Overall Questions: What is righteousness? How do we get this essential characteristic?
Memory Text: Matthew 5:6 Holman “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled.”
Sunday – The Necessity of Righteousness
Romans 3:28 NRSV “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.”
Psalm 11:7 NRSV “For the LORD is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.”
Proverbs 15:9 Contemporary English Version “The LORD is disgusted with all who do wrong, but he loves everyone who does right.”
1 Peter 2:24 Third Millennium Bible “who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed”
Romans 8:4 New Century Version “He did this so that we could be the kind of people the law correctly wants us to be. Now we do not live following our sinful selves, but we live following the Spirit.”
Romans 8:4 COMMENTARY FAMILY BIBLE NOTES The proper evidence of being interested in Christ, and entitled to the blessings of his salvation, is a disposition to regard the things which the Holy Spirit has revealed, and to follow his directions.
Matthew 6:33 New American Bible “But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.”
1 John 2:29 CEV “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.”
Monday – Do-It-Yourself Righteousness
Romans 10:3 Holman “Because they disregarded the righteousness from God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness.”
Romans 10:3 COMMENTARY BY ALBERT BARNES Endeavouring to confirm or make valid their own righteousness; to render it such as to constitute a ground of justification before God; or to make good their own claims to eternal life by their merits. This stands opposed to the justification by grace, or to God's plan. And they must ever be opposed. This was the constant effort of the Jews; and in this they supposed they had succeeded.
Matthew 5:20 Holman “For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 23:25-28 NLT “25 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! 26 You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too. 27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. 28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Tuesday – Christ Our Righteousness
Romans 5:17-19 NRSV “17 If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19 For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”
Galatians 3:6 20th Century NT “It is just as it was with Abraham—’He had faith in God, and his faith was regarded by God as righteousness.’”
James 2:23 NIV “And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God’s friend.”
Wednesday – Righteousness and Obedience
1 John 2:29 NRSV “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who does right has been born of him.”
1 John 3:7 God’s Word to the Nations “Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you. Whoever does what God approves of has God’s approval as Christ has God’s approval.”
1 John 3:7 COMMENTARY BY ALBERT BARNES No matter how any one may claim that he is justified by faith; no matter how he may conform to the external duties and rites of religion; no matter how zealous he may be for orthodoxy, or for the order of the church; no matter what visions and raptures he may have, or of what peace and joy in his soul he may boast; no matter how little he may fear death, or hope for heaven--unless he is in fact a righteous man, in the proper sense of the term, he cannot be a child of God.
1 John 2:3-6 God’s Word to the Nations “3 ¶ We are sure that we know Christ if we obey his commandments. 4 The person who says, "I know him," but doesn’t obey his commandments is a liar. The truth isn’t in that person. 5 But whoever obeys what Christ says is the kind of person in whom God’s love is perfected. That’s how we know we are in Christ. 6 Those who say that they live in him must live the same way he lived.”
Thursday – The Righteous Life
1 John 5:1-3 NRSV “1 ¶ Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome,”
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James Brenneman
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