His Righteousness Will Never Be Dismayed Isaiah 51:4–6 

Grace, mercy and peace be with you from God, our Heavenly Father, and from our righteous Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Our message is based on our Old Testament, especially verse 6, My salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.

His righteousness will never be dismayed, is today’s theme. 

While some may try to suppress the righteousness of God on earth, nothing and no one will suppress His righteousness in Heaven.

Considering that the righteousness of God in Christ brings salvation to the earth, it’s amazing that it would be resisted; but for some sad reason, it sometimes is. 

Thanks be to God that the Holy Spirit has brought the righteousness of Christ into our lives, this faith in Christ who saves us.

The verses in today’s Old Testament, like so many others in Isaiah, are Messianic, pointing to Christ -- first promising that He would come in righteousness to save us; and also promising that in righteousness He will return to take us home.

Our Lord promises, My salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.

Nothing was able to stop Him from coming in righteousness to save us, and nothing will stop Him from returning in righteousness to raise and glorify us.

On this last Sunday of the church year, our attention turns toward Christ’s return in all His glory and righteousness, as He comes to judge the living and the dead. 

For that day of judgment, Christ gives us His righteousness to hold on to, and so we don’t fear but hope for the time ofgive thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. judgment to come. We’ll talk more about this near the end of our message.

Our text says, “Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples.

Sin and injustice create darkness among the nations. There’s been a whole lot of darkness throughout the history of our world. 

Our world turned toward darkness when it turned toward sin; and the darkness won’t end until the world ends, and a new and righteous, heavenly world begins. 

Our answer for now is to turn toward God, because we live in a fallen world where sin and evil hide in the darkness and lurk in the shadows to harm and deceive us; sin lurks even in the darkness and shadows of our own hearts.

To counter the darkness in and around us, we need the light of God’s Word, His Law and His Gospel, to show us the way.

The light of His law exposes the sin that intends to wreck our lives, and ruin our souls, and steal our salvation.

The light of the Gospel shows us where the righteousness that overcomes sin can be found: in Christ alone; our hope and trust are in Him, and our lives focus on Him.

We wait, and we watch, and we pray that God’s righteousness would not be dismayed or delayed, but that soon, Christ will come in glory as He promised.

Our Old Testament says, 6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.

In a fallen world, filled with evil and injustice of every kind, how comforting to know that a time will come for God’s people, when there will be no sin and unrighteousness to harm and deceive us, only love in a world called Heaven.

In Heaven there will be nothing fallen; everything will be righteous, and that means no hate, only love, no selfishness, only service, no war and conflict, only peace, no grief and sadness, only joy.

How happy we’ll be when we’re raised in glory and healed of this madness of  sinning against God and one another.

Why do we do it? Why do we keep on sinning against God, and our neighbor? It makes no sense. But still we do it. 

Sin has this grip on us; sadly, we’re just so good at it; we sin without even trying. 

As proficient as we are at sinning, God is even better at forgiving.

We can only repent with a sincere heart, and live by God’s grace; and then with His help, learn to do better; instead of getting better at sinning against our neighbor, getting better at loving our neighbor. 

And we look toward that glorious, eternal world to come, where no forgiveness will be needed, because all will be righteous, and love will be pure.

It will be as God promises in our text, my salvation will be forever, my righteousness will never be dismayed.

There’s a lot in this world that would try to dismay and discourage the righteousness of God, including our own sinful lives. 

But our hope as His children is that His righteousness would reign on earth as in Heaven; that it would spread without delay.

God’s righteousness on earth involves two things: first is faith in Christ; second is love in Christ.

First comes faith. Romans 3 says, 21 But now … the righteousness of God has been made known apart from the law…. (in the Gospel). This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

The righteousness that saves and forgives, comes to us, not by the Law, that is, not by the good we do, which is never good enough, because we all sin and fall short of God’s glory, rather the righteousness that saves comes to us by faith in Christ, which is God’s gift to us, His grace, won by Jesus on the cross. 

He took our sins and died for them, and in return, gave us His perfect righteousness, so that by faith in Him, we are declared by God to be worthy of the perfect righteousness and glory of Heaven; its’ not our doing, its’ His doing.

Secondly, the righteousness of God for us on earth is His power in us to be like more Christ, to live in godly love, and to do what’s good and right for others, and what honors God.

We don’t do it perfectly, because sin still lurks in us; but greater than sin is the Holy Spirit who lives in us, helping us to be more like Christ for the world.

So in short, the righteousness that God gives us in Christ is, first, having salvation, and second, showing love. 

Why would anyone want that to be dismayed or discouraged or hindered; this is what we all need, and need most: love and salvation, our two greatest needs. 

Sin and evil wish for God’s grace to be dismayed, or delayed, or thwarted altogether. 

Faith and love wish for His righteousness to thrive, and His salvation to spread.

And so we pray that God’s righteousness would never be dismayed on earth, as it is never dismayed in Heaven.

There’s much that can dismay us in this world, but the righteousness of Christ for us will never disappoint us; it’ll always give us hope.

God promises in our text, My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out; my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.

We wait for the judgment to come, not with fear and dread, but with hope and joy, because we know we’ll be judged, not according to our sins, but according to the perfect righteousness of Christ, which we’ve been given by faith.

There’s much that can dismay us in this world. Put your hope in Christ and His righteousness for you, and you won’t be dismayed or sorry that you did; you’ll be lifted up and blessed, in time and in eternity.

Finally, as we are not dismayed in the righteousness God gives us, so we are not dismayed, but greatly encouraged in the peace He gives, which is so amazing that it surpasses our understanding.

May it guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, our gracious Lord and righteous Judge, who is coming soon to take us home. Amen.