This unit has covered the subject of the name of God.  Indeed, much is contained in the very name of God.  His name embodies all of who He is and what He has done.  His name is so wonderful that it is never contained in just one word.  

Yahweh encompasses all of the other descriptive names for God.  He is the self-sustaining One.  I am that I am.  I will be what and who I will be.  God is God all by Himself, He needs no help!  He stands in the solitude of Himself.  He has never NOT been.  He never will NOT be.  God…IS!  He exists in the eternal present.  He was before time.  He will be after time.  He is transcendent over time.  He exists outside of time.

We began with Moses in Exodus 3 and his encounter with God at the burning bush on Mt. Sinai. Yahweh sent him back to Egypt to be used to free the Hebrew people from slavery. We explored the majesty of God’s name in Psalm 138.  We witnessed the love expressed in His name in Psalm 103.  Through the Christmas story in Isaiah 7 and Matthew 1, we were reminded that Jesus was born to bring us salvation.  This week, we study the righteousness in God’s name as we look at Jeremiah 23 and Romans 3. 

Jeremiah the prophet lived in 600-500 BC just as the southern kingdom of Judah was about to go into exile in Babylon.  He preached for nearly 40 years and had zero response to his messages.  He would finally understand after many tears that they were not rejecting him personally.  These hard-headed and hard-hearted Jews were saying NO to the holy God who had called Jeremiah from the womb and sent him out with a message.

Through Jeremiah, God told the people that God had promised them a holy and righteous king to rule over them.  This king would come from the tribe of Judah through the line of King David.  This king would execute justice in the earth.  His reign was promised to be prosperous and fruitful. 

Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, the house of bread.  He would be raised in the home of Joseph, a carpenter in Nazareth.  The word Nazareth means branch.  God had promised King David that He would give his family line an enduring house.  This enduring house promised to David was to be the line of the Lamb and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  Joseph was from the tribe of Judah.  God keeps all of His promises to the letter. 

After we see that the One to come will be the Righteous Branch from “Branch Town” (Nazareth), we turn to the New Testament to see WHY Jesus needed to come to earth.  We were the reason.  We had NO righteousness of our own.  Adam and Eve chose to reject their place in a perfect Eden.  They turned their backs on a relationship with a God Who walked with them in that Eden.  Every person born since Adam and Eve has been born with a sin nature.  We needed Righteousness to be born for us so that He could be born IN us! 

Romans 3 is filled with proof of how much we needed God.  Paul uses scriptures from the Old Testament, especially from the Psalms and the prophetic writings, to show us that we are born in bad shape!  There is no ONE righteous on this earth.  We all need a Savior.  Jesus came to fix us! 

We do not choose to seek God on our own.  Lost people are simply lost until they turn from their sin and reach out to Jesus.  The Holy Spirit draws us to Jesus, but Holy God designed us to have the opportunity to say yes or to say no to that drawing.  We arrive here condemned already according to Jesus in John 3 in His conversation with Nicodemus. 

Apart from the righteousness bestowed on us through Jesus, we are undone.  Thank goodness, God made a way!  When we realize that we are sinners in need of serious cleansing, the way to God is made available to us through His Son.  His grace justifies us and makes us clean.  We are redeemed from our life of slavery to sin.  His SHED blood cleanses us.  The wall of separation caused by our sinfulness is broken down.  We have access to The Father because of the life of the Son and the breath of life we receive through the Holy Spirit. 

God makes promises.  God keeps promises.  In the Old Testament, God made the promises.  In the New Testament, Jesus came to fulfill all of the promises.  People who lived looking forward to the cross of Calvary are saved the same way as those of us who live on this side of Calvary.  The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.  We are justified by our faith.  We have peace with God.  God sees us as righteous just like His Son, the Branch. 

As we launch into this new year of 2024, may we pause long enough to say thank you to the Lord for making a way for us to come to Him.  In John 15, Jesus says we are the branches attached to the vine.  Jesus is the vine, and the Father is the vine dresser.  Our job is to abide in the vine and produce fruit that pleases the Lord.  Be ready for the pruning in 2024!  When God sees you, He sees you through the righteousness of His Son, the Branch from Nazareth.