Sometimes people look at others who are serious about obedience to God's commands and feel badly for them."Oh.What a sacrifice!"But the reality is while obedience isn't always easy, it is always good. God has stuffed His commands with His kindness.In the book of Proverbs, Solomon makes a case for righteousness. He shows us that being righteous isn't only something that is good for us in the future, it also is good for us right now.We've been considering some of the ways righteousness helps us.1.) Righteousness simplifies your life.And,2.) It maximizes your life.Now, 3.) It stabilizes your life.When you stabilize something you make it secure.I remember when we lived in the United States in a place called Southern California there were a lot of earthquakes. And when we first got there, a couple years after we got there, there was a tremendous earthquake and stuff in our homes just went flying everywhere. After that people went out and bought nails and other things like that and started securing everything that was valuable to them in their homes. And so when you would go over to people’s houses you couldn’t just pick stuff up because it was somehow cemented down to table or whatever it was sitting on.When you are living in a shaky place you want the stuff that matters to you to be secure so you don't lose it.This world we are living in shaky.Spiritually.We are living in a spiritually shaky place and so our lives spiritually need to be secure, fastened down, made stable and Solomon time and time again tells us that righteousness is valuable because it does just that.Proverbs 10:25, “When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever.”Can you imagine, you and your friend are moving to this place that has all kinds of earthquakes, and you both purchase a house, he buys a house that isn’t built on a firm foundation and you buy a house that is, you both spend some money, maybe you even spend more money, and he thinks he got a great deal but then the earthquake comes and his house just falls down and yours is still there standing. Now who got the good deal? What a waste to spend all kinds of money on a house that won’t be able to stand up to a storm! No matter how good it looks on the outside. And that’s the way it is with the self-centered, me first, what I want above everything else life, Solomon says after the storm is over that kind of life is completely destroyed, it is no more; but not so with the righteous, the righteous is firm, established, and not just for a little while but forever.In fact, you can picture righteousness a little like a trustworthy trained security guard and sin like a well-known thief. If you have something that is important to you, you don’t entrust it to a thief. Can you imagine actually asking someone who is a thief to watch out for something that is valuable to you? Here are the keys to my car, you say to someone you know is a thief. What? No, if you have to make a choice between a thief and a trustworthy security guard to watch out for something that is important to you, you choose the security guard of course and that’s the way it is with wickedness and righteousness.Proverbs 13:6, “Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless, but sin overthrows the wicked.”When you consistently seek to obey God’s Word and to disadvantage yourself for the good of others, those actions function like a kind of security guard for your life but when you put yourself first and what you want first, it’s kind of like you are unlocking the front door to your home and throwing it wide open with a sign on the front saying, if there are any thieves in the area, please come on in and take what you want from me and my family.Righteousness secures your life.Solomon makes this point over and over and over and over again.Proverbs 10:30,“The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not dwell in the land.”Proverbs 11:4 and 5 and 6 and 8,“Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness. The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their own lust. The righteous is delivered from trouble, and the wicked walks into instead.”Proverbs 11:19,“Whoever is steadfast in righteousness will live, but he who pursues evil will die.”Proverbs 12:3, “No one is established by wickedness, but the root of the righteous will never be moved.”Proverbs 12:21,“No ill befalls the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble.” If you want peace, righteousness. Righteousness simplifies your life.  If you want joy, righteousness. Righteousness maximizes your life. If you want safety. Righteousness stabilizes your life.