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Good vs Righteousness

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Good vs Righteousness

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Good vs Righteousness

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We should not be satisfied with just being humanly good. We should want to strive for God's righteousness.

Transcript

 

Sermon presented by Randy Stiver on June 21, 2014 in the Cincinnati East, Ohio congregation.

 

Those of us who are a little bit older will remember "Good, better, best; never let it rest till your good is better and your better best." And if you say it really fast, it sounds even better [spoken rapidly] "Good, better, best; never let it rest till your good is better and your better best." But it brings up an interesting question. Is good what we're after? Being good is good. You know, just by using the words, you recognize that; but is that what we are after? Or are we after something better than good? Maybe even better than best, as a human would be.

The title of the sermon will give you a clue as to where we are headed. It is simply called, "Good vs. Righteousness." So let's go back to the beginning and let's analyze where good came into the picture and what it is that God wants us to do. So we'll go, as we need to go regularly in our thinking as well as periodically in our Bible study personally, back to the Garden of Eden. This is when human society was founded. This is when it all began, with Adam and Eve and the creation sequence that God set in motion, all aspects of it; but we want to notice particularly today the shrubbery, the landscaping of the Garden of Eden. And, in fact, that's what we will look at. It starts in Genesis 2:8.

Genesis 2:8-9 –  The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

Now, I love trees; and I haven't seen a tree—like Will Rogers, the old cowboy philosopher from Oklahoma, used to say that he never met a man that he didn't like—I've never met a tree I didn't like the looks of, at least. Not all of the trees are good for food, especially those wrapped with a lot of poison ivy and poison oak. That's not the tree's fault; it's the vine. But not all are for food. Some trees aren't for eating.

Most trees, you will find, are actually medicinal.I read an interesting magazine called Primitive Archer, and there is a column every month; and I've read it for a few years, so I've read quite a few different items in it. It's written by a man who studies the medicinal qualities of wild plants. That includes shrubs as well as trees. Remarkably, where we are here in southern Ohio—and the bulk of the state, quite frankly, and Kentucky as well—there are all kinds of trees that are not only producers of food items, but they also have medicinal qualities. One of the ones that surprised me the most was white pine. That's the pine tree around here. It has some remarkably good medicinal qualities from the root paste and from the root bark shavings. You can make tea out of the needles. There's a special way you have to do it for it to be good, but it's amazing how even just a pine tree is not just boards waiting to be cut. It has other things to offer.

Of course, we have pawpaws and buckeyes. Are they good for anything? Not the real ones. I've always heard that buckeyes are just worthless nuts. I think that some buckeyes are not worthless nuts; and we are part of them, meaning the people of Ohio.

But trees have various qualities, so these were two of the trees that were going to be planted in the garden.

Genesis 2:9 (continuing) – And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The implication is that they were both quite beautiful trees. That's an important point, as we are going to see. Eve was taken in by the beauty of the tree. But, as I said, most trees are beautiful if you just look at them and give them a chance to be handsome, in that sense. So here we have two trees that are specific plantings that God put in the garden of Eden. Now let's go back down a little ways to v. 15.

V. 15-17  Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. The phrase means, "to look narrowly to and to hedge about." And we need to do that if we have land, especially the area where we live...there's one thing to have wild land where it grows on its own in the forest and such, or in the pasture; but that which is our farming ground and gardening ground and where we live directly, [we are] to tend and keep it so it looks proper, so that it looks beautiful and is a reflection of our character. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

There was the great warning: "Don't eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, all the other trees you can eat from," that were in the garden of Eden. And that would include the tree of life. Adam and Eve never did eat from that, unfortunately. As we know, the rest of the story is in Genesis 3:1.

Genesis 3:1  – Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

The talking snake. It's interesting, and I pointed this out last night. We had Vertical Thought Bible class right here last night, and I think it was an interesting class that analyzed some valuable things. We analyzed a wise saying, "Prudence, the better part of valor." And the word that is translated "prudence" back in Proverbs—especially Proverbs 1, the word "prudence"shows up there—is the same word as "cunning" here or "subtle" in the King James...or "sub-tle," for those people who don't like to leave "b's" unsounded. It's that same word, and it has two applications. "Cunning" or "prudent" can be good or it can be bad.

The devil, who was masquerading as the snake, taking the form of a snake, his cunning was a bad cunning. It was a very calculating, very analytical, just a dangerous mind altogether. "Prudence," on the other hand, can be very analytical and calculating in a good way, which is what we want so that we don't walk around, you know, like gullible geese and not thinking our way through life. Prudence means we should think! So, I think you might have, had you tuned in, you might have enjoyed that [discussion].

We didn't have that many. Our usual audience of Vertical Thought is teens and young adults, and most of those are at camp right now, or a whole lot of them are. But we did have our regulars. We had five log-ins from Australia, a total of 26 links or online viewing, which, if you add in estimating maybe 2 to 4 that are watching at each of those places, then we had close to 100, plus the few that we had here last night. It was quite good. We always enjoy the fact that at a Vertical Thought Bible class we have the Australians with us. In Eastern Australia, it's 10 o'clock in the morning. And so, when they have afternoon services, the young adults and sometimes the teens will rendezvous at one of the pastor's homes or in somebody's home in the congregation and they watch Vertical Thought, the Bible class, and discuss it a little while. Then they go to services. We had no idea when we set it up for an 8 o'clock start here that we were getting an optimum time, midmorning, clear on the other side of the world on Sabbath mornings, so it works out really well. Well, it was a good lesson, all the same, in analyzing the word "cunning" or "prudence."

Genesis 3:1-5  – Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" And the woman gave him the, you know, the spiel, the extended religious answer..."We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'" And I just read that and I wonder, "Eve, were you thinking about what you just said?" The serpent follows up. Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. Why would you think that? For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Now we have read over that a lot of times, but did you just notice that we would know good—and evil—but we would know GOOD! Knowing good is good, right? Well, is it enough, though? That's the problem. Knowing what good is, is definitely a benefit; but is it enough?

Genesis 3:6-7 – She also saw that it was a tree that was desirable to make one wise. She saw that the tree was good for food... Now it's a beautiful tree, but how can you just look at the tree without a guidebook to know that it's good for food? You can tell that it is pleasant to the eyes because most all trees are, and a tree desirable to make one wise. So she had started believing, started accepting him [the serpent], so she wanted to do good, so that was a good thing to eat this because then she would know what good was. She hadn't thought this through. And neither had Adam. He was standing there the whole time, and the interesting thing about that, when you read it—it's, I believe, in 2 Timothy 2:14—Adam was not deceived. Eve actually was deceived. Adam wasn't. He saw through the whole argument; and he stood there and let her eat the fruit of the tree and then he ate of it, too. Then you can ask the question, so who was more at fault? It was a failure of mankind, generally, is what it was.

Now, a tree that is desirable to make one wise...and you look at all the good. She starts thinking, "Well, that's good. It's pretty. It's a pretty tree. So pretty is good. Knowing good is good," and she analyzes all the things that would be called nominally good. Then we find out the result in Genesis 3:22, near the end of the chapter here.

Genesis 3:22-23  – Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"  —  therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.

"He has become like one of Us, to know good and evil." Man knew good. And we could ask, "So what's wrong with knowing good?" Well, good is good; but is good enough? Let's go and ask this question or follow this line of reasoning through with a discussion or conversation that Christ had. It's in Matthew 19. Very interesting. This conversation was with one of our young adults, I guess we could call him. I don't know if he eventually came into the church or not. I guess we can't really know that yet, but he was a young man. From Mark and from Luke, when we put them together with the account in Matthew—they all three write about this incident—he was a wealthy young man. And not only that, he was a responsible young man in the sense that he was a ruler, probably born into a family of community rulers or leaders. He is called a young ruler in one of the accounts. In Matthew he isn't, but in the other two that is talked about.

Here comes the discussion. Good vs. righteousness. See if you can figure out what this young man wanted.

Matthew 19:16-17  –  Now behold, one came and said to Him, "Good Teacher, Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" So Christ said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments."

Now we will back up before we use that last sentence and jump over to the response. "Why do you call Me good? There is none good but God." Now the good there is a good that we say transcends our normal thinking of good; and it is a reference to righteousness, because God is righteous. And He's good, and that good is the ultimate good. What we are talking about in our equation, good vs. righteousness, is regular good. You know, "Good, better, best; never let it rest till your good is better and your better best." But if you do let it rest, it's just regular good. A lot of people are willing to just accept regular good in their life. And that's probably better than accepting bad in their life, and evil; but is it good enough for us in God's church?

By the way, you will note that when Christ asks the question or makes the comment, "There is none good but One and that is God," He is identifying His deity, that He, in fact, is the Son of God. I read that and I think, "OK, He's just testing this young guy to see how aware he is." And at the moment, the fellow is acting a little bit like a bobble head. You know, you've seen those little bobble head dolls that go back and forth like that. They look alive, sort of, but there's not a lot of thought going on here. But he does want eternal life, so I guess that's a start. We'll work with that. So He said:

V. 17 (continuing) – "But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." And then the bobble head response, "Which ones?"
He's Jewish. He lives in the land of Israel. He lives at the time of Christ when the temple was fully operational down in Jerusalem. And there were significant numbers of Jews that would go there three times a year, and sometimes at other times. The Sabbath was routinely kept. The country shut down on the Sabbath. Not only did he live then, but he was a young man of responsibility and means. He should have had with that, then, an education which would have tuned him to the cultural circumstances, plus spiritual circumstances, of his country. And he says, "Which ones"? Which commands??? This is like the "duh" answer for the Jewish community in Israel at that time. When you talk about the commandments, you don't say "Which ones?" Everybody knows! It's the "Ten" in all of their ramifications in the Old Testament.

Christ was very patient.

V. 18-22 (continuing) –  "...‘You shall not murder,' ‘You shall not commit adultery,' ‘You shall not steal,' ‘You shall not bear false witness,' ‘Honor your father and your mother,' and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" This is the second half of the Ten Commandments. The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?" "Oh! Those! Yeah, I do those all the time. Always have. So what else do I need to do to get this eternal life business?" Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." Christ probably knew him or knew his reputation. He knew exactly what he needed to say. "If you want to be good, then continue on keeping them as you think you've been keeping them. But if you want to go further and go past good to righteousness, then, in your case, you need to do some sacrifice here. Share your wealth with others who are in desperate need, and that will bring great treasures for you in God's Kingdom. That will be registered in heaven with God the Father." But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

You can't say that he was a delinquent. He was a good young man—a little self-centered, but he was a good young man. Not a very deep thinker sometimes; but still, he would be classified as a good citizen. He was happy to be good; he was not ready to be righteous. Good vs. righteous—which is it going to be?

Now, while we are in the ministry of Christ and His life, there was a time when Christ Himself was confronted with this; and the drama of this next setting is quite phenomenal. The account, I think, is in Luke 4. No, we're going to use the Matthew 4 account. It doesn't matter—they're both the same or virtually the same. You get a little added nuance with Luke.

This is the time of the temptation of Christ. We will prelude it while you are sitting there idling in chapter 4 with a scene from a film. You're not going to watch it. I'm just going to tell you a couple of the lines. You can imagine it. I work with the theater of the mind. I like that. It's more powerful than the theater of the theater. But it was a Sandra Bullock film called Miss Congeniality. She plays this sort of tomboyish female FBI agent and then they need her to be a beauty pageant contestant because there is a murder plot that they are trying to get the inside story on. That's what the whole plot line is about. So she, then, has to go through...the last thing that her character was impressed by was beauty queens. She thought they were all shallow Sals and was just unimpressed in every way. So finally she gets all "duded up," so to speak, and she does her talent contest and does well in that. Of course, she is being pushed through anyway because they want her right with the finalists to try to find out what this plot is about and maybe circumvent it. So they get to the interview. You know how they always have an interview in a beauty contest. They ask them a question, and so the question from the host is, "What is the one most important thing our society needs?" And so, she comes back, her character does, and says, "Well, that would be..." Remember, she's an FBI agent masquerading as a beauty queen. "Well, that would be harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan." And the audience gasps. That's not what they want to hear from beauty queens. And she notices that she has broken character, and so she says, "And world peace." And the audience goes, "Ah." Then they clap wildly. They want world peace.

We lived in Eugene, Oregon, for a lot of years; and in the 1960s, that was one of the main homes of the hippie movement. In between Seattle and San Francisco, that was the hotbed, the University of Oregon. When we lived there, the place was crawling with old Volvos. I don't know why, but in the late 90s and the 2000s, old Volvos—not new ones, that's way too bourgeois—but the old ones were the wheels of choice for the world's peacenik population, and there were a bunch of them there. And almost all of them had the same bumper sticker on the back of their Volvo and sometimes on the front and occasionally covering a dent in the fender. It said, "visualize world peace," as if you just think about it, it will happen, especially if we hum and hold our fingers just so.

And then there were the sarcastic cynics—I don't know if they were called cynics but they were insightfully cynical. They came up with their own version of the bumper sticker, which said, "visualize whirled peas." Now just imagine a blender sitting on the counter. You go to the fridge and open the freezer. Ah, the peas! You get a package of frozen peas out and you tear the top open and dump the peas in the blender and push the button and, vroom, you have "whirled peas," just like that. That's better than everybody humming while they're driving and not having their hands on the wheel. It's just crazy.

World peace—that was the "cause célèbre." Everybody had to want world peace. We want world peace! I'll agree with that. Many consider Jesus Christ to be the biggest advocate of world peace, at any cost. Many do. That's what they think He wants—at any cost. But, ironically, there was a time in His life and ministry that Jesus Christ specifically rejected world peace—and biscuits and gravy. Well, I don't know about the gravy, but let's go back and read this in chapter 4.

Matthew 4:1-3  – Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights...He's coming out of a fast...He was hungry. That's for sure! Now when the tempter came to Him, and the tempter, of course, is the devil, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."

That's where you get the biscuits. Christ could have commanded the stones—there were some stones lying around—to become the best bread you can imagine. Not the white fluffy ones that nutritionally if you just take the packets of sugar and rip about five or six of those open and dump them on your spoon, one at a time, and just eat them, that's the same as the biscuits you're eating, with the white flour. It turns to sugar in the blood stream, bingo-bango, just like that. Well, it might be slower than bingo-bango, but you get the idea. That wouldn't be the kind. These would be really healthful ones that have a nuance of fragrance as they roast and are rich and steaming. He'd probably have some butter with it if He didn't have gravy. Around here, it was probably gravy and it would have been clean gravy, too, even though there were rocks on the ground. There would have been no pork in it, so it would have been fine. He could have eaten it. But Christ resisted this. He was being tempted. You know, "If You are really the Son of God, if You are who You say You are," the devil is saying to Him, "then turn these rocks into the best bread You can imagine." He [Christ] was really hungry, but Christ was not that hungry.

Matthew 4:4-9 – But He answered and said, "It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'" Christ quoted scripture right back at him. Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written," and then the devil quotes scripture: "‘He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" You have to know your scriptures when you are dealing with this adversary. Again, the devil took Him...and now we come to the pièce de résistance...the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me. I will give You the command of all these nations."

And you might think, why would He want that? Why would Jesus want to have all the nations? World peace! Satan was ready to give up direct control of the nations and give it to Christ if He would worship him. You have to think this one through. If He took over, Christ would teach the right way; and there would be world peace from then on. However, there would be no resurrection from the dead because there would be no savior. There would be no Kingdom of God. There would be just one generation after the other of human beings who were born, lived peaceably, died peaceably, fed the worms (decomposed), and some more were born and lived peaceably and died peaceably, ad infinitum. But no Kingdom of God. That's what the devil wanted. And Christ rejected world peace.

Matthew 4:10 – Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"

And the devil left Him because he had to at that point.

Christ was not going to let the plan of God, which is the salvation of all mankind, be given away for something that was merely good. What Christ wanted was righteousness—righteousness that can only be attained in the quest for the Kingdom of God. Good wasn't good enough. Christ rejected good in order to have righteousness. When I say good, I mean good in the common sense of the way the world looks at it.

There are two examples of King Saul...well, Saul to Paul, there were two Sauls, in one sense. Let's go back to 1 Samuel 15 as we think about this—good vs. righteousness. And I think maybe the temptation instances really are strong as the apex; these others add to it a little bit. Let's notice this story. Because if you're going to have righteousness, you have to have obedience as well. Obedience to God's law, which is what the young man claimed, to be obedient. He didn't really comprehend fully the depth of God's law. I think we can see that.

1 Samuel 15:1-3   Samuel also said to Saul, "The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people, over Israel. Now therefore, heed the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, this is what Samuel told Saul: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them.'"

It goes on to specify, "You will extinguish everything and everybody there." That was Saul's marching order from God. It's not a marching order you take from anybody else, except directly from what God Himself has said because it is God's judgment that was to be executed there. And so, what did Saul do? Well, in v. 7:

V. 7-9  – And Saul attacked the Amalekites, from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good...they spared all that was good. They wanted the good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed. They don't want that. So then the drama unfolds because Samuel comes.

V. 10-11   Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, "I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments." And that grieved Samuel. Samuel had such high hopes for Saul. Samuel was a great prophet and a powerful judge and a father figure to Saul. And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night. But God insisted, "You've got to go talk to him." So off he went.

V. 13-16  – Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, "Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord." But Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? If you did everything you were supposed to do, then how come I hear livestock?" And Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites..." (he blamed it on the people) "...for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God...that's what we're going to do with it...and the rest we have utterly destroyed." Then Samuel said to Saul, "Be quiet! And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night," which he proceeded to do. And Saul defended his goodness, but Saul was unwilling to seek righteousness. He disobeyed. One must obey and follow God's commands, but he refused to do that.

The last bit that we need to read here is in v. 22-23.

1 Samuel 15:22-23 – Then Samuel said: "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion, which Saul was guilty of, is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king."

Saul wanted to be good, but he didn't want to be obedient, which is what leads to righteousness. Good vs. righteousness—he wanted good. He wanted to be thought of as good, but he didn't want to do good. He didn't want to obey. God wants us to obey Him, so we need to learn the lesson from Saul and what Samuel had to do, the bitter medicine that Samuel had to deliver in the message.

Now let's look at another Saul in Romans 3, go from one testament to the other. We do know that there are two Sauls in the Bible. Saul was the Hebrew name for the apostle Paul. Paul was his Greek name; Saul was his Hebrew name, which in the first century was pretty common among the Jews of the dispersion. They would have a Hebrew name for the Jewish community and attending synagogue services and so on; but when they were doing business, they usually went by the Greek name. And so this Saul was Paul and Paul was Saul. We want to begin in Romans 3:9. In one sense, what Paul is saying is what Samuel told Saul.

Romans 3:9-12  – What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. The point is, Greeks being—not just the Greeks as specified here but all non-Israelites, which would be Gentiles. Gentiles, Israelites. Jews are part of the Israelites. Those are the only kinds of people there are in the world—Israelites and Gentiles. For Jews today, the Gentiles are those who are non-Jewish rather than non-Israelite. They are not aware of their cousins all that well....they are all under sin. As it is written, and now Paul continues by citing various places in the Old Testament: There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.

So we find that they don't do good. That's from Psalm 14 and Psalm 53. The Psalm uses the word "good" as "righteousness." Man does not want to be righteous; he just wants to be humanly good. Spiritual good is righteousness, but human good is...it's better than human bad, but it's not God's righteousness.

Let's go to Romans 5:6, while we're in Romans, because this discussion continues in a very important way.

Romans 5:6-7  – For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly, when it was time for Him to do so. Then there is this observation I have often marveled at. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

It reminds me of the Mexican Revolution and probably some other revolutions, too, but the Mexican Revolution in particular, which took place from approximately 1910 to 1920. That was when Pancho Villa was one of the leaders of, I believe it was, five factions in Mexico. They were all fighting a revolution, and the Federales were sort of the ones that were defending what had been Mexico, so I guess the others were fighting with the Federales, the federal troops of Mexico; but the others were also fighting each other. They were all vying for power. You know, that's going to be a terrible revolution when you have five groups fighting for the same thing, but they are fighting all of the other groups for the same thing. The only thing similar to that was back in Yugoslavia during World War II where you had Croats fighting Serbs, fighting Bosnians, the Muslims, fighting the Nazis; but from the Croats and Serbs there were also Communists. They were all fighting each other, except the Croats and Serbs and Bosnians weren't fighting each other. They were fighting the other two. It was a nasty war then, too; and it ended up with millions of casualties in Yugoslavia alone, several million.

But in Mexico it was similar. Pancho Villa, though, was sort of a cowboy general in that sense. There were a lot of caballeros, that would be Mexican cowboys, small landowners basically, who looked to him. They identified with Pancho Villa. He was probably not that much better than most generals, and probably better than some, though. They considered him a good man. And they died for him, by the thousands. You see, that was at the time when machine guns, fully automatic, could fire probably 600 rounds a minute; and they were fighting with six shooters and riding horses. And they were charging the machine guns as cavalry, and they had barbed wire barricades to go over or through, or try to, which they couldn't. And Pancho Villa, it didn't register in his mind—and this happens at certain times in history—when the technology changes, the generals fall behind. Thousands of these caballero soldiers were gunned down charging machine guns through the barbed wire. Thousands! And then they would fight another battle, and they would lose another six, seven, eight, or ten thousand more. And then another. They didn't have that many. But they considered Pancho Villa to be a good man, and they were willing to die for him. I guess you have to admire that. They loved their country; they thought they were doing something that would help it. So perhaps for a good man, some would even dare to die. And indeed they have. But for a righteous man? Who was ready to die for Christ? They all ran away, even the twelve.

Romans 5:8-11  – But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You see, human good wasn't good enough for Jesus Christ. Righteousness was what He was after. Good vs. righteousness. Christ chose righteousness. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled, because Christ died while we were still sinners...we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

We have received the path to true righteousness. That is our calling. That's what our conversion is all about. We have consciously chosen at conversion time, at baptism, that we are not satisfied with just being humanly good. We want to strive for righteousness. Good vs. righteousness.

Now we might think, what is it that we need to focus on to choose righteousness? Well, let's consider some things that apply to various age groups in the church and to all of us.

Friendships

Is it always worldly friends and seldom spiritual brethren? Whom do we find it comfortable to be with? "Birds of a feather flock together," is the old saying. It's a true saying, too. I was out this morning, and I could see that the birds that had the same kind of feathers and the same color feathers, they kind of hung around. They flocked together for sure. Why? I don't know. They get along. They don't get along with the other ones.

The other day I saw a boat-tailed grackle flying hard—it was like a dogfight in the air, right through the backyard. It didn't last but a few seconds, but it was pretty dramatic. He was on the tail of a robin. And that robin was doing his best to get out from under that blackbird. And they did all the maneuvers that they used to do in World War I with their bi-planes. Of course, my wife likes to call them the dual wingers, which gives them marvelous maneuverability and lift. And he was pulling every maneuver he could, and that boat-tail, which I didn't think boat-tail grackles...those are the ones with the big long tail that kind of flares at the end so it looks like a boat of a tail—that's why they're called boat-tail grackles. It's just a blackbird. But he was chasing that robin away from what he considered his territory. So they didn't get along.

And guess what came flying when they heard the screeching? Three more boat-tails landed in the branches right above where both had landed. After that maneuver, they ran out of breath; and they both landed on branches. The robin landed on the other side of the tree, and the boat-tail grackle stood there and chewed him out, and his friends came and joined in. They got along, but they didn't get along with the robin. So birds of a feather flock together.

Are we more comfortable with friends who are not living life right than we are with those who have chosen to live life right? Now it's not wrong to have friends in society and relatives and such that are friends. It's not wrong at all. But there are bad friends to have. That's what I'm talking about—the bad friends that influence you in a bad way.

Dating and marriage and conduct when dating and in selection of one's mate

The scale of good in society is sliding rapidly downhill. Those in that category in the church need to choose righteousness over good.

Dress and conduct

There are good fashions by today's standards that are far from righteous. They are just not as horrendous as certain other ones. Modesty for both women and men is a vital issue. However, don't go to the opposite extreme of self-righteousness. That falls back into the good territory. That was the Pharisees' mistake.

Some of the other areas to think about:

Entertainment, music, and dance

The scale of good is sliding downward all the time, further and further. So you have to beware. When somebody says, "Well, it was a good movie," and you go and it's got full frontal nudity, completely gratuitous awful graphic violence; but compared to some other movies, I suppose it was good. No! Raise the standards. Again, don't go to the opposite extreme; but raise your standards. Analyze what is called good and see whether it is or not.

Politics

We already automatically in the church, because of our bias toward the existence of God and the Bible and everything, we can forget liberal; but sometimes we can fall into the trap of thinking, "Well, conservative is good, isn't it?" No.

John 18:36, you've got to go back and read that verse again and again and again. Jesus said,

John 18:36 – "My Kingdom is not of this world. If My Kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But My Kingdom is not from here."

Good vs. righteousness. That doesn't mean that we don't mourn the state of our country; and, frankly, we have brethren in other countries doing the same thing. We should be. Isaiah did; Jeremiah did; Ezekiel did; but we don't bank on politics solving the world's problems. They can't. The world isn't even good, let alone righteous.

Religion

Don't all religions lead to God? Aren't there lots of good people out there? Yes, there are good people out there; but they have not yet been called to righteousness. They will be called in due course, whether now in this age, through our preaching, or in the millennium, if they survive the horrendous times to come; and if not then, in the Great White Throne Judgment, they will be called. They will have a chance to act. They will be able to, in the day that they are called, like we are doing it in the day that we are called to God's truth, they will be able to choose righteousness over merely good. But just because they are good in the human good sense doesn't mean that they are converted. There is the factor of obedience. Remember Saul? In many cases they don't even know that they need to obey. They are more in the young man's circumstance that Christ dealt with, that seem to have glossed over major things; but that's because their eyes aren't open to what God is calling them to do.

However, we have to give them certain credit. Let's look at that credit. It's in Luke 16:8, and this is a good one to think about. It makes you feel a little bit ashamed. This is the parable of the unjust steward. His boss got upset with him and was going to fire him, so he ran off. Since he was the steward, he managed the land owner's accounts, so he went to all the debtors and he could discount their debt. He hadn't been fired yet, but it was coming; and so he went and said, "What does it say that you owe?" He says, "I owe you 50 talents." And he says, "Well, cut that down to 30 talents," or whatever it was; and he systematically did that. That way, they liked him, because he figured he was going to need some friends pretty soon. And he was within his rights to be able to cut the debt load down. That was within his call for his job description. So finally his master found out what he did. He was kind of a fair-minded guy, and he complimented him.
Luke 16:8 – "So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly," prudently, cunningly, in a sense. "For the sons of this world..." Now, this last sentence is a comment by Christ Himself, an analysis of these things. "For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light."

Who are the sons of light? Look around. They're here. You wore some of their shoes to church this morning. We are the sons of light; and sometimes those in our age, the traditional Christians, are more diligent and zealous for what they understand, which is limited...that's where they're stuck. The level that they have is what we would call the good, without fully comprehending righteousness. And yet, sometimes they are more zealous and more energetic about what they believe than we are. Because sometimes we find ourselves sliding backwards, and we're just happy to be good. Righteous is a lot of work! A lot of effort! We don't want to settle for that [just "good"].

Business

How about in business? Do we settle for just a good job on the job? Or should we have the job performance that is befitting someone who strives for righteousness?

Worship of God

How about in our personal worship of God? Do we give God a lick and a promise of prayer and Bible study and call it good? Or do we carefully pray every day and get the Bible out and study through it and re-read Genesis, the garden of Eden incident, or any other particular thing and then think about it? That's the other thing about Bible study, of course, is you can read it, and that's good; that's Bible reading. But then you stop to think about, which is called meditate on it, and analyze it and put it into practice.

Notice in Psalm 14. This is our last passage to go to here in the sermon. I landed in Proverbs 14 and I almost started reading that, but that would be like accepting good vs. righteousness because it was the wrong passage.

Psalm 14:1-5  –The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." All right, we recognize that. We don't want to be that, and we don't believe that we are that. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. Now, Paul quoted that line back in Romans 3. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. Are there any? They have all turned aside...even the good Christians, not necessarily by their own fault. They inherited the system of false doctrine. That came way down from back centuries ago. They inherited it, but they did inherit it...to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one. Again, Paul quoted that. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call on the Lord? There they are, referring to "My people," There they are in great fear, for God is with the generation of the righteous.

God is with the generation of the righteous. We are the Church of God, United Church of God, a part of the greater Church of God as we understand it in our age. We know our lineage going back through time. We identify those people in history based on what they believed and how they lived, when we can find them. It is not a constantly clear path, but it is enough of a trace that we can track from ourselves back to the time of Christ. We want to be and to continue to be with the generation of the righteous. We choose righteousness over good in God's church.

Many years ago, Ambassador College had a motto, and it wasn't world peace. That was a good motto, but it wasn't world peace. Although we yearn for world peace and the Kingdom of God because that is true peace rather than the one Satan was offering Christ, Ambassador's motto was simply this: Recapture true values.

The world has lost the truth and the values of truth. Our goal at Ambassador College was to teach the truth. That is the goal of Ambassador Bible Center, of course, as well. It is the goal of the church, to teach the truth, and to analyze how the truth affects all aspects of our lives. What are the true values in every aspect of life? That's what we seek. That's our motto. Recapture true values was clearly understood in the church in those days as another way of saying seek righteousness as in Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. That's Matthew 6:33.

Recapture true values was just another way of stating that same principle. Human good for God's people isn't good enough. We need to renew our desire, brethren, and our effort, to seek righteousness.

Good, better, best; never let it rest till your good is better and your better righteousness.