20/20 Vision Series -- Biblical Justice and God's People

We're gonna turn our attention to God's word. I love that we're having a hard time getting y'all to sit down again. Could tell we are hungry to be back with other people again.

So, if you are new to us, we wanna welcome you in Christ's name and let you know we're glad you're here with us this morning. If you need a restroom, there's some down the hallway this way. There are also rooms for kids who are having a hard time sitting through the service down this way. There are also restrooms downstairs. So, we're so glad that you're here among us this morning. Glad for people who are joining in online as well.

We're to turn our attention to God's word. If you would find your worship guide, we're going to read together from Amos chapter five. We're going to read verses six through 24, and it is our habit to read aloud together. This is one of the ways that we hide in and out. Just a little bit? Yeah. Okay. Maybe I'll use a handheld in just a sec. Alright. Let's get started. We'll read and I'll grab another mic. You ready? Three, two, one.

Seek the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph and it devour with none to quench it for Bethel. Oh you who turn justice to wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth. He who made the Pleiades and Orion and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth. The Lord is his name, who makes destruction flash forth against the strong so that destruction comes upon the fortress. They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. Therefore, because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of heathen stone but you shall not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards but you shall not drink their wine. For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins. You who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, who turn aside the needy in the gate. Therefore, he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time. For it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil that you may live. And so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you as you have said. Hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord. In all the squares, there shall be wailing and in all the streets, they shall say, alas, alas. They shall call the farmers to mourning and wailing, those who are skilled in lamentation. And in all the vineyard pass through your midst, says the Lord. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. You have the day of the Lord. It is darkness and not light. As if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. And the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs, to the melody of your harps, I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. — Amos 5:6-24

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

A Sunday Morning Game

So, we're going to start our sermon this morning with a little Sunday morning version of name that tune and I'm going to sing something and we'll see if you all can name what the song is. You ready?

Some of you got this. What we got? Ice, ice, baby. Anything else? Under pressure. Okay. So, you're both right. Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, right? Under pressure by Queen and David Bowie. They're saying that one together. So, how you answer that may show how old you are. Baby boomers tend to know under pressure, Gen Xers tend to know Ice Ice Baby, and if you're younger, you're like, I remember my dad maybe playing that song sometime, or you heard it in a department store.

But here's the backstory on why we know and answer that two different ways and why they're both right. Vanilla Ice became a household name in the nineties for that song, Ice Ice Baby. First rap artist to go number one on the charts with that song. But he also became famous for another reason: copyright infringement. He took the baseline from Queen and David Bowie's song Under Pressure without acknowledgement or permission or any royalties and was sued for it by Queen and David Bowie. They settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money, which I assume was not just a little bit but a lot of money. So, this sort of became like a big story in the nineties.

But this song is the perfect intro for our sermon topic today: Justice. That song makes me think of justice. Now, why would I say that?

Because we're in a series on the vision of our church and we've been working through this vision statement that our elders put together. For the next ten years, this is where we're going. We gave you a picture of a tree. If you look in your bulletin next to the scripture, you'll see a microscopic version of that. We're working on a big one for the lobby. There's one on our website too. It shows a tree that's got its roots deep into Jesus—deep into him—with people transformed by the gospel. This pictures us as a church, and it shows on the tree three kinds of fruit. Our elders are praying that these three different fruits will grow up out of us over the next ten years.

One is planting churches. The other one is becoming cross-cultural disciples. We've talked about those over the last seven weeks. Today, we're going to the last of those three fruits, and it'll take us four weeks talking about biblical justice.

The Question of Justice in America

Now, if you are awake in America right now, you know that there is a huge question being debated everywhere about what is justice. There are sort of two parts to it: Who's justice? Who gets to say what justice is? And then, justice for whom?

Right now, this is like—if you ever grew up in East Tennessee, you know this illustration—our culture is like in a mud pit wrestling over a greased pig over this question right now. Who's justice? Justice for whom? And it comes out in all kinds of ways. You have to have an informed opinion on racial discrimination and abortion and welfare and health care and the environment and immigration and the definition of marriage and foreign policy and poverty rates and economic issues. This is all going on on Twitter and Facebook. This is what people are fighting over.

How you answer those questions makes you either a villain or a hero, or makes you either somebody who's a warrior or a victim. So the question is: Who's justice is the right one?

Hearing from God on Justice

Now, for the people of God, let's remember: a closed Bible and an open Twitter account is not going to help us very much. There are so many discussions going on right now, and we really need to hear from the Lord about his definition. And this is why Vanilla Ice is so helpful for us. This is why Vanilla Ice is really helpful, because some Christians say we shouldn't even use the word justice anymore because it'll be so misunderstood. But that's like saying we should never play the song "Under Pressure" anymore because lots of groups and parties and platforms have used that word. We want to hear the original. We want to hear what God's version of that sounds like.

You know, lots of people are sampling this word. Lots of people are using this word justice, just like Vanilla Ice used it from Queen and David Bowie. But what does God say? What is he saying?

Here's my outline for today. If you take notes: the God of justice, the justice of God, and finally, truth in advertising.

So, let's talk about this. We're not trying to take God and graft him onto an ideology. We want to hear from him. We want to hear what he has to say.

The God of Justice

Now, I know it is hard for you to probably drop into a random Old Testament book. Anybody's favorite book out there, the book of Amos? Probably not, right? This is not one a lot of people know about. So, quick context: one of these days I will do a whole sermon series in Amos. I'm looking forward to that.

Amos was a prophet who was from the Northern Kingdom, and he's prophesying to the people in the Southern Kingdom. It's funny—during that time, they had training centers for prophets. It sounds weird to us. Schools of the prophets. It was like seminary, training for pastors. But he wasn't one of those. He didn't even go to school. He was a shepherd that God raised up to be a prophet to speak his truth.

Now, this is around the time when there's a divided kingdom—the North and the South. The Northern Kingdom has been sent into exile. The Southern Kingdom's about to be sent into exile. And this is this minor prophet—this is part of the little books in the back of your Old Testament. It's a minor prophet, but never be confused about minor prophets. Minor prophets usually have major messages, and he's got a major message for the people of God.

So, look at verse eight. Amos starts talking here about what his God is like, and he loves the same things that you love about God. Notice what he says here in verses eight through nine.

He's talking about how he looks up in the sky. He loves looking up in the sky and he names two of the same constellations that we still use the same words for: Orion and the Pleiades. I mean, that's crazy, isn't it? This is the Old Testament book still using the same name, seeing the same stars, right?

He looks up in the sky and talks about how God is the one who makes the sun come up and the sun go down. He loves looking at the sunset. He talks about the ocean and the vastness of the waters. These are all things that we do on vacation. If you go to the beach, this is the stuff we do. We look at sunsets. We love looking at the bigness of the ocean. We love looking at the stars because you can see more than you can see in Raleigh.

Why do we do those things? Why do we love those things? It makes us feel small. It makes us think, "Man, look how big this world is. Look how big this universe is. Look at the God beyond this." This is why we take these little pictures and we say, "The heavens declare the glory of God," in a beautiful sunset. We're like, "God is this awesome," and he's introducing Him and he says, "This is what God is like. The Lord is His name."

But then God—then Amos goes on and says, "There's something else about God's character which also makes me feel small." And it's this: God makes destruction flash forth. God is a God of justice. He's introducing Him. This is who God is. God is a God of justice. In fact, He is the originator of justice. Elsewhere in the Bible, we read that as God's title: God of justice. And He's the original. Everything else is vanilla ice.

You know, if you and I have never met, depending on the context, I may introduce myself to you in different ways. So I meet you at church. I've never met you before. I'm like, "Hey, I'm Jeff Bradford. I'm one of the pastors here." If I happen to meet you walking around my neighborhood with my wife and you know Susan or you've had her as a counselor, I may say like, "Oh yeah, I'm Jeff. I'm Susan's husband." If I'm in Nashville at my parents' house and one of their neighbors comes by, I'm like, "Oh, I'm Jeff. I'm one of the sons of Jim and Susan." If I'm at a school event and I meet another family, I might say, "Hey, I'm Jeff. I'm the dad of Clay, Ezra, and Asher."

You know, depending on the context of all those things, the ways I introduce myself—here's what, here's how God is known, right? We find all these different titles for Him in the Bible: The Lord of creation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord of hosts, the holy one. But we need to know the name that Amos knows for God. This is not one we know very much. We don't talk about the God of justice. It's not a title we're super familiar with. But again, just like I'm introducing myself in different contexts, this is true to God's character. This is who He is. And if we're going to know the song God is singing about justice, we need to know this part of Him as the God of justice.

The Indictment

So here's Amos. He's a minor prophet, but he's got this major message. He's coming with a major message. He's connecting two things together that we never connect. He connects the justice of God with the injustice of people. He connects two ideas there. He's saying, "Look, I want you to show justice to your neighbors."

They are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground. — Amos 5:7

Now God is bringing charges. He's putting His people on trial, and here's Amos—he's like the prosecuting attorney. He reads the indictment from God, and it only has two words on it. Two words that are right there in that passage, right there in that verse.

And I'm going to use the Hebrew words because it's fun to say Hebrew words. They're so different from American English. It's just fun. So the two words are Mishpat and Tsedakah.

Mishpat—can you say that one? Mishpat? Yeah, isn't that fun to say? Mishpat. And then Tsedakah. Like "Tsar"—okay, "TZ"—Tsedakah. Alright, right? Doesn't it feel right? Those two words regularly are connected in the Bible. They appear together over and over in the Old Testament.

Here's what they mean. The Hebrew word for justice is Mishpat, and it occurs over 200 times in the Old Testament. Over and over, its basic meaning is to give people their due. That means acquitting or punishing a person based on the merits of the case rather than on socioeconomic status or whether you know them, whether they're bribing you or not, right? On the merits of the case, you give people their due. That's Mishpat.

But it's more than just punishing wrongdoing. It's actually doing right. So in Deuteronomy 18, it describes giving the priests their Mishpat for their labor.

Giving them their due, paying them, giving them food, giving them benefits for their labor in the temple. Giving them their Mishpat, giving something their due. So, Mishpat, justice means both negative and positive, giving people their due.

Righteousness (Tsedakah)

Tsedakah or righteousness is a little more complex. When we think of righteousness, we think of private morality, like sexual celibacy outside of marriage or we think of things like righteousness being a person who's doing their Bible study in a coffee shop and taking pictures of it, posting on internet. They're righteous in that moment, right? But righteousness then was more relational. It was me treating Aaron as my neighbor. I was having a right relationship with each other and Fritz and Christy and all of us. The way we relate to one another as a community. It's a fabric that's put together and the righteousness of a community was the way that those relationships were actually done with one another.

So, the Bible says Tsedakah is day to day. It's not just what you do on Sundays but what you do every day. Your relationships with another. So, this is who God is. A God of Mishpat, justice, a God of righteousness.

God's Authority Over Justice

Now, you remember when you were a kid and you're trying to get one of your siblings to do something? Anybody ever have this—like, somebody's in the bathroom taking too long, right? And if you say, come on, you've been in there forever, right? Like that's what kids say. Does your sibling get out of the bathroom for that? No, she does not. But there are magic words that you can say that get her out of the bathroom. You might know what they are? Dad says, Mom says. Why are those powerful words? Well, there's some authority behind it, right? Like, Mom says, get out of the bathroom. It means it's her bathroom and she says get out. You've been in there too long. Dad says, this is his house. It's time for you to get out.

Now, with all the debate going on about what is justice and justice for whom and who gets to say—God gets to say. And this is why: Dad says. He's the originator. Justice comes from him. This is who he is. So, he gets to define it.

Dad says, and this is what he says. Look at verse 24:

I want justice to roll down like waters, like an ever flowing stream. — Amos 5:24

Those are words that Martin Luther King Jr. made famous. God says, because that's who he is, this is what he wants. And this is his problem with his people. You're not like that, right? They are those who turn Mishpat into bitterness and cast righteousness, Tsedakah, to the ground.

Who God's Justice Is For

So, the justice of God—what is the justice of God? If God is a God of justice, then what's the justice of God? Look at verses 14 and 15. God tells us exactly what justice is by telling us who it's for and how it needs to be worked out.

What is God's justice? Who is God's justice for? In his book On Justice, Nicholas Wolterstorff coined a great phrase that everybody uses now. He says, God's justice is for the quartet of the vulnerable. And over and over, we see these names put in the Bible, listed as God's heart being for these four groups, but it's best summarized here in Zechariah 7:

Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, or the poor. — Zechariah 7

The widow, the orphan, the stranger, the poor. Over and over, those names are listed.

Now, why would those be called out for special attention? Because those are people who had no social power in the community. They didn't have any way of making transactions or buying land or leveraging power in a community. So God says, these four groups are really important that you pay attention to these four groups.

Now, today, we could add other people to that list. Like, we might say refugees, migrant farmers, some single parents, elderly. We could put in that list, but these were four groups that were particularly vulnerable. And God says, I want you to make sure that there's justice for them.

Justice at the Gate

In fact, verse 15, he says, establish justice in the gate. Now, that sounds weird to us. Like, you have a gate on your fence at home. Why would God care about your fence having justice? But that is really different. This was city hall. The gate in ancient Israel in every town had a town gate where all the business was conducted. Go read the book of Ruth. All the transactions and things happen right there at the city gate. That's where the elders of a community would get together. They would listen to a case, and they would make a decision at the gate.

It's where a business transaction would happen. At the city gate, he's saying, "I want all of your transactions in that place, in your courthouse, to be upright, but especially for the quartet of the vulnerable—especially those looking for righteousness for this group, these four groups, right?"

So the Mishpat or the Tzedakah or both of a community were always evaluated not by how well their economy's going or how nice their buildings are, but actually how they treat the people at the bottom. In Israel, that's how God's measuring. How you treat the people who are most vulnerable in a society—who, if a famine comes, they're the ones who are going to die. If a coronavirus hits, they're the ones who are going to die. That's what God cares about, right?

So this is the song that God is singing, and he wants his people to learn to sing the same song.

False Advertising

Now, every couple years in America, we hear some high profile case of a company that is sued by the federal government for falsehood in advertising. Remember Volkswagen? Couple years ago, they promised their diesel cars were fuel efficient and didn't pollute the environment. Activia yogurt said they had special extra bacteria. Kellogg's twice—they said their mini wheats could make you smarter, and also that their rice crispy cereal could boost your immune system. Red Bull famously said—and they got sued for this—that it could give you wings. That's one of my favorite ones. Really? Did someone actually misunderstand that?

New Balance falsely said their shoes help the wearers burn more calories. Hyundai and Kia over-advertised the car's horsepower. Splenda falsely said their product was made from sugar. Olay falsely claimed its skin care products were clinically proven to boost genes. I don't even know what that means. But people bought that. Eclipse gum falsely said it could kill germs. None of those are true, and they all got sued for false advertising.

In Amos five, God is saying, "Look, I'm suing my people for false advertising. This is who I am. I am the God of justice. I love justice. But it's not you. This is not what you're like, people."

There are three things that he points out here in this passage. He's saying: you are falsely advertising who I am. And here's my question for us this morning—what are we advertising about the character of our God?

Presumption

First: presumption. Notice what the people of Israel are saying in verses 18 through 20. They're longing for the day of the Lord—a day of judgment. They're saying, "Lord, we wish you'd bring judgment on our neighbors for their sin. We're ready for you to bring the hammer down."

Amos almost sounds like another rapper in this section. He sounds like Ice Cube: "Check yourself before you wreck yourself." Listen to what he says:

Woe to you who want the day of the Lord, who desire the day of the Lord. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear. As though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light, pitch dark without any day of brightness?

The day of the Lord is a day of accounting, a day of judgment. Amos is holding up this mirror and saying, "Look at the presumption that you have. You're like, 'I'm good with the Lord,' and he's like, 'I'm not so sure.'"

He's not saying you shouldn't be saying, "Come, Lord Jesus." He's saying: say "Come, Lord Jesus" but have your life reflect it. Cry out Maranatha, but have your life also advertise that there is a God of justice and how you act toward your neighbor.

There are two scopes or dimensions to justice in the Bible. He connects day of the Lord with another kind of God's justice. The day of the Lord is called retributive justice—God's going to bring retribution.

Two Kinds of Justice

The other kind is called restorative justice or rectifying justice. God making things right. And he connects these two. There was a movie many years ago called Grand Canyon. In the movie, there's this immigration attorney and he's driving his high-end expensive car home from work and he gets in a traffic jam and so to get out of the traffic jam, he ends up cutting kind of a back way through some tough neighborhoods and zigzagging through all these back streets. And as he does so, the music starts kicking up and his car eventually, the streets get darker and more deserted. Finally, the car stalls out at a stop sign. Nothing happening. So he calls the tow truck. And while he's waiting for the tow truck to come, these guys come out from between an alleyway, there's a gang. He's in their territory and they start messing with him. They start messing with his car. They start threatening him with bodily injury and they're just having fun, but it's getting more and more frightening to him.

And the tow truck driver pulls up and he begins to hook up the car to the tow truck and the gang's giving him a hard time and finally, the tow truck driver takes the gang leader aside and says to him these words: "Man, this world isn't supposed to be like this. Maybe you don't know this but this ain't the way it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be able to do my job without asking you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you ripping them off. Everything is supposed to be different than what it is here."

The tow truck driver captures the second kind of justice. This "ain't the way it's supposed to be" kind of justice. See, God's justice is both day of the Lord justice—retribution, retributive justice—but it's also this "ain't the way it's supposed to be" justice, restorative justice. The making things right kind. And you know, it's funny because we mostly think of God's day of the Lord kind. God bringing justice means final judgment, right? But more and more—lots more times in the Bible—God's justice refers to this "ain't the way it's supposed to be" kind. The restorative kind, the making things right kind. And he wants his people to reflect that kind in the world. He wants people to reflect that kind in the world. We're gonna look at this again next week when we look at Matthew chapter 25, the sheep and the goats. Jesus does the same thing. He connects these two things that we've disconnected. We think of them as separate categories and Jesus connects them too.

Hypocrisy and False Devotion

Second, God also charges them with hypocrisy. Look what He says here in verses 21 through 24.

I hate, I despise your feasts. I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I'm not gonna accept them. The peace offerings of your festivals, I'm not gonna look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; all that melody of your harps, I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. — Amos 5:21-24

What does God want? He wants their other six days' devotion to him to match their Sunday devotion to him. He wants it all to be the same and he wants it to be worked out in how you love your neighbor and showing justice to your neighbor in the way that you interact with them. He wants truth in advertising.

You know, there was a well-known fiasco in the music world of the nineteen-nineties. They became one of the hottest acts, right? In the nineteen-nineties, they even won a Grammy that year for best new artist. Until it came out. Remember? They didn't sing any of their songs. Kind of a problem. So they show up for concerts and they would lip sync and this got busted and again, huge musical news fiasco.

And see, God is saying to his people, "I don't want you to lip sync your devotion to me. I don't want this to be hypocritical. I want it to be real." And the way I know it's real is I want it lived out in your relationships with your neighbors.

Indifference to the Vulnerable

See, presumption, hypocrisy, and finally, indifference. This is verses 10 to 13. This is the final problem that Amos cites and the charges against the people of Israel: indifference. You don't care about the plight of the vulnerable. This is the prophet, verse 10. This is the prophet who's reproving them in the gate. He's saying all these words to them. They don't like it. They're like, "We don't want to hear any more words from you." He's speaking the truth but he lists the things that are wrong. They're indifferent to the poor. He says, "You've trampled on the poor. You exact taxes of grain from them."

You built houses of limestone but you're not going to live in them. You planted pleasant vineyards. You're not going to drink their wine. For I know how many of your transgressions, how great your sins. And here, remember, you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.

I was listening to one of the fathers of our denomination—a guy who's had just generations of influence—Carl Ellis. And he said, you know, in the Bible, there are really three tributaries of biblical justice. A restorative justice for neighbor. And he said, these are the three things. The three things we should care about if we're going to be known as God's people.

The conceived must live. That's justice. The living must be cared for. That's justice. The poor and oppressed must be defended. That's justice. All three of those together picture them coming together like in Pittsburgh—three rivers coming together.

You know, there is zero debate today among Christians in churches who love the Bible like we do. Nobody's debating, "Hey, should we do worship?" Not very debatable. Nobody's debating, "Hey, is prayer important?" Or "Do we think evangelism matters?" Or "Should we give our money?" But pursuing biblical justice, man, that is hotly debated right now. Social justice—should we do that? Is that tainted with Marxism? Should we be running away from that?

You know, I'm going to get into the history next week of why that's such a big deal, starting at the beginning of the twentieth century. But we shouldn't be upset when the rest of the world starts singing when they start riffing on what God says about justice. And it sounds kind of wrong to us because they don't know the song "Under Pressure."

We shouldn't be upset because God is a great songwriter. God has come up with a concept of justice that the world is like, "I want me some of that. I want some of what God says." They don't even know who wrote it. But when we hear people singing it out of tune or out of place, we shouldn't be upset about that. We should help people to know this is the God behind this. We should reclaim our song. We should start singing what God is singing because we want people to be hungry for him.

Understanding Justice Through Faith

You know, Proverbs 28:5, and I'll close with this:

Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. — Proverbs 28:5

How does that land with you? Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. That's a bold claim. How could that be true? In what sense can Christians claim we understand justice completely?

Well, we know it's not because we're holier or smarter or better than other people. The Bible is really clear. It's not because of our wisdom, our righteousness, our morality that God puts his hand on us and loves us, puts his blessing on us. We are not sufficient in anything of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us. That's from Second Corinthians.

But look, we understand justice completely because we are tethered by faith to the one who is our justice. This is why there's no talking about justice without also talking about Jesus, who is our justice. Jesus, the Son of God, second member of the Trinity, lived the life that we couldn't live, that we should have lived. He died the death that I deserve, that you deserve to die. And that's God's justice for us as sinners.

And every time—I want you to hear this—how precious to us as believers is the fact that God satisfies his justice for us in Jesus. Don't we love Romans 3? Listen to this. Listen to how it uses both words, justice and righteousness:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All are justified by his grace as a gift, through redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness. Because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. — Romans 3

Such precious words, right? Don't we love this Jesus? How he satisfies God's justice for us. When God—because Jesus has paid it all on the cross for your sin—God can be called just in sending all that wrath on Jesus. So you and I get mercy and grace. We celebrate that.

But remember, God's justice is not just "day of the Lord" justice. It's "that ain't the way it's supposed to be" justice.

See, the day of the war of justice falls on Jesus and we're glad of that but if that's all the cross is, we are in a heap of problem. Because we're declared just, we're declared righteous, and yet we're still broken and bruised by the fall. There's all these ways we're diminished. There are all the ways that we ain't what we're supposed to be. Right? And God in His justice is both retributive on Jesus. The right judgment of God falls on him for his sin but God restores the sinner. He brings righteousness and justice to the lives of people who are so broken. He makes those who are that ain't the way it's supposed to be into that's the way it's supposed to be. That's what we love.

I mean, isn't this the grace that we talk about all the time? God's justifying, sanctifying, glorifying grace. He's gonna make you completely you in ways you never even knew that you were you. I can't wait. I can't wait to know you in that one day.

But those who are just, who are justified by faith, then should be the most passionate about God's restorative, this ain't the way it's supposed to be justice in this world because we know the justifier. See, only the justified can ask for God's justice to come and not be hypocritical. You know, we can ask for God's justice to fall in the abortion industry and racial inequity and domestic abusers and those who grow rich through taking advantage of other people. See, we can ask for justice out there without any hypocrisy of hoping like, oh God's not going to see my impatience and my pride and my lust and all the ways I sin. See, he set those aside nailing them to the cross. Don't we believe that? Yes.

So, look, only justified Christians are those who seek social justice without contorting it to keep themselves out of the picture. Like, we're the people who can sing, man, Lord, what we really want, we can be the song that sings with a full throat and a full heart. Under pressure, Lord. We want the original and we want all of it. We want the world who knows Ice Ice Baby to start singing the original. Let's pray that that happens.

Prayer

Would you join me in prayer? Father God, we pray. Lord, this is a part of you we don't know and Lord, we're sort of meeting you today and shaking hands and you're introducing yourself in a different context than we know. And it's hard for us to get there, Lord, because of our background in the church, because of our history, because the way that these two concepts have been separated for us. Lord, this is all new.

But we pray, Father, Lord, that you would make us who love the cross and who love the empty tomb and love the God who justifies the unrighteous. Lord, we would pray that you would help us to connect that, to restore to this ain't the way that's supposed to be justice in our hearts and in our lives. And Lord, we pray that we would be people who show forth truth in advertising, who are not lip syncing the lyrics, who are not showing off something that's not real in our lives. Lord, we pray that this would be true in the very depths of our souls.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.