‘Human righteousness is cheap’

Happy New Year, you’ve made it to 2025! The first quarter of the 21st century, done and dusted. Now, suit up with your spiritual armor because we’ve got work to do. I thought I’d bring in the year ahead with a topic worth celebrating. Every Christian’s hungry for it – at least we’re expected to be…Righteousness. If you don’t start big, why start at all? Correct?! 

What exactly is righteousness?

Matthew 5:6 says: “Blessed [joyful, nourished by God’s goodness] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [those who actively seek right standing with God], for they will be [completely] satisfied” (AMP). 

God’s righteousness features in some of the Bible’s most quoted passages. Yet it’s easy for believers to completely gloss over the concept of righteousness, especially today. There’s an unequal, diametrically opposed construct – the world’s brand of righteousness – jockeying for position, quite successfully. Wokeness is the prevailing concept of what’s right in the world; arbitrary, fleeting; no sign of a designer or just when it may change. Google defines righteousness as “the quality of being morally right or justifiable”, not mentioning by whom morality and justice are defined. 

Our shifting culture

Ten years ago, the idea children should choose their own gender was inconceivable on the world’s stage. Five years ago, those who were born male being given the right to access female-only spaces was similarly not mainstream. Today, the idea male sex offenders should receive sex changes and be housed in female prisons is so unpopular it got the First Minister of Scotland removed from office. But it’s happening in a few prisons in America. Who’s to say a few years from now, it won’t be commonplace? This is the problem with the world’s righteousness. Get used to one way for a moment then, before you know it, popular opinion has changed. Human righteousness is like filthy rags, it’s cheap. Here today, gone tomorrow, just like we are. There’s no balance between man’s measure of righteousness and God’s. He is Creator, we are mere tools. If Christians aren’t raising up God’s righteousness like a banner, the world is more than happy to trample it underfoot.

Standing up for God’s righteousness 

It isn’t easy for Christians to stand for righteousness, in a generation scripture calls crooked and perverse. I once attended a friendly neighbourly gathering and disagreed with the idea of affirming trans children. I wasn’t asked back again. We must ask ourselves: what’s more important, favour with man or God? It’s an honest question worth self-reflection in prayer. Standing for righteousness with friends or in your workplace could bring offense. We should pray for strength and boldness; having even a small group of like-minded believers for support, prayer and encouragement can help buffer the blowback. 

Righteousness is worth suffering over. As believers, we must believe God’s goodness is absolute. It’s good when God’s design for marriage is protected. It’s good when life from inside the womb is sacred. It’s good when lawlessness is punished. It’s good when we are free to speak and even argue God’s truth without threat of being legislated out of the public square.

Get used to one way for a moment then, before you know it, popular opinion has changed

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns many people” (Proverbs 14:34). If we instill leaders in the highest offices who govern from their own, fallen ‘morality’, do we take God at his word that people will suffer for it? His ways are not only good for the Church, but for the weary world around us. Apart from them, people are missing something that is good and fully attainable, by grace, through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. If this is so, who else but the Church is equipped to share it? 

Did you know there are political parties that champion Christian values in the UK, like the Scottish Family Party? There are Christian MPs – maybe even your local one. Pay your local MP a visit, even if they aren’t a Christian. Let them know the value of supporting righteous causes right where you live. Give the kingdom of God place in the world around you. You may get a target on your back, but if you suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed (1 Peter 3:14) .

Righteousness is only found in God

As believers, we should come to God humbly, saying, as the tax collector did: “have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). There are examples throughout scripture of God using the broken. Moses was a murderer and struggled with anger. David committed adultery and then plotted the murder of an innocent man to save his own reputation. The apostle Paul literally persecuted Jesus. God doesn’t use righteous people because, newsflash, there aren’t any! As Romans 3:10 says: “There is no one righteous, not even one.” He uses fallen people, submitted to his plan and purposes to advance the kingdom of God and his righteousness throughout the land. Every believer is a likely candidate. We must look inward, not at our own works, but at whether we are fully surrendered, letting the righteousness of Christ live through us, by his Spirit.

God has us here for such a time as this. Can we start 2025 settling in our hearts to hunger and thirst for righteousness? We have to agree with the righteousness of God in the face of wokeness, and contend for its presence in every part of society.