PREVIOUS SERMON  (sorted accordingly,starting from recent )

Since last week we have been thinking about Jehovah Tsidkenu –the Lord our Righteousness –and seeing that God’s righteousness is an essential part of His character. This means that morality is rooted not in the Will of God but in the very Nature and integral part of God. Many people think that God arbitrarily decides certain things to be right and certain things to be wrong, and issues commands accordingly as He likes. They argue that since God’s commands are based on His arbitrary Will they are not to be questioned but simply obeyed. These notions however, are not the Christian position. That is, this is not how Christians believe God to be. The above idea or notion about our God is capitally wrong and is not Scriptural! In giving the promise of One who would come whose righteousness would cover the nakedness of the human condition in terms of Sin, true divine knowledge and wisdom; it is vital to know that God first does or carry out everything that He commands us do. He even does it first as an exemplary to showcase for us to see and follow! God obeys His own laws of right and wrong. He commands us to obey them because He Himself does so –to obey them because they are inherently right as God Himself is Right. The Almighty God is not a cosmic signpost pointing the way; He is a Shepherd who goes before His sheep and leads them. He initiates nothing that He does not illustrate. Cosmic relates to the universe, especially as distinct from the earth. It is immeasurably extended in time and space; vast. When, in the winter of 1776, General Washington, the man for whom America is known, found that his troops at Trenton New Jersey had no shelter except cold tents, he made the decision to join his men and live in the same condition as his soldiers, as an example of what our Lord God did for humanity when He wore our Sinful flesh to demonstrate righteousness in a bid to teach man how life should be lived on earth. No wonder they loved and followed a man like that. You and I could not be followers of an immoral God. As I read Jeremiah’s promise, first given in Chapter 23:6 and repeated in our today’s text, of a Messiah Who will come and wear my flesh, measure its frailty and provide me with a righteousness that will satisfy the highest demands of a holy God, then I simply run of words to appreciate this unparallel Love! This kind of God has my wholehearted allegiance and gratitude and love forever. Can you now understand the Nakedness of Adam and Eve that was talked about in the Garden of Eden and how it relates to Righteousness, and our Lord Jesus came to demonstrate and showcase this righteousness for man to emulate which is why an Igbo song demanded that we should ‘wear righteous character like a dress’ yiri ezi omume dika uwe to cover your naked unrighteousness!

Having spent some weeks looking at the title Adonai, our Master and our Lord we now continue examining the Jehovah titles, and today we come to the penultimate of these –Jehovah Tsidkenu. This title is revealed for the first time in one of Jeremiah’s stirring prophecies –a prophecy given when the kingdom of Judah was hastening towards its conquest by the Babylonians and the exile of its people. Conditions in Judah had reached an all-time low –morally, materially, and spiritually. Forsaking Jehovah Shalom (the Lord is Peace), the nation was torn by dissension and internal strife lacking peace. Against this background the word of Jeremiah comes with a strong message of hope. He foresees a time when the people would no longer struggle to find God under leaders and shepherds who hardly knew Him themselves and who failed to care for those entrusted to them. Instead they would be visited by none other than the Messiah Himself. Here, amid this dark, somber setting of Judah’s sin and failure, a new name for God shines out: Jehovah Tsidkenu –the Lord our Righteousness. The word Tsidkenu is derived from the Hebrew word Tsedek which means ‘to be straight’, and there is no more significant word in the whole of the Old Testament. Pious Jews wanted more than anything to be righteous, but their righteousness often turned into self-righteousness; the Pharisee was the end product. The righteousness of the Jews destroyed itself because it became a legal righteousness intent on obeying laws instead of a life righteousness eagerly lived by obeying principles God had laid down. The promise is given; however, that One will come Who will make men and women righteous according to His righteousness –a righteousness that blends with life and is seen in the everyday living of the individual. The righteousness that is in the heart and mind, a righteousness that is lived the way it should be irrespective of whether one is seeing you or not, a righteousness that is not showcased.

The thought we have been focusing on over the past few weeks has been this: Sometimes God allows the props beneath our feet to fall away in order that we rest our full weight upon Him our God and depend on Him rather than on earthly securities that have the tendencies to fail. This is as true for nations as it is for individuals. Today we are in the midst of a great shaking ideologically and outwardly –perhaps the greatest shaking our planet has ever seen. Someone has called it ‘the great cosmic sifting hour’. Every alternative to God’s program for the world is failing and breaking down. Materialism is failing. Humanism and political ideologies are failing. Capitalism is failing. Democracy is failing. Where is all this leading us? Perhaps it is for us to realize the great need for our dependence only on God and the things of God! It is my conviction that what is shakable will crumble to dust and the one thing that will survive the ages is the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and our God. Believe me; the day is coming when wealth and material things will become meaningless. Earth’s inhabitants will begin to see that their one and only hope is in Adonai –the Lord of glory and Master of every situation. Taking a more personal perspective for a moment, I wonder, as you look back over the past twelve months, what kind of a year it has been for you. Has there been an upheaval resulting in the loss of many things on which your security was based? Have you experienced, as Isaiah did, an end to your hopes, your expectations, and your ambitions? Then take heart, for a new vision of God is about to break upon you. You will be able to say, as did the great prophet, ‘In the year that my hopes vanished, my security was destroyed and my expectations came to nothing, in that year ..... “I saw the Lord…’” (Isaiah 6:1). And the rest will be history, the history of how your God started you on a new perspective that usher you into things you wouldn’t have known about Him God and His righteous ways!

It is necessary that we examine in more detail the statement made by Isaiah: ‘In the year that King Uzziah died, [in a vision] I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the skirts of His train filled the [most holy part of the] temple’ (Isaiah 6:1). Was the fact that Isaiah’s vision occurred soon after Uzziah’s death a mere coincidence? I think not. Some commentators believe that Isaiah, along with many others in Judah at that time, had unconsciously allowed his hopes and expectations to become entwined around the godly king Uzziah that when he was removed those hopes toppled and his expectations died. If this is true then it is reasonable to assume that God could not appear to Isaiah until first the object on which his hopes and expectations were pinned had been removed. Perhaps it was not until he came to recognize the impotence of the one who lay in a tomb that he was prepared to lift his eyes to gaze at the One who sits on the eternal throne. I wonder, if am talking to someone today who over the past few weeks and months has been experiencing a removal of the props that support their life? Perhaps you can no longer depend on the situations, circumstances, and people you have relied on in the past; the things you have stood on for many years have been removed. Inside you are deeply hurt and from within your soul comes the cry, ‘Why is God doing this to me? Does He no longer care? Is He indifferent to my great needs?’ No, my dear friend and people, God is not indifferent to your needs. Sometimes, though, it’s when the props fall away from under our feet that we then rest our weight fully upon Him our God. We may need to be willing to see our earthly securities buried before we can see the glory of the heavenly King, our God who sits upon the throne. Do you get it, this is really the way we humans behaves, God know that sometimes we humans have our hopes on people or on material wealth/things than on Him God, and as such it is only when such failable hopes are removed that we realize that we are in error, that God is in reality the only One in Whom we should always hinge our hope in life!

As it has been stated earlier and as we continue to meditate on the fact that God reveals Himself through His names and that these names –Elohim [Mighty One], El Shaddai [God Almighty, or All Sufficient One], Jehovah Jireh [The Lord will provide], Jehovah Rophe [The Lord who heals], Jehovah Nissi [The Lord is my banner], Jehovah Qadesh [The Lord who makes holy or sanctifies] –reveal some different facet of God’s character and the ways God do His things in the midst of men. At the moment we are considering the occasion when, during a period of Israel’s history in which there was great restlessness and fear, God appeared to one of His discouraged and restless servants, Gideon, as the God who dispenses perfect peace. Recall that Gideon was or became a military leader, judge and prophet whose calling and victory over the Midianites are recounted in Judges 6-8 of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. Gideon was the son of Joash, born 1252BC in Canaan and his children are Abimelech and Jotham. Gideon’s calling and work was a juxtaposition of two traditional accounts in order to emphasize Israel’s monotheism and its duty to destroy idolatry. Now connecting Gideon’s calling to our topic Peace, and knowing that true peace comes only from God, the question is asked, why did God pick Gideon who was always afraid and fearful? It is important to know that God sees in us the things we humans cannot see. Gideon’s humble and fearful situation that disqualifies him in his own eyes and that of men was one of the reasons God chose him because Fear, especially the fear of God they say is the beginning of wisdom. The Lord called Gideon a mighty hero with strength even though he was insecure and fearful judging from the situation surrounding him; in like manner Lord Jesus called Peter a rock even though he was a pebble and kept crumbling every time he is faced with challenges of life! Before we look further into this matter of peace, let us get one thing straight; it is important to settle whether we are looking for perfect peace or just rest. More and more in these troubled days people are looking to various religious rituals as a means of obtaining peace of mind. In fact, the very phrase ‘peace of mind’ reveals the flaw in that kind of thinking or way of seeking it. You cannot have peace of mind until you have something deeper than peace of mind. Then the question is what is it that is deeper than peace of mind? When you have peace in the depths of your spirit then peace of mind is an outcome of that deeper peace in spirit. In other words, you cannot experience the peace of God until you have experienced peace with God because peace with God is the real peace from where the other peace, like peace of mind comes from. No one can experience real peace if there is a conflict in his or her spirit, in relation of God’s Spirit. We must first experience the joy of sins forgiven, our sins forgiven and then, and only then, can we know the peace that Apostle Paul, in today’s text, describes as ‘the peace… which transcends all understanding’. And, for that matter, all understanding also is not comparable with the Peace that comes from our Lord God Almighty. Those who attempt to find peace by different techniques or means of mental adjustment or diverse ritualizations are doomed to disappointment because that which they appear to have is not real peace! As a result of these techniques or rituals they may experience a little or what is called a momentary peace of mind because it will not last. A crisis quickly dispels this kind of peace because it is not founded and anchored in Christ meaning it is not deeply rooted in Christ! Our true faith in Christ is what gives deep-rootedness to our trusting and relying in Christ Jesus and His finished work of grace to humanity. This is why we have got to constantly train our mind and heart to constantly follow the divine way God does things in our life because that is what will build in us our sincere reliability in Christ whether good or bad, we will not shake or waver no matter the degree of the storms that comes our way, we will be steady especially in mind and heart knowing that our God is in control having made peace with Him! Making peace with God partly means that you are living your life in accordance with His Scripture and His Gospel even in the midst of your fellow man on earth in your everyday activities peacefully and in love.