Dwelling or Drifting: Applications from “How to be a Righteous Remnant” Series
/
“…a person can be saved and have Christ’s imputed righteousness but still live unrighteously.”
If you’re like me, you crave security. Perhaps even to a fault. Spatially, relationally, occupationally, even spiritually—it can inadvertently become the heartbeat of my life and ministry. Comfort is an idol that feels only reasonable to worship.
When this is the reality, a call out of comfort (and really, a call out of control), it is easier to conceptualize than to obey. That being said, when Brandon Briscoe began his series over “How to be a Righteous Remnant” at Fall Retreat recently, my initial response was to passively relegate “righteousness” to the realm of vague, spiritualized knowledge that was interesting to think about but not convicting enough to incite change.
The series’ source text was Ezekiel 14, which details the extreme wickedness of Israel’s idolatry in contrast with three men: Noah, Daniel, and Job. They are distinguished by their righteousness in verse 14. These men and their ministries became templates for us on how to live righteously in a time characterized by the exceeding darkness of the world’s sin and idolatry.
To be abundantly clear, if you haven’t made the personal decision to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can live “righteously” all you want, but it will never be good enough to get you into Heaven. This is clearly stated in Isaiah 64:6. We’re all sinners (Rom 3:23) and all in desperate need of a righteousness that we are incapable of achieving. Fortunately, God loved us so much that he sent us Jesus Christ so that his righteousness could be imputed to us through salvation (Tit 3:4-7). We are saved by God’s mercy shown through Jesus Christ, not by works of righteousness. It’s really as simple as that.
Now that we’ve established that, it’s important to point out that a person can be saved and have Christ’s imputed righteousness but still live unrighteously. They can be a believer but still be indistinguishable from the dark world they were created to reflect light into. It’s essential to realize that after we’ve been made righteous by Christ’s blood. God’s will for us is to live righteously according to his word.
“Obedience requires a lot of listening.”
This was the target of Pastor Briscoe’s series as he outlined the characteristics of a righteous remnant, as well as obstacles and activities that can compromise righteous living. The first two definitions that he provided for a righteous remnant were as follows:
Definition #1: A believer(s) who stands alone in order to stand for God.
Definition #2: A believer(s) who trades temporary pain for long-term peace.
As he elaborated on these points, I fell into a comfortable rhythm of passive acknowledgment. I examined myself and thought that I had proved to be sufficient in these areas. In evangelism on campus and in my college classes, I had stood alone plenty of times to share the gospel or speak the truth of God’s word. And as a submitted believer, I had made several hard sacrifices over the years in order to be obedient to the Lord’s leading. By my count, that was enough.
Shortly after Fall Retreat, God brought the word “holy” to the forefront of my mind. Similar to “righteousness,” it was kind of just a vaguely spiritual word in my head. I knew its importance but not really its application in my life. However, I was now starting to see God leading me to study it out; specifically, I was led to study out how it applied to all areas of my life.
I was not terribly excited about it. I felt how I imagine Isaac felt in Genesis 22 when he was walking up a mountain to worship the Lord but beginning to get a sinking feeling that such worship would require a steeper sacrifice than I was really comfortable giving. “If I never seek the Lord on it, then I can never really be disobedient… right?” was the enticing option that made my mind waver.
Cue a key point from Brandon’s message over Noah: “The righteous remnant is determined to obey God in faith.” And then immediately after that: “Obedience requires a lot of listening.”
“God doesn’t just desire our grudging obedience. He desires our faith.”
So, somewhat begrudgingly, I embarked on a word study on “holy” in the book of Exodus. From the very first mention in Exodus 3, God made it undeniably clear what he was calling me to do. For context, in Exodus 3, Moses is a normal dude herding sheep in the wilderness. He’s got a comfortable life and routine as a shepherd, father, and husband and is just doing shepherd stuff when God calls to him out of a burning bush.
Exodus 3:3-5 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. 4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here [am] I. 5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest [is] holy ground.
First off, Moses saw God was wanting to speak with him, and he could’ve easily ignored it and gone home to his wife to tell her a cool story about how he saw a burning bush while on the job. But instead, he chose to turn aside and examine it further. He had no idea what God was going to call him to do, but he was first obedient to prepare himself to listen.
After he turns aside, God calls him to put off his shoes because he’s standing on holy ground. The ground was probably dirty and had bugs and stuff on it. Nothing about it was special. What made it holy was God’s presence; it was a space specifically set apart for Moses to hear from the Lord and also to just be near to him. God had a message and mission for Moses, and in order for Moses to be obedient to it, it necessitated his sacrifice and temporary discomfort.
Flash forward to my life—I was like Moses. Reticent and reluctant to turn aside and seek the Lord because I was afraid of the answer I was going to get. And the answer I got wasn’t the one that I wanted.
But remember that key point from earlier? God doesn’t just desire our grudging obedience. He desires our faith. I had to trust that this decision I was going to make was something God would use to grow me in my personal holiness and produce fruit and growth in my life and in the life of the person involved.
If Moses had never turned aside to hear from God, and if he had never put off his shoes to stand in God’s presence, he could have settled to live his whole life as a shepherd. It’s not like this was an evil or bad occupation, but it was definitely one that was far less than how God wanted to use him.
“Righteousness is holiness mobilized.”
Now I was faced with an area of my life that God was calling me to examine and to hold to his standard of holiness. Holiness is set-apart-ness to be used by God, to hear from God, and to be with God. And, as I saw in Exodus, holiness often necessitates sacrifice. God was calling me to relational sanctification and that meant letting go of people and things that I would much prefer to cling to indefinitely.
This decision was not something that I desired. It’s not even something that made much sense to me. In my heart, I desperately conjured up my own volley of justifications to remain in my current place of relational comfort, but God refuted every single one of them in his word. He showed me that there was a difference between settling for a “good” way and striving for a “right” way—his way. I was at a crossroads, a burning bush. I knew what God was leading me to do, and to choose the comfortable, secure way would be to act in direct disobedience to my Savior and Father. As an individual, that sin would hurt my walk with the Lord, and the effects would also resonate into my ministry as an evangelist, student, discipler, and small group leader. To continue in comfort was a selfish decision that would carry grievous consequences.
I thought back to Fall Retreat when the series first started. Why didn’t I feel convicted back then? But really, God’s word demands submission regardless of conviction. Submission entails a purposed heart that is ready to obey when confronted with a situation that necessitates it, and this was the situation that necessitated it.
Cue two more of Brandon’s points: “The righteous remnant is purposed not to compromise.” Compromised holiness feels all too comfortable to us. To me. But just as we count the cost of important ministry decisions like discipleship, it’s also important to count the cost of compromise. Compromise, at best, results in settling for less than what God wants to use you for, and at worst, results in sin. With that in mind, “It’s not an issue of pragmatism, it’s an issue of faith.” I don’t have to understand everything in order to submit to the Lord in it. Neither do you.
Like Brandon stated from the beginning, a righteous remnant, of which Noah, Daniel, and Job are our examples, exists in stark contrast to the wicked sinfulness and deception of the world. Believers are part of the church, and the church is called to be a light in the darkness of the world. That’s because there are souls out there that God desperately desires to see saved and won into his Kingdom. Like Brandon mentioned in a sermon just recently, “We have to be familiar with discomfort if we’re going to reach the world.” Our burden for souls’ salvation and sanctification ought to outweigh our vain inclinations towards comfort. Righteousness is holiness mobilized. If I want to be part of a righteous remnant of believers, I need to be purposed to obey God in personal holiness before I try to join my brothers and sisters in collective righteousness.
“It has always been about souls…”
Going back to those two definitions at the beginning, as a righteous remnant, we’re called to stand alone in order to stand with God. For me, that meant letting go of a relationship so that I could continue to stand with God in how and where he was leading me. And secondly, a righteous remnant trades temporary pain for long-term peace. The pain cut deep and it’s hard to see how it will only be temporary, but I still have peace in knowing that I was obedient to the Lord in this decision and that I can trust the Lord with even more in the future.
All of what God is calling me to, what God is calling all of us believers to, isn’t for the sake of puffing ourselves up in self-righteousness. It’s far from it. It has always been about souls and being able to pursue them more effectively because we’re sanctified more wholly. I have unsaved friends I’ve been praying for for years, and it’s difficult to call them to obey the Lord in salvation if I’m not obeying the Lord as a believer.
Psalm 15:1-2 [[A Psalm of David.]] LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness...
Psalm 15 is a passage God showed me recently. The first verse sets the context. The chapter is like a brief “how-to” for a believer who wants to dwell in God’s holy hill. It lists several things in the following verses, such as working righteousness (v2). When studying it out, I was initially confused by how the chapter ended: “...He that doeth these [things] shall never be moved” (Psa 15:5b).
The first verse is talking about God’s holy hill but then the last one is talking about not being moved? I didn’t see the connection. But then, under the vignette of Brandon’s series, it became clear. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I had made hard decisions for the Lord before, so I thought I was good to go, much like Obadiah in 1 Kings 18. I thought I had already arrived at God’s “holy hill.” But for the believer, it’s not always getting to the holy hill that’s difficult. It’s dwelling there that is the true challenge. There are a multiplicity of ways that the world, the Devil, and our flesh are trying to move us away from that place of holiness because holiness is a position of obedience and a purposing to righteousness. But if we’re obedient to do what God’s calling us to and if we refuse to compromise in the small, easy decisions and the big, painful ones, we are promised that we won’t be moved. Are you dwelling in God’s holy hill? Are you purposed not just to be a righteous remnant, but to remain one? Or have you compromised?
Have you been moved?