don't go and do incredible things. It's in the ordinary life brothers and sisters that we do that. I can please god now because I can now try and forgive you. I can please god now. Because I can now love you.

I can please god now because I can say no to the the desires of my flesh that say, spend a little more time on your phone on social media. And I can say, I actually know it. I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna I'm gonna read my bible. And as I read my Bible, in the ulnariness of life, I can not curse the driver.

It's an ordinary life. So what about you? Where are you in all of this? Maybe you're here and you sort of recognize the legalist in your life. You've trying to prove yourself.

You've tried to be super righteous. You've tried to earn life. The teacher says, Don't be super righteous. Don't be over wise. You can't do it.

Maybe you're here and you're You're you're the person who says, I'm gonna do it my way and sing that terrible Frank and Archer song. I'd maybe like it. And then and but maybe in those things, you recognize both the fact that you're not good. And as a legalist, you realize you're not good and there's shame and there's doubt and there's Have I done enough? And there is, is this really what I should be doing?

Well, look here. Stop it. Come to be 1 upright man. Come to Christ. Come to the righteousness of God.

Come and know him. Come and turn to him and ask him to be your righteousness and justify you and give you eternal life. And Christian. Hopefully you're still with me. What a case to rejoice?

And an incredible thing that Christ would be my righteousness. That despite all of my failures, that Jesus says I'll be your perfect righteousness. Let us rejoice in him. Christianians, let let's repent when we get it wrong. Let us repent when we try and go our own way again.

Let's repent when we Listen to the temptation. Let us repent when we try and work ourselves to glory again. Let us repent when we go our own way. And Christians let us live righteous lives. Let us keep the father at the front and center.

Let us keep the lord Jesus at the front and center. Let us fear him above all others. Let us seek to please him above all others, and I'll seek to follow his plan above all plans. Won't it take a minute? Pry, and then Steven will bring this to a close.

Let's pray in in light what we've what we've just heard. For I've got to be do, thank you that your word is active. We thank you that even as we sit here this morning, as we hear from you, we we can know that your web is active. We can we can see our own hearts like a like a like a like a mirror. We see your words revealing to us.

What we really are like and what's down deep inside us. And though we can easily despair when we we see we have we have failed you in many ways. We have tried to live life, tried to please you in our own strength in our own ways. Our and done what is his seemingly right, and we, turn to religious things to to justify ourselves. And odds at times as well we we go after the world and we we try to taste the fruit and go to the the path of wickedness lord we we know that this is us as well.

But lord we thank you for the lord Jesus that he has given us his righteousness and that we do not now have to face judgments of the ways that we've acted are the ways that we have tried to ignore you and justify ourselves, and the ways that we have rebelled against you and gone down the path of wickedness. We thank you for the lord jesus for all that he means and we pray as we go into this week, in this of the world. This truth will be on our hearts, and we would be loving him more for what he has done. And, living in light of it, indeed his name, amen.