Thursday, Nov. 10

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Thursday

Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.  – John 16:8-11

Jesus tells His disciples that when He leaves to return to the Father, the Holy Spirit will come to them.  He says that the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives will convince and convict the world of three things; of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.  Yesterday we looked at how the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin.  Today I want to examine how the Holy Spirit works in our lives to convict the world of righteousness. 

Righteousness is kind of a religious or churchy word.  It is not a word that we use very often in daily conversation, or if we do, we use it in a pejorative sense, like “that person is so self-righteous.”  Basically the word means to be in right relationship with, or to be right.  In Biblical terms, righteousness means to be right with God.  Although we may not use the term, most of us have an inner sense that we are not right, a sense that something is wrong, and a desire to be better than we are.  Why do we spend billions of dollars a year on therapies, programs and procedures to try and change or fix ourselves inside and out?  Because we are trying to “get right”. 

This is the fundamental human approach to the problem of righteousness, to try and fix it on our own.  In fact, most world religions or belief systems work on this same basic principle.  If you say the enough prayers, do enough good deeds, give enough to the poor, memorize enough scripture, go to enough religious meetings, meditate enough, serve enough, etc. then you will be “right”.  This approach to righteousness is kind of like a spiritual treadmill on which you run your whole life long trying to measure up to some invisible standard.  The Bible says that the problem with this approach is that in the end you are all worn out and no closer to being right with God than when you started.

This is why Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world “in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer”…what does He mean when he says that it is because He is going to the Father?  Jesus is telling us that He IS the way to get right with God, and the fact that He is already gone to be with the Father is our guarantee! 

He is gone to the Father; and the seal of Divine authority has therefore been placed on everything He said and did in the Father's name.

He is gone to the Father; and it is clear, therefore, that He has been accepted as the Savior and Redeemer of men.

He is gone to the Father; and He intercedes for us there so that we might be admitted to the rights and privileges of a child of God.

This is why the Apostle Paul calls the Holy Spirit a “deposit” in our hearts… Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.  
– 2 Cor. 1:21-22

Jesus is totally unlike every other religious teacher and leader in history because He does not claim to show us the way to be righteous, He claims to be our righteousness!  Confuscious, Buddha, Mohammed, The Dali Llama, Dr. Phil, Oprah, and all of the rest are telling us what we have to do in order to get right.  Jesus (through the work of the Holy Spirit) is telling us that no amount of effort on our part can ever make us right with God, because He has already done it!  Our world needs more righteous people (not more self-righteous people) more men and women who live with the incredible joy of knowing that they have been made right with God through Christ.  This is what the Holy Spirit is doing in the world, and He wants to begin with you!

Jeff Frazier