“PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS”
Psalm 23:3 / Is. 30:18-22 / Matthew 7:13-27
Delivered by Rev. Don A. Wicks, PhD. at Nairn Mennonite Church, Nairn, Ontario, Canada on Sunday, January 24, 2016
In December my wife and I travelled to the 45 minutes to Port Huron, Michigan to mail a couple of parcels to our son and his family in Colorado. I found the address of the post office and checked the route Mapquest or Google Maps told us to follow. We crossed the border, took the proper exit and then questioned the directions. They said to go straight ahead, which to us seemed to lead to a ramp that would put us back on the Interstate we had just exited. There was a sign that also pointed straight ahead. But we thought the sign and the directions had to be wrong, so we turned right. That lead us through a residential area, eventually to a dead end. We returned, crossed the Interstate and that appeared incorrect, turned around and decided to follow the initial directions. Lo and behold, it took us to a bridge that crossed the Interstate and lead us exactly to where we were supposed to go. We should have trusted the directions and the sign.
Getting lost is not uncommon; we all experience it. In this case, we were lost because we failed to follow instructions. Some years ago, I drove to Dayton, Ohio for a conference, followed the directions, and found myself in a dark, lonely industrial area. That time, I was lost because the directions were wrong.
Often, when I find myself awake in the night, I try quoting scripture. That might include the 23rd Psalm. Last fall I had reason to read Psalm 23 and discovered that I was leaving out a sentence in my memory work. It was part of verse 3: “He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” That lead me to begin meditating on that phrase, and the result is this message.
The Bible has a lot to say about paths or similar words like roads, highways, ways. Today, I’d like us to listen to what God says about walking in His ways or paths.
Psalm 23 begins with a picture of a pastoral scene of green pastures and still waters. The whole Psalm seems to follow from the first sentence – “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” – then there is a list of ways God supplies our needs, reasons to be thankful to Him, among them our phrase – His leading in paths of righteousness. The sheep can’t send all their time in one pasture or at one water supply. They must move around and move safely and in the right direction.
So, too, God leads us – if we are willing to follow. Life has many potential paths. Choices have to be made about any number of things. It is not only the ‘big’ issues like education for a career, marriage, family, jobs, homes, and the like. It is also the ‘little’ things, so called, like how I am going to respond in the conversation that I’m part of; how I am to spend this time or this money today; and the like. God, as shepherd, wants to lead us in all these choice-making times and issue of life.
As evidence of God’s eagerness to direct our steps, hear these verses, many of them quite familiar:
Psalm 16:11 – a prayer: “make known to us the paths of life”
Psalm 119:105 – “Your word is a light to my path”
Prov. 4:18 – “The path of righteousness is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.”
Romans 3:17 (quoting Is. 59:8) – of the wicked it is said, “The path of peace have they not known.”
Psalm 1:6 – “The Lord knows the way of the righteous.”
I Cor. 12:31 – “I show you a more excellent way.”
Hebrews 10:19-20 – “We have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us…”
II Peter 2:2,15 refer to “the way of truth” and “the right way”
Habakkuk 3:6 – “His ways are everlasting”
In fact, the early Christians, in Acts 9:2, were known as those “belonging to the Way” – no doubt a name derived from their use of Jesus’ own words in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes unto the Father but through Me.”
A way is a manner, a path, a road, or a journey. The Christina life is sometimes referred to as a journey. Or we use words like “pilgrim” – we are pilgrims on a journey. The church we attended in Kent, Ohio some years ago adopted a mission statement that went like this: “The mission of Grace Baptist Church is to introduce others to Jesus Christ and to invite them to join us on the journey of following Him.” The last part of that statement suggests that believers are on a journey – we have not yet arrived – and we seek to follow Him in the ways He leads us.
These ways or paths, in Psalm 23, are called “paths of righteousness”. The Hebrew word for “righteousness” is also translated “just” [from Evangelical Dictionary of Theology]. It originally meant “straight” or “right”. In the OT, God is revealed as the “God of righteousness” who acts rightly in all His works. He is a judge who judges equitably. Applications and examples are given in the OT – such as these
-He does not clear the guilty, but rather punishes them
– He delivered His people form their oppressors
– He rescues the poor and delivers the oppressed from injustice
– He is the saviour. Righteousness is often linked to salvation, mercy, and lovingkindness.
– He promises to send the Messiah, a truly righteous king.
In the NT, the word used for “righteous” means to do justice, to vindicate, to justify. Mostly, the term is used in relation to Jesus as the promised Messiah and Redeemer. In contrast, Jesus spoke of false righteousness – for example, those who trust in themselves as being righteous because they keep some parts of the law. Mark 2:17, “Jesus said to them, ‘It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous [i.e., self-righteous], but sinners.’”
To be truly justified (declared righteous), one must acknowledge his or her sin and trust in God for forgiveness. God then gives us His righteousness – something we cannot earn by our own efforts. Romans 3:23-24, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified [declared righteous] as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”
Then, once who is declared righteous by faith, seeks to follow Jesus by living righteously. This is where the paths of righteousness continue. He leads us and we make the choice to follow on this journey.
Romans 6:12-13 – Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts,.. and present yourselves to God as those alive form the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
Phil. 1:11 – we are to display the “fruit of righteousness”
I Peter 2:24 – “He bore our sins in His body on the cross that we might…live to righteousness”
I John 2:29 – “everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him”
The Bible also helps us to understand these “paths of righteousness” by speaking of them as narrow, though also level, paths. John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus Christ and part of his job was to make Messiah’s paths straight or level (Isaiah 40:3; Matt. 3:3). I remember in the late-1950s and early 1960s driving with my parents from Winnipeg, Manitoba to southern Ontario, going around Lake Superior. The Trans Canada highway was in constant construction mode in those days – lowering hills, adding passing lanes, making more and longer straight stretches instead of the constant corners in that hilly section of Ontario. The highways were being make straight.
John did this in preparing people for the coming of Jesus. John proclaimed the need for repentance, the need for a lamb to be sacrificed for the sin of the hearers. This was a message about the path to righteousness.
One of the scriptures read this morning was Isaiah 30:18-22. The setting was a time in Judah’s history when the Assyrians were threatening the capital, Jerusalem. Some of the Israelites were looking to Egypt to deliver them, and God rebukes them for that. There were others, however, who were faithful and were trusting God. To these He says He will extend His grace and compassion (v.18), “for the Lord is a god of justice”. There is our word “righteousness”. For those who long for Him, God will make Himself available and their eyes will see their teachers (or Teacher) – those who instruct them in the things of God – and (v.21) “and your ears will hear a word behind you” – in this case from a source you cannot see – probably within their hearts and minds, from within – put there by God Himself – saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’
God teaches us the way of righteousness. When the Lord came on the scene, He announced that to get on the right pathway, you have to enter a narrow gate. False ways are easy; the way to life is narrow – there is only one way The way of the world and of self is broad. Many go that way. To go to and through Christ is not the popular thing to do in our secular society. False teachers present many other roads to God but they do not produce the worthiness that only Christ can produce. The rest of the passage in Matthew 7 speaks of different kinds of fruit – bad fruit from trees that should be cut down and good fruit that results in entering the kingdom of heaven. Then, there is the picture of the two houses, one built on the rock of hearing, listening, and obeying or acting upon Jesus’ words, and the other built on sand, a groundless hope that ends in disaster.
In Psalm 27:11, the writer asks this of God, “Teach me Your ways, O Lord, and lead me in a level way.”
How might God answer that request? In what ways does He lead us? How can we discover His leading?
- Search out the person and mind of God in His word.
Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
- Begin with Jesus and continue with Him.
John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
Philippians 1:20-21, “…Christ shall even now be exalted in my body…for to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
- Submit to the Spirit so that His fruit is valued and evident in your life.
Galatians 5:22-23, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control; against these things there is no law.”
Thus, other scriptures speak of the pathway of peace (Romans 3:17), love (I Cor. 12:31-13:1), truth (II Peter 2:2). These are the righteous ways we practice and follow.
- Seek counsel from the right people.
Proverbs 15:22, “Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counsellors they succeed.”
James 5:16, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
Ultimately, we have to make choices along the journey. “ JOSHUA 24:15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
PRAYER
Abundant Living 