Father in heaven, we thank you for another evening that we can gather and think about you, who you are and what you're like and how that influences our life. We ask your blessing on this time again tonight in Jesus' name. Amen. We're looking at the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And right now we're looking at attributes or characteristics of God. Here's a question for you. How can God be both the God of love? Everybody thinks God's the God of love. And the God of justice. How can he be both? How can he be loving and yet be just? Or how can he be just and still be loving? Okay, what does his justice demand? Anything contrary to Him has to be judged. Are we contrary to Him? How is it possible that He could love us? The answer is only one way. Where the God of love and the God of justice meet. Romans chapter 3, we're going to start there. And then we'll focus on the holiness and the righteousness and justice of God. But in order for God to love someone, particularly if they are a sinner, sin has to be dealt with in a just way. The wages of sin is what? Death. We deserve to die. and not only die physically, but be separated from God forever because we sinned. Romans 5, 8 says God proved his love to us, and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And we'll look particularly now at chapter 3, verses 21 to 26. And you'll see some of the terms that we are going to be dealing with tonight right off the bat. He says, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For God to love you. You had to become righteous. OK, and there's two ways that people would think they could be righteous. The most common way, if you talk to a man on the street, is, well, I become righteous by doing good. If I do enough good, then God will love me. And no, it's the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There's no distinction. We've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified or declared righteous by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. You know what a propitiation is? That's a big word that you read right over, right? It's a wrath satisfying death. Jesus Christ, when he died, didn't die because he was a sinner. He died because I'm a sinner. And in order for God to love me, his wrath had to be propitiated, had to be satisfied. And the death of Jesus Christ, the shedding of his blood, provides the propitiation. So God is still just and can love me at the same time. says this was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of one who has faith in Jesus. The only reason that God doesn't mete out justice to you is if you have believed in his son and his son took the justice you deserve. and gave you the righteousness you don't deserve. So there is a way, only one way, that the God of love and the God of justice can save us. So tonight we're looking at these three terms and I need to do a little explanation to you. Holiness is the foundational term of this quality of God. Justice and righteousness are expressions of his holiness. And in the Old Testament, particularly, the word for justice and the word for righteousness is the same word. And only context will tell you which he's emphasizing, whether he's emphasizing his justice or he's emphasizing his righteousness. And sometimes you may see it tonight in the verses. If we have different versions, there may be times that instead of the word just, you might see the word righteous when I read it. Or if I read righteous, you may see just. Or same thing with justice, righteousness. They are different, but the context explains the difference, not the word itself. These are moral attributes that can be communicated to us. we can become holy, we can become righteous, and we can become just. In fact, they were characteristic of man's original state. When God made man in his image, he made man holy and he made man righteous and he made man just. That's the way Adam was made. That's the way Eve was made until they sent. And in the sin, all preludes were corrupted so that man was no longer holy, he was no longer righteous, he was no longer just. They've fallen into three deficient categories. Instead of being righteous, most people in this world are self-righteous. They think they're better than somebody else. I'm not as bad as that guy or that woman. Or, I'm really pretty good. In their heart, they know they're not. But in their expression of themselves, they try to justify themselves. Well, I didn't mean to do that. Self-righteousness is a result of a fall. Limited definitions. You know, God is holier than ivory soap. You know how pure Irish soap is? 99, 44, 100% pure. It's an impure soap. Only God is 100% holy. None of us are. Righteousness. Well, I try to do right. Isn't that good enough? God says, no, you have to be right. not just want to be right, or justice. Well, he deserves it, but I don't. That's what sin has done to man in terms of these qualities. However, they can be brought back into your life by Jesus Christ. He can produce righteousness in you. In fact, he imputes or he places his righteousness to your account. so that when you stand before God, even though you are still a sinner, he sees you in Christ as being righteous. And he treats you that way. He treats you as holy. The Holy Spirit of God indwells us to produce holiness in us as well as justice. They can be renewed by the new birth. At what point is a person in God's eyes a saint? At what point does he say you are a saint? When we're regenerating. At the moment of regeneration, you are now, in God's eyes, a saint, whether you're saintly or not. You don't have to die and do a certain miracle and have the pope or the cardinals pronounce you a saint. If that is so, then Paul wrote the letter to the Romans to dead people. and the saints that were in Rome. It's developed by spiritual growth in time. We become more holy in our behavior, more righteous, more just, and that's called sanctification. The Spirit of God is at work in His people, transforming them so that their behavior starts matching what they are more and more. And it will be perfected in eternity. You will be perfectly holy, righteous and just in eternity. That's called glorification. So we're going to look at these three terms tonight as related to the triune God. And again, we're going to try to think about how they impact your life today. So the first we'll look at is God is holy. And let's look at some texts that tell us about that. Probably one of the most well-known verses regarding the holiness of God is found in Isaiah chapter six. Verse one, it says in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet and with two he flew. and one called to another and said, love, love, love is the Lord of hosts. No, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. And what's interesting about that verse, a couple of things. What do you suppose it said? Holy, holy, holy. Okay, perhaps emphasis. The triune God. Each one of them is holy. He is holy, Father is holy, Son is holy, Spirit is holy. This is the only attribute of God that you find stated that way. Holy, holy, holy. It is by far the most used attribute of God in the whole Bible. God's holiness. It is significant. That's not to exclude his other attributes in any way. But what's that tell you about the rest of his attributes? His love is? His mercy is? He is? Everything about him, all his attributes are holy attributes. It says, the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called and said, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, now who's I? Isaiah. You know anything about Isaiah? Was he a real ungodly man? No, he was a holy prophet of God. Well, what did he say? Woe is me, for I am lost. I'm a man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. If a holy man considers himself unclean at simply seeing a vision of the holiness of God, where does that leave the rest of us? I mean, if God appeared in this room right now, you'd be saying the same thing that Isaiah said even more, even if you're a believer. His holiness is so awesome that even people like Isaiah or you go to Revelation chapter one, the Apostle John fell down at his feet as a dead man. Because he saw the holiness of God. But let's move on Leviticus chapter 20. and verse 26, we're going to see a phrase that occurs numerous times in scripture. In fact, it's about three or four times, at least in Leviticus. Leviticus is basically known to be giving us the code of holiness as to how God was to be worshipped and how life was to be lived. Look at chapter 20 and verse 26. You shall be holy to me. For I, the Lord, am holy and have separated you from the peoples that you should be mine. There are several times you're going to see that phrase. You shall be holy for I am holy. First Peter, chapter one, verses 15 and 16. Here's the New Testament example of that phrase. First Peter, chapter one. verses 15 and 16. As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. Now, there are some that like to say, well, this idea of holiness is the Old Testament God who has wrath and the New Testament God is a God of love. Well, Peter didn't look at it that way. He said, just as it is written, you shall be holy for I'm holy. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. Revelation chapter four and verse eight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around within and day and night they never cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. who was and is and is to come. He is holy. Now, what's that mean? There's a negative concept of holiness and there's a positive concept of holiness. The negative concept is he is totally separated from all that's evil, everything that defiles and everything that is common. By common, we don't mean necessarily things that are sinful. He's separated from his own creation because he's holy. He's totally separate. He's something wholly other than everything else is. There is none like him. That's the negative aspect. The positive aspect of the holiness of God is that he has absolute integrity. absolute purity. And he is, again, distinct from all others. Theological name of Keithley says this, God's holiness is the glory and beauty of all God's perfections. Let's understand the impact now of this. Again, Isaiah 6, 3, we just read. Holiness is the chief emphasis of the Bible regarding God. The Bible says more about the holiness of God than it says about the love of God. As great as the love of God is. His holiness is the chief emphasis. The holiness of God shows his moral purity and purity. The thing that's most beautiful about God, frankly, folks, is the fact that he's holy. Psalm 29 to. When God ordained the tabernacle and its service. To serve, you had to be holy. You had to wear holy garments. There were restrictions about where you could go. The people of Israel couldn't even go into the courtyard. The priest could only go into the holy place. Only the high priest could go into the holy of holies where God manifested himself. one day a year. So when we're looking at Psalm 29 and two. Keep that in mind. Ascribe to the Lord the glory, do his name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. His holiness. That's where some of the familiarity should be pushed aside. When we come in to worship Him, we need to remember who He is, who we're coming to. We don't flippantly come into the presence of God. That's one reason in our worship service we have a call to worship. That call to worship is to remind you who God is, that you're coming into His presence. And so thirdly, understanding the impact of God's holiness is His approachability. Again, in the Old Testament, God gave Israel the tabernacle. It had a huge wall that went around it, where there was a courtyard, and there was only one entrance into that courtyard, and only the priests, only the Levites, could go in there. The people had to stand outside because even that courtyard was a holy place. At the back, there was a tent that was divided into two compartments. The first compartment was where they had lampstand and the table of showbread and the altar of incense, and the priests could go in there daily and get that close to God. But the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was and the Mercy Seat, the high priest could only go in there one day a year. First he had to go in for himself, then he had to come back out and go in for the people. I think it's basically a tradition that they would tie a rope or a string to the high priest's foot just in case he didn't make it so they could drag his body out. It was a day of atonement. In our calendar it usually falls around early September. It varies because the Jewish calendar is different than calendar that we use. So it varies. Their calendar is based on the moon. Ours is based essentially on the sun. And this was on the day of atonement. That's when that took place. Another question? And you pull them out. We don't have a tabernacle today. What do we have? Where is the temple of God today? Your body is the temple? There's another temple that he's building. The church is his temple. It's his dwelling place. Now, although we don't have the holy holies, although you could be in some churches, right, Jack, where there's certain areas that are holy, and the common people cannot go into those areas. Only the priests can go. You can come up into our pulpit any time you want. after the service. We can approach God now because why? Has he changed? Is he no longer holy? He's still absolutely holy. We approach him because why? We're in Christ. We have access to him by Jesus Christ. We can come to the throne of grace directly by Christ. But we still need to come with the reverence and the respect that is due him as a holy God. Now let's think about its impact on your life. Here's four ways. Maybe you can think of others, but let's look at these. Psalm 96 and verse 9. Worship the Lord, the splendor of holiness. tremble before him all the earth." Have you ever gone to a worship service that was more like a pep rally? That's not worship, folks. That's not worship. We don't have to sing songs, monotone. I mean, some people, that's all they can do. You don't have to sing slow dirges. We can sing joyful songs. We can praise the Lord with joyful songs. but we worship him in the splendor of holiness and we tremble before him. Worship has become something a little bit different than what the scripture describes in many places today. People don't come in with trembling as to God they're coming before, they come in with familiarity. It's very easy for people, even non-Catholic Protestants, to fall into ritualism. They become sanctimonious, holy, holy, holy, when they're not holy, holy, holy. But it should impact our daily life, not just our worship when we gather, but our daily worship. We ought to remember who he is. And remembering that ought to cause worship. As you see all the unholiness of this world, you ought to worship your holy God because he's eternal. And that's what it's all about. Psalm 30, verse 4. Another way that God's holiness should impact your daily life. Sing praises to the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks to his holy name. Name is not simply, I'm John, he's Yahweh. His holy name means what he is, his character, his holy character. Give thanks. Again, that should impact your daily life. You've got something to be thankful for every day. If you lose everything in this world, you have something to be thankful for every day, and that is you have a holy God. 2 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse one, your sanctification or your development of holiness in your life. To get the thrust of verse one, which begins with the word sense. You need to go back to verse 14 of the preceding chapter and get the whole flow of it. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness? What concord or accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? What's the answer to all those questions? None. None. For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them. and walk among them. I will be their God. They shall be my people. Therefore, go out from the midst and be separate from them, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you. I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Now, verse one. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit. bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. Since God has declared me a saint, my objective in life ought to be to sin less and to become godly more. Is it possible to sin less? It is. But the only problem is, the more you become holy, the more sinful you see yourself to be. I've illustrated it this way sometimes. If we turn off the lights in here and you looked at your hands, you'd say, my hands are clean. If we turn on a 5 watt bulb, you'd say, no, they're not as clean as I thought they were. Turn on a 50 watt bulb, no, they're still not as clean as I thought they were. You know you're washing them. And then you put the microscope with, yeah, thousand watts on your hand. There's germs crawling all over my hand and I just washed them. That's kind of the way it is in a Christian life. Martin Luther had a statement, simul as peccator es justus. Same time, center and just. And you can perfect holiness Bring it to completion. Now you do that by the grace of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God. But we should be growing in Christ likeness. Our life should be coming more holy. Not according to our standards, but according to God's standards. As Christ is formed in us, there ought to be less sin. But again, as I mentioned to you, the further you get going the direction you ought to get. the more you're going to realize things are sin in your life you never knew was sin. And you got to come to grips with those things. We're never as good as we think we are. But beloved, you're better than you think you are, too. And that's one of the problems, frankly, in sometimes reformed thinking is, oh, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. God calls you a saint. Act like it. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If I think I'm a sinner, what do you suppose I'm going to be prone to do? Sin! If I think that I am what God says I am, that I'm a saint, what do you suppose I'm going to do? I'm going to try to live that way. You can clean up a pig, and the pig's going to go right back to the mud. But if that pig could be changed into a sheep, that sheep's not heading for the mud. He may fall into it and get dirty, but he's not going to stay there. And that's true in the believer's life, too. Our sanctification. We are to cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit. Frankly, folks, at this point in my life, my spirit sins are far, far more than my bodily sins. How about you? Pretty well got the body under control. Not always, but most of the time. when it comes to spiritual issues. Things coming up in my mind and my heart that I even cherish in my mind and heart. Those things have to be cleansed to bring holiness to completion. My heart is deceitful above all things and desperately. But the one thing to remember is when you became a Christian, God gave you a new heart. Focus on that. Don't forget what your heart is capable of doing, but focus on what it can become. And again, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If I'm thinking I'm a sinner, then that's all I'm going to think about. That's all I'm going to do. If I believe what God says about me, that I'm a saint, then that's going to impact my daily life. I shouldn't do that. I'm a believer. I shouldn't participate in that. That's what I used to do. I don't do that anymore. I don't think that way anymore. Conduct. This takes it a little bit further from the sanctification. First Peter chapter one. And verses 14 through 16. As you're turning there, I mentioned Martin Luther. Martin Luther before he was converted, or he may have been regenerated even at that point. and he was still working through it, would go to confession every day and confess sin after sin after sin every day at confession. So finally his confessor said, Martin, go home and when you really got something to confess, you can come back. But he had a tender conscience. He saw things as sin that evidently his confessor didn't think was that serious. But first Peter 1, 14 through 16. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Don't think the way you used to think. Don't live the way you used to live. Don't be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. We'll stop right there. There's times in my life that I try to remember this. Whenever I commit a sin, what have I just done? I've pounded another nail into Christ on the cross in a spiritual sense. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. We shouldn't do that. Our conduct should demonstrate that we are moving away from sin and towards holiness in our conduct. All the righteousness of God. Let's look at some verses pertaining to that. Psalm 11 and verse 7. For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds. The upright shall behold his face. The Lord is righteous and he loves righteous deeds. Psalm 71 and verse 19. Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? How high does your righteousness reach? Probably not more than about six feet off the ground for me if I had any and myself God's righteousness reaches the high heavens The immensity of his righteousness psalm 119 You may know that psalm 119 is divided into 22 stanzas If you think some of our songs are long It takes a while to sing psalm 119 all the way through And over each one of these eight verse sections, there's a word that, what is that? Lamed, or Nun, or Shemek, or Men. Sade, 137, what is that? That's the letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This is an alphabetic psalm. Each of those eight verses starts with Aleph, and one through eight starts with the letter Aleph in the Hebrew Bible. Actually, it starts this way because it goes from this way. And so when you get to Saudi, Saudi is the first word or the first letter of the word righteous. And so you'll see that characteristically through these verses. Righteous are you, O Lord, and right are your rules. You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness. My zeal consumes me because my foes forget your words. Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true. Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight. Your testimonies are righteous forever. Give me understanding that I may live. He's righteous. His rules are righteous. He's appointed his testimonies in righteousness. His righteousness is righteous forever. His testimonies are righteous forever. You get kind of the idea that God's righteous in all he is, all he does. Psalm 145 verse 17. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. all his ways. Everything God does is righteous. So the question is, well, what's righteousness in terms of its connection to holiness? Well, the meaning is this. Every action that God does, even before he created anything, is always consistent with his character. He's never out of character. Once in a while we get out of character. Some people think that I'm very serious. But if you're around me at certain times, you'd say you're out of character. Because you are a character. The term righteous is defined by God, not conversely. In other words, righteousness is not something that says that God became that. Rather, God is righteous and he defines what righteousness is. That's one of man's problems. Man wants to redefine what righteousness is. God defines what righteousness is because he is righteous. The third aspect of the meaning of the righteousness of God is it's a manifestation of God's love of holiness. God loves his holiness. Did you know that? God, it's a manifestation of God's love of what's right. And it's a manifestation of God's love of what's good. That's what righteousness is. It's meaning. Man. The impact of understanding of God. If God is righteous, how are we to understand that? Well, come back to Psalm 7 and verse 11. God is a righteous judge. and a God who feels indignation every day. That's his immutability. He doesn't change. God hasn't looked down at us and said, man, they're having a hard time. I think I'll loosen up on my definition of what's righteous. He'll never do that. He's always righteous. Never changes, immutable. Psalm 65. and verses 5 through 8. By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. Now he's going to describe what some of his righteous, awesome deeds are. The one who by his strength established the mountains being girded with mites. who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples. Remember when Jesus called the waters of the Sea of Galilee? How did the disciples respond? In fear, trembling. Even the waves obeyed his command. Peter, apprehended, walked on the water and sunk and was saved. He said, depart from me, Lord, I'm a sinful man. You're right, I'm not. It's describing his omnipotence. So that those who dwell on the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy. You visit the earth and water it. You greatly enrich it. The river of God is full of water. you provide their grain for so you have prepared it. And so forth. His omnipotence, his power is manifesting his righteousness. Psalm 111, verse three. Full of splendor and majesty is his work and his righteousness endures forever. eternality. God's eternal. OK, how is he eternal? He's righteous forever. He never varies. His righteousness is eternal. So if God is like this. How should it impact your daily life? Psalm 23 three says he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. As a sheep, how do I figure out where to go? I follow his righteousness. That's how he's going to lead me. He's going to lead me in the paths that are right, paths of righteousness. And if I'm following my shepherd as I ought to follow my shepherd, I'm going to be going in the paths of righteousness. If I'm not in the path of righteousness as a Christian, ever read Children's Progress? There were times they got off the path. God brought him back, but they learned some hard lessons by not following his leading. Isaiah 32, verse 17. You want peace in your life? Oh, I'd like to have peace in my life. How do I get peace in my life? Psalm 32, verse 17. Isaiah, what'd I say? Psalm? I'm stuck on Psalms, I'm sorry. Isaiah 32, 17. The effect of righteousness will be peace. You want peace? It's the effect of righteousness. Why could Daniel go into the lion's den and come up peaceful the next morning? Because he was right in the eyes of God. or the three young men that went in the fiery furnace. They did what was right. They didn't bow down to the idol. They trusted in the living God and the living God was with them and delivered them. The effect of righteousness will be peace. The result of righteousness, quietness and trust or confidence, security forever. There is a peace that passes all understanding and it comes from the righteous God. Because he will set all things right. And that kind of leads to the next one. Matthew 6.33. Again, a verse that many of you can probably quote. And the context is interesting. In the context, he talks about, consider the sparrow. They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Which of you by anxiety can add a cubit to your height? Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin, and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. He's dealing with anxieties that people have about life. And to climax that is Matthew 6.33. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. If anxiety is a problem in your life, you need to focus on the righteous God. If you have a problem with anxiety, you need to focus on who your God is. He's a righteous God, and the things you're anxious about, he can relieve the anxieties. Seek him first, not last. It's like the lady the pastor was visiting. She was having some troubles and issues and he was trying to help her and finally says, well, sister, let's pray. I said, oh, pastor, has it come to that? Not last, seek it first. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 24. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 24. Here's the process by which. You are sanctified. Now you do this because of the grace of God empowering you to do it, but this is something you do. We need to start at verse 21 or verse 20. That is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus. to put off your old self. Who's to do that? Is God going to do that? We're going to do that by his grace. You put off the old man, your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. When those things start rising up in your life, what are you to do? Oh, that's just the way I am. Or you say, that's the way I used to be, and you put it away. I'm going to live that way. Next, he says, be renewed in the spirit of your minds. Start thinking the way God thinks. He thinks righteously. You start thinking righteously as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. So be renewed in the spirit of your mind, then he says, and to put put on the new self. Created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness put it on Look at Christ see what's in him and say by the Spirit and power and the Word of God the grace of God put that on His kindness his mercy his righteousness his justice everything that he is put it on John I've tried to illustrate Christian growth this way this might be helpful for you. I When you have a newborn baby in your home and it's time for a feeding, you just tell that newborn baby, hey, go to the refrigerator and get it, man. He can't do that. He just lays there and cries until either the mother nurses him or the bottle is warm and given to him. And early on, if you give him a bottle, you've got to hold the bottle because he can't hold it. But as time goes by and as he begins to grow, The first thing a baby's going to do is start doing push-ups. He's going to lift this part of his body first, his head and his shoulders, and he'll start working down by his up on his hands and his knees. And he may even start crawling. And at that point, he'll start to pull himself up or herself up by furniture and hang on and stand there. And at that point, mom and dad begin to say, come on, baby, come to me. And that kid's standing there thinking to himself, you've got to be crazy. I've watched you guys do that. You can do that, but I'm not going to do that. I can't do that. And you keep saying, come on, baby. And one day he lets go of that. He's standing there. He realizes he's not holding on. He falls down. And he gets back. I can stand. That's cool. I can't walk. Come here, baby. He starts to take one step, and he falls. He says, see, I told you I couldn't do that. He's standing back up. He said, come on. You're going to walk. Take a step. He takes one step, and the parent takes two steps back. He said, come on. Keep coming. And the kid says, wasn't one enough? Wasn't that enough? I took one step. I satisfied you. Now just leave me alone. No. Pretty soon, that kid's running all over the house. And you're saying, stop. Slow down. You're going to hurt yourself. Christian growth is the same thing. When you become a Christian, God gives you everything you need to become what he has made you in Christ. And it's simply learning to practice what he's given you. If you want to read a good passage on that, read 2 Peter 1, verses 1 through 10, 11. That describes that whole process. Growth. We can grow. We are told to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, the third one, God is just. Let's look at some verses about God being just or his justice. Deuteronomy 32 and verse 4. The Rock. His work is perfect. And all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and with out iniquity, just and upright is he. He is just. All his ways are just. Psalm 89 and verse 14. Here we've got two of them together. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. The foundation of his throne. Revelation 15, verses 3 and 4. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God, the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. and all nations will come and worship you for your righteous acts have been revealed. There you got all three of them. Same context, just, holy and righteous. The meaning. When we're thinking about God's justice in terms of time. It's not always immediate justice. If God exercised immediate justice every one of us would be immediately killed by his judgment. But his justice is ultimate. God has the final word. There's no higher court. And there's not nine on the Supreme Court. There's the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Triune God. So sometimes that that's a problem for Christians. God, if you're just Where's your justice? The book of Habakkuk addresses that issue. And the answer to Habakkuk's question about God's justice was the just shall live by faith. We got to learn to live that way. The greatest act of injustice was what? Christ on the cross. Greatest act of injustice ever done. If they had known who he was, they would not have crucified the Prince of Glory. Now, that was part of God's purpose. So evil men did do that. But that was the greatest human act of injustice that's ever been done. How did God vindicate that injustice? Raising him from the dead. Not only that, he exalted him to the throne of heaven. And he's commanded that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord, whether they want to or not. Well, the meaning of justice is the acts of things he does, particularly doing that which is righteous, doing that which is equal and impartial. God treats everybody the same. He doesn't have misdemeanors and felonies. Before God, all sin is a felony. It's a capital crime. Yes. kind of wishy-washy, and he said, well, you know, I'm a white guy who would have rapists and murderers in heaven just because they said he believed in Jesus Christ. Then I read about how he was trying to tell me that I'd done something that's wrong. But how do you tell him that I'm misguided and that I don't mean anything to God? How do you do that? All sin is the same, not for them it's not. But the pedophile is much, much worse than a liar. OK, let me give you an answer for you. Go to Revelation chapter 20. Verse 11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Notice that, books, plural. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, every one of them according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. The judgment of God is going to be twofold. He's going to judge every human being according to their works. whether they were small works or big works. And what that's telling me is there evidently are levels of punishment, but there's only one place of punishment. It's called the lake of fire. And that's bad enough, but there evidently When we see God, we will realize how bad a little sin is. But if we take somebody like Adolf Hitler, who was responsible for millions of people being murdered, and we have somebody, say, in the Amazon jungle, who all he ever did was lie to his neighbor, would it be just for God to give him the same degree of punishment? The answer is no. To whom much is given, much is required. So his judgment is righteous. He's righteous. But what determined whether or not they went into the new heaven, the new earth, or the lake of fire? It's not the works they did. is your name in the Lamb's Book of Life. If it's not in the Lamb's Book of Life, you're going there. It doesn't matter what you did. And as far as somebody being a murderer and going to heaven, well, at the cross, Christ was crucified between two murderers, two robbers. One died because of his sins, the other one died and went to paradise simply because he said, Lord Jesus, remember me. And he put his confidence and trust in Christ and Christ answered to him. So now if you're going to argue with somebody, argue with Christ, because he said today you'll be with me in paradise. And he said that a robber and a murderer, not just as somebody who told a white lie. So those are the two passages I would really try to use. Okay, that's in James chapter 2, I believe. We can take a quick look at that. Because James is addressing the issue of partiality. Start at verse 8. James chapter 2, verse 8. If you really fulfill the royal law, according to scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You're doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors forever. Whoever keeps the whole law that fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, Do not commit adultery also said, Do not murder. If you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So, yeah, he came to 10 Commandments. Which one of these have you kept perfectly? Jesus did that in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, You have heard it has been said, you shall not commit murder. But I say unto you, if you so much as call your brother a fool, you're in danger of hellfire. Whoa. Or you have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say unto you, whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. See, God's view of sin is a whole lot different than our view of sin. But those are some passages that you can use. And you can't convince him. You pray for him that the word of God will convince him. Yes. Very good, good, good questions. Impact understanding of God. If he's just, how do I understand who God is? Nehemiah chapter 9 and verses 32 and 33. Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty and the awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love. Let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers and all your people since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day. Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly. God's faithful. He acts according to his faithfulness because he is righteous. Psalm 9 and verses 7 and 8. But the Lord sits enthroned forever. He has established his throne for justice and he judges the world with righteousness. He judges the peoples with uprightness. The throne conveys the concept of sovereignty. He is the king. He is a just king. His throne is established for even the purpose of justice. Zephaniah. If you've got a new Bible, you may miss it because it's a real short one. Find the end of the Old Testament and go backwards. Malachi, Zechariah, and Zephaniah. Oops, forgot Haggai. My page stuck. Zephaniah 3, verse 5. The Lord within her is righteous. He does no injustice. Every morning he shows forth his justice. Each dawn he does not fail. The unjust knows no shame. His omnipresence every moment, all the time. he shows forth his justice. So how does that impact your life? Genesis chapter 18, the Lord has come to visit at Abraham's house and he's told him that he's going down, he's sending his angels down to Sodom to see what's going on and to bring judgment. Abraham knows that lots down there and so he starts interceding. He starts with 50 righteous and he works it down to 10. But I want you to see verse 25. Far be it from you to see verse 24, 23. Abraham drew near and said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death and the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked. Far be that from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?" Yes, that question is yes. And it gets down to that. God tells him, even if there's ten people found there that are righteous, I will not destroy the city. The city was destroyed, which tells us what? There weren't 10. I think the reason Abraham stopped at 10 is he probably was considering Lot's whole family. His daughters, their husbands. But it turned out, as far as we know, there was only one righteous person in Sodom. That was Lot. And God delivered him. He's a just God. And we can have confidence in that. If God exercises justice on someone or justice on a nation, that it's deserved. And you can be confident that he will. And frankly, that ought to cause us to shake in our boots about our own country. Perhaps one of the reasons why God has held off is because there's 50 righteous in Phoenix. Lifestyle Romans chapter 1 verse 17. This is one of the quotations from Habakkuk about the just shall live by faith. It's also found in Galatians and the book of Hebrews. Let's look at this one. In fact, my version says the righteous. It is the word just. For in it the righteousness of God in the gospel is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous or the just shall live by faith. That's our lifestyle. That's our lifestyle, because God is righteous and has revealed that righteousness in the gospel. We live by faith. We live by faith. That's our lifestyle. And 1 John 1 9, one that should be familiar to many of us, if not all. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just. To forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. How can he be just to forgive us our sins? There's a verse that precedes that says the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. That's the only reason he can justly forgive us. That should impact your daily life because God is just. And because of what Christ, the just one, has done, I can have forgiveness, even as a Christian, for the sins I've committed. Really neat. Well, here's a summary for you then. God is holy, righteous, and just. While no revealed attribute of the triune God is independent or greater than another, the holiness of God is the one stressed most in the Bible. These three attributes will have one of two effects on you. They are either your greatest comfort or your greatest fear. For a believer going through the trials of life, the greatest comfort we have is God is holy, he's just and he's righteous. And one of these days that's going to prevail. I'll commit myself to him. That's my comfort. However, it's also your greatest fear. If people think low or ignore the holiness and the justice and the righteousness of God, that ought to be their greatest fear, because there's coming a day when they're going to stand before this God and find out he is what he said he is. He's holy, he's just, and he's righteous, and they will feel his wrath forever. We see your relationship to Jesus Christ determines which effect will forever impact your life. To know Christ as your Savior, to have him as your sin bearer and the one who gives to you his righteousness will impact your life forever. And it can start right now in relieving anxieties and relieving the stress and the things of life that come against us and say, well, God, you haven't been just to me at the moment, but I know you're going to be. I know you can meet my needs. I trust you. You don't have that relationship to Christ. I don't know how you live. You can't live and you won't live forever because God is holy, righteous and just. So let's pray and we'll begin. Father in heaven, forgive us for low thoughts of who you are. Low thoughts of who your son is and what he has done for us. Low thoughts of your Holy Spirit who indwells us. How easy it is, Father, for us, even as your people, to neglect these truths about you and to take them lightly and to grieve your Holy Spirit. We pray, Father, that you would awaken us afresh to your holiness, your righteousness, your justice. And may we find great comfort in knowing that this is the God that you are and this is how you act. Deliver us, Father, from our anxieties. Help us to trust you, to live for you each day, to grow in grace and knowledge of Christ and to experience your holiness, your justice, your righteousness more and more in our daily life, to put away the old man, to put on the new as we think your thoughts after you. Thank you for these privileges and for all that you are to us in Jesus name. Amen.