Dr. M. Taylor Bach I Peter 1:13-23 Matthew 5:43-48

How many of you use the word righteous in your everyday language? Raise your hand. That is a rhetorical question, isn't it? Nobody does but it is a Biblical word. What does righteous mean? Righteous means right living. When Paul commands us to put on the clothing of righteousness, he is basically saying, “Get involved in right living.” What is right living? How would you define right living? The epistle this morning that we read from I Peter gives us clues. “Prepare your minds for action.” Preparing your minds for actions is a right living thing to do. We can't just be as James says, “hearers of the Word only.” We have to be doers as well. “Be self-controlled.” Other translations say be sober. So this is an instruction to avoid addictions. It is instruction to keep our mind clear. It is instruction to be self-disciplined, to be able to control what we do in our life, what we think in our life and that, too, is right living.

“Do not be concerned with evil desires.” Evil desires can be of all kinds. It might be coveting someone else's property. It could be desiring to be involved in a sexual sin. It could be any number of thoughts that run through our mind and wanting of illicit things that we shouldn't want. In the Old Testament, the Deuteronomic historian says this, “Love the Lord your God and keep His requirements, His decrees, His laws, and all His commandments.” So that is the essence of right living. He says, “Observe all the commandments I am giving you today so that you may have strength.” So if we do right living and we are righteous people, we will have an inner strength that comes from making right living a habit. How do you make a habit? You make a habit through repetition. So if you were to take these scriptures seriously and you were going to allow yourself to have right thinking because right thinking leads to right action, then you have to make a habit of right thinking. I don't think it is a bad idea to put little post-it notes around your house at times. There have been times in my life when I have put post-it notes on the mirror and the refrigerator to remind me to get into the habit of thinking a certain way or maybe to remember a Biblical phrase. Things like that can help us to repeat this way of thinking over and over again. And that is a very good approach. We hope it ends with right doing in our life. Right living is living a life of love for others as the epistle to Peter says this morning as well. We have to love the brethren, love one another and do loving things. Then Jesus makes that even more difficult when He says of all things, “Love your enemies.” Huh! That is a whole lot more difficult. Is there someone in your life who has persecuted you, who perhaps has used abusive language with you or physically abused you at some time? Would these people be considered your enemies? I think so. And what is supposed to be your response to these people? Jesus says, “Love them.” He goes on to say that it is simple to love lovable people but how much more important it is and how much more difficult it is to love people who have hurt you or injured you or who have defamed you or done something extremely disastrous to you in one way or another. So this is the kind of challenge that Jesus gives us.

Paul says that actually no one is righteous except Jesus Christ. So no one totally has ever lived totally right except Jesus Christ, the perfect man. And Jesus Himself says we are to strive towards that kind of perfection. “Be perfect,” He urges us. That doesn't mean that we beat ourselves up when things aren't perfect. We are human but we are constantly to be in the progress of getting better and better in our life as we go through life. We are to become more skilled at doing right living as we go through our daily lives.

There are people who work on creating a life of right living. As you know I constantly look for role models and people that we can find who achieve right living so that I can hold them up as an example. I found one this week that actually stuns me. You know I am somewhat of a sports fan. I was reading a book that Jan gave me for Christmas about a sports figure. I will see if you know his name and can figure him out from one page of what he wrote. It is about last year's Super Bowl.

“Patriots  14. Giants  10. One minute and fifteen seconds left on the clock at the University of Phoenix stadium at Glendale, Arizona. More than 72,000 people were on their feet screaming. Patriot fans were already celebrating non-stop. They were sure that the Pats were going to cap off an undefeated season with the Super Bowl win. Eli Eli Eli Eli  chanted the New York Giants fans. As a Patriot win seemed to be in the bag, Manning avoided a sack. He lobbed the ball on a long pass  32 yards  as more than a 143 million people watched the game worldwide. Then an obscure special team's player jumped up, reached into the heavens, caught the ball, mashed it against his helmet and held on to it. Pass complete.” Do you remember that? He caught it on side of his helmet, fell to the ground and still held it on the side of his helmet. “It was considered a completed pass. Within seconds, Burress took Manning's next pass thirteen yards over the goal line and the New York Giants won the game. 17  14 flashed on the scoreboard around the world and the catch, the circus grab, the miracle of the Supernatural Bowl as I call it, became Super Bowl history. That obscure special team's player was David Tyree. Do you know anything about him? David Tyree as a rookie lived a terrible life. He got into alcohol abuse, crack cocaine and illicit sex. In fact, because he had money for the first time in his life, he just went berserk and thought he could do anything. Because he was a NFL player, he believed nobody could touch him. Then he crashed. He began having blackouts. He began to be ineffective on the football field. His life disintegrated. By this time, he had two illegitimate children. Everything seemed to go wrong. Then while in jail, someone told him about Jesus Christ. After doing a little time in jail, he turned his mind and his heart over to Jesus. He married the woman who had his two children and he began to put on the breastplate of righteousness, the clothing of Jesus Christ, and he radically turned his life around. Today, he credits his Super Bowl catch to the Lord and that is why he calls it the Supernatural Bowl.

He said, “I was totally an obscure player. No one had ever heard of me. I was on special teams which meant that I got none of the fame. None of the glory. No one noticed me until I made that catch. And from that three seconds of my life, suddenly I was thrown into the limelight and I could see it only as an act of God. I shouldn't have been able to catch that on the side of my helmet. It had to be a miracle. From that moment on, I've had a platform for which to reach out and touch other people's lives. Because I have turned my life around and given it to Christ, I'm able to go on a speaking tour to talk to teenagers, to talk to young adults and tell them about Jesus Christ in my life. I've been able to do right living ever since.” That power comes through the Holy Spirit. In effect, he was born again at the moment he caught that pass, but actually, his real birth as he says, his real second birth as being born again was at the moment when he turned over his life to Jesus Christ. Fascinating story. Reading his autobiography is something I could recommend to anybody. It is so filled with grace and hope and things that especially the young people in our society could get a lot out of.

There is another person that I want you to consider. I can't say we can imitate very well because he is famous and that's Pastor Rick Warren. You all remember I've quoted him frequently, the author of The Purpose Driven Life which our whole congregation read and studied together  at least eighty of us did when we first came here. Recently, Rick Warren has shared that he's had some trauma in his life. His faith has been tested. Three things have created this trauma. The first is, his immediate rise to fame with the publishing of his book. The second is his overwhelming wealth. He said when his book sales reached fifteen million (it has now reached over thirty million), he became instantly wealthy. And then the last trauma, his wife developed fourth stage cancer. Doctors all say that it will be fatal. He has fame and fortune, yet he's not spared from the ordinary troubles of life that may hit any one of us at any time. Suddenly he is made ordinary again in his struggle with hospitalizations and doctors' visits and the threat of losing his wife which as any of you know who have gone through these kinds of things is a terrible thing to go through. How did he handle his fame? He uses his fame like Tyree, as a platform to tell other people about Jesus Christ. How does he use his fortune? Interesting. I've not known any televangelists who does this&maybe Joyce Meyer. But he has totally given back his salary that his church paid him. He had been at his church for thirteen years. He gave back all thirteen years of his salary to the church and he said it felt wonderful to be able to work for free for his church. Now he would give 99% of his income, his book revenues to projects like AIDS Relief in Africa and things like that which he has chosen to do. So he's using his wealth for Jesus Christ. He is using his fame for Jesus Christ and now he is using his suffering with his wife's cancer problem as well for Jesus Christ. He appears to be a humble man and to have his priorities right. Barak Obama has chosen to use him as the minister who will preach at his inauguration, but he doesn't seem to take this in a way that would be arrogant or “Look at me. I'm so important now.” He seems to be able to take what is going on with him in his life and use it for the glory of God.

Put on righteousness. Clothe yourself in right living. That is what we are all required to do. Whether we achieve fame or whether we achieve ordinariness which is, by the way, what all of us usually do. (One of our members said to me this morning, “Since Robert Schuler is inviting guest preachers to speak at his church, why hasn't he invited you?” And my answer to that is, “He has no clue who I am and probably never will.” That is the way it should be. I am delighted that I get this congregation to speak to. And this is where I belong. I don't belong at Robert Schuler's Crystal Cathedral.)

We deal with what we've been given. All of us have gifts and talents. As we put on right living, righteousness, we use our gifts and talents. That is the way it should be. Part of right living is getting so filled with Christ within us that He becomes a frequent thought through the day every day of our lives. Rick Warren said this and I want to leave you with this as the final words this morning.

In happy moments, praise God. In difficult moments, seek God. In quiet moments, worship God. In painful moments, trust God. In every moment, thank God.