The Basis for Righteous Living

Today, I’m going to share with you another main reason why faith is so important. It’s the only basis of righteous living.

For our opening scripture today, we’ll turn to Romans chapter 1, verses 16 and 17, where Paul says this:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”

Where Paul speaks of the gospel and its power, there’s a tremendous emphasis on faith. In verse 16, he says, “to everyone who believes.” That’s the key to releasing the power of the gospel in our lives. And in verse 17, the word faith actually occurs three times in that one verse. “The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” And then he quotes the passage from Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 4, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” So in that verse, faith occurs three times.

As I’ve already indicated, that statement, “The righteous man shall live by faith,” is quoted from Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 4. And that same passage in Habakkuk is also quoted twice more in the New Testament: in Galatians 3:11 and in Hebrews 10:38. In other words, four times in the Bible, God tells us this vital fact: “The righteous man shall live by faith.” This unites both righteousness and life with faith. It makes both righteousness and life depend upon faith.

The word live is one of the most all-inclusive words that we could use. It covers everything that’s a part of living. It does not refer merely to what we might consider to be religious or spiritual things, like prayer, or going to church, or reading the Bible. But living includes ordinary, everyday acts, like sleeping, eating, talking. All of these come within the compass of faith. The only way we can be righteous in any of these everyday acts is through faith. There is no righteousness apart from faith.

Interestingly enough, further on in Romans, Paul applies this principle specifically to something so mundane and everyday as eating. And in the verse that I’m going to quote, which is Romans 14:23, he states the converse. In Romans 1:17, he says, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” And in Romans 14:23, he says the opposite:

“Whatever is not from faith is sin.”

Again, this brings home the fact that the only basis for righteousness in our total living is faith. And if anything does not proceed from faith, it’s not righteous. In fact, it’s sin.

Let’s look at what Paul says there in Romans 14:23:

“But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.”

So even eating not from faith is sin. Well, that raises an interesting question, which we could look at for a moment: What is it to eat from faith? How can faith be the basis of something so mundane as eating?

I’ll suggest to you a number of different things that are involved in eating from faith. First of all, we acknowledge that our food comes from God. In Psalm 104, verses 14 and 15, the psalmist says this very clearly. He says,

“God causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the labor of man, so that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine which makes man’s heart glad, so that he may make his face glisten with oil, and food”—but literally bread—“which sustains man’s heart.”

So all our basic provision of food comes from God. Faith acknowledges that.

As a result of acknowledging it, faith thanks God for the food. And this, in turn, sanctifies the food. It gives it a special quality. Paul says this in 1 Timothy 4, verses 4 through 5:

“For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by the means of the word of God and prayer.”

So as we thank God in prayer for our food, we sanctify it. We make it wholesome.

And thirdly, to eat in faith means also that we dedicate to God the strength our food supplies. Paul says in Romans 12:1,

“I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

So our bodies receive their strength and their sustenance from God, and in turn, we acknowledge God by dedicating back to Him the strength which the food supplies to our bodies. Peter says in 1 Peter 4:11,

“Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies.”

So we acknowledge that through our food, God supplies us the strength with which to serve Him.

And then, let’s just look for a moment at the opposite of eating in faith. This is really very interesting. In one of the books of the Bible that’s less often read, Ecclesiastes chapter 5 and verse 17, Solomon depicts what is meant not to eat in faith. Many parts of Ecclesiastes deal with what we would call the natural man, the man who’s not related to God through faith. And in Ecclesiastes 5:17, this is what Solomon says about such a man:

“Throughout his life he also eats in darkness, with great vexation, sickness, and anger.”

So to eat not out of faith is to eat in darkness. And the results are vexation, sickness, and anger. I think we see many demonstrations of that in our contemporary society today, as people eat their food without acknowledging God, without having His blessing, and without dedicating to Him the strength their food supplies. They are eating in darkness, and many, many times the consequence in their lives is vexation, sickness, and anger.

We’ve seen that the only basis for righteous living is faith, and that this applies to every area of our lives.