Lot, a standard of righteousness!?

2 Peter 2:7 NLT But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. 8 Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. 9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment.

Sandy Wilson at 2PC up in Memphis was dealing with the final judgment in the AMEN bible study this morning (podcast on itunes), and he ran across this verse that has been quite troubling to me in the past, but something stood out to me that I haven't really paid attention to before.

It has troubled me in the past because it says that Lot was a righteous man. REALLY?!? This dude offered his daughters up (sexually) to the sodomites that were trying to molest the angels that had visited him to warn him about the impending doom of the city. Later, he got drunk and slept with the same two daughters and got them pregnant. Righteous?!? This same man chose to live in a town that is perhaps the most notoriously wicked place in the history of the world, and he wouldn't be welcomed in any of our homes or churches acting the way he did. Righteousness... It's a tough label to reconcile for me for Lot.

It leads me to a couple thoughts...

1. Righteousness has more to do with who we are than what we do. The long and short of it is that we are righteous because of who we are and we cannot be made righteous by our activities even though as righteous people we are required to live a certain way. The Bible declares that Lot was righteous; therefore, he was righteous in spite of his sinfulness and not because of his righteous activity. This is obviously true of other notorious righteous folk like King David and the person that you look at in the mirror every day.

2. Lot exhibited righteous activity that exceeds many of ours. The verse above tells us that Lot was grieved by the wickedness that surrounded him. Specifically, the shameful immorality that he saw everyday. There is an alarming trend that exists in the church today. It is a trend toward tolerance and acceptance of sin rather than grieving over it. Lot was grieved by the wickedness that he saw in his world. Are we? I think we've been infected by the spirit of this age and have bought into the lie that to be grieved by wickedness is to be mean-spirited, unloving and ungracious, and it certainly can be. But, there can be no real sense of love and grace if there has been no grievance. Is there any valor in loving those that we embrace? No. True grace and love can ONLY spring into action in the context of a grievance. So, the only way we can be deeply gracious is to be deeply grieved. Same is true for love. Jesus says that the greatest love is a love that would lay down it's life for an enemy. It's easy to "love" what we accept.

Righteousness and God likeness demand that we be grieved by the sin in our world and in ourselves. When we are deeply grieved, then and only then, can we exercise and experience the love and grace of God in the way that he has exercised them toward us.

In the past, I've been very judgmental of Lot and troubled by this verse. Is his sin any worse than mine? Is my hatred of sin as strong as his? How would I fare in Sodom?