◑How do we deny justice?
If that's justice defined according to the Bible, then secondly we ought to look at how justice is denied, that is, how do we deny justice..
▶1. And I think we deny justice by focusing on the external over the internal. That is the first thing. That it can lead to hypocrisy to legalism. It's the opposite of having a grace-filled heart, but it is actually motivated by appearing to be righteous on the outside.
When Jesus preached the sermon on the mount in chapters 5 through 7 in Matthew, at the very end, he talks about two ways to live. He talked about the two ways, or the two roads, he talked the two trees, he talked about the two wills, he talked about the two houses or two foundations. And what we find here is that Jesus is not contrasting somebody who wants to obey the will of God and somebody who didn't. It actually contrasting a religious person and a Christian, who both, on the outside appear to be very, very similar, because when you look at the two roads, they're both roads, they're both leading to something.
It's not as though there is one way which is a road and the other one which is not. It's not saying that there are two trees, one tree bears fruit and the other one does not. No, the good tree bears good fruit and the bad tree bears bad fruit, but they both bear fruit. And when it talks about two wills, yes, they both say "Lord, Lord!" but one does it for his own benefit and the other one does it in order to do the will of God and to please the Father in heaven.
So when Jesus talks about different categories of people, he does not categorize between the good and the bad people, whoever they are. But he categorizes them by saying that there are proud people and there are humble people, because when you look a pharisee, when you look at a religious person, somebody who is concerned about the external as suppose to the internal and when you compare that person to a Christian.
Well guess what? They both pray, they both tithe, one might tithe a little more rigidly and a little bit more consistently. They both try to obey, they both read the scriptures, they both evangelize, they both give to the needy as it says in Matthew 6:2, but they do these completely out of different motivational reasons.
The pharisee does it in order to receive praise from others appearing to be righteous and clean. Where as the other, that would be the Christian, does it in order to please God.
Jesus says in Matthew 23 ":25 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. :26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. :27 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. :28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."
Jesus was concerned about the internal heart motive. He was not saying that we are to be engaged in cleansing that an outside in cleansing but he said it had to be an inside out cleansing. So one of the ways that we deny justice is to emphasis the external over the internal, which is opposite to a grace-filled motivation.
▶2. Secondly, the second way that we deny justice is to move away from being radical to becoming measurable. In other words, that we think that the demands of the radical demands of justice are doable.
We don't recognize how radical they are. We think that we can obey, we can manage, we think that the law of God, the standards of the law of God whether it relates to giving, whether it relates to mercy, whether it relates to justice, we believe that they are actually doable.
I remember, several years ago, when I was given an assignment by the chapel office at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and they told me to preach on the Sixth commandment. They were doing a series on the Ten Commandments and they wanted me to preach on the Sixth commandment, "Do not murder." Two words in Hebrew, very, very short command. How can you mess that up, right? Just go up there and preach from the Sixth commandment, "Do not murder." and I'm sure they came up with all sorts of expectations, I mean, what would you expect if you're in a seminary setting. These are seminarians, people who are preparing for the ministry. You had administrators, faculty members.
How were you suppose to preach on that particular commandment? Just go up there and say "Yup, it says you shall not murder. We're all good, we'll see you next week." So the approach that I've took was, the approach that Jesus took, when he explained what it means to understand the Sixth commandment or all of the Ten Commandments in the sermon on the mount, because look what he says here in Matthew chapter 5, he says, "You shall not murder," and then of course before that it actually says, "You have heard it said, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgement."
As a matter of fact, that second part of that phrase is nowhere to be found in Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5. There's another place where it says in Matthew 5:43 "You have heard it said." In other words, not what the Old Testament says, but the Jewish traditional interpretation of the Old Testament, its says, "You have heard it said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy."
Again, the last time I checked Leviticus 19:18, it simply says, "Love your neighbor." It says absolutely nothing about hating your enemy, actually the opposite is said. It says that "Don't take vengeance and hold a grudge."
Now the natural question is, why would anyone want to add to the law of God? Don't we have enough laws in the Old Testament? Why do we need a commentary, a fat book called the Mishinah in order to explain the laws in the Old Testament?
If that were not enough, you have all the other commentaries of the commentary the Old Testament. You got the Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud, and then the Jerusalem Talmud, and if that were not enough, you got all sorts of traditional teachings, adding laws to the existing Old Testament laws and I thought about this and I thought, the reason why the Jewish tradition wanted to add-"You shall love your neighbor," which you find in Leviticus 19:18, and to add the phrase-"And hate your enemy," is to make that radical command doable. And if we make it doable, then you can justify yourself. "Hey, I'm loving my neighbor and I'm hating my enemies." "My neighbor is my wife and my children and those within my community. Oh yeah, I'm loving them all the time and I'm hating my neighbor." It's a very doable command, and they fail to recognize the radical nature of this particular command.
The law was given friends, not that we would see them into recognize that they are doable or that they are obeyable or that they are achievable or that they are manageable. But they are shown to us, so that the law of God, the heavy, radical, holy demand of the law of God, will point us to a Savior.
It is not the means of our salvation, but the evidence of our deliverance. Friends, what is easier to do? To tithe or to give a sacrificial lamb? You know the answer. They were trying to make the law of God obeyable. This is the reason why you see with the lawyer, he asks the question "Who is my neighbor?"
The impulse of the human heart is to narrow down the field so that we can know that we are obeying the radical demands of the great commandment. And therefore, being able to find our own justification and salvation. He was desiring to justify himself.
▶3. And the third way we deny justice is to move away from the universal to the limited scope.
That is the focus on self-centered needs rather than other centered needs. Right, this is a pretty obvious one, it's all about self-absorption. The gospel calls us to love people more and to need people less, as somebody else said. But when you are self-centered, when you are self-absorbed, when you are consumed with your own needs, you become an extremely needy person.
You become an extremely controlling person, and you don't have the emotional, the spiritual and the kingdom capital within your heart, to do justice, to show mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Galatians 5:26 is a pretty straightforward explanation of this when it says that "You are not to be conceited, provoking one another or envying one another."
Actually, like the old authorized version of this, where it take two words in the Greek, which says glory and empty and it translates it by saying, "Do not be vain glorious," or "Don't engage in vain glory." It's a good translation. The way ASV translates it as conceited or as the NIV, "You are not to be conceited." In other words, you are not to be consumed with yourself because if there is a glory vacuum, if there is an emptiness of glory, if there is an honor vacuum within your heart, then what's going to happen?
The heart is going to have an impulse to go everywhere but to God, and to fill that emptiness with honor, to fill that vacuum with glory, and because we can't get the glory fully, because we can't get the honor fully, what ends up happening? We're vain glorious, we're empty of glory, there's a vacuum of honor and therefore we provoke those who are below us and we envy those who are above us. And the result ends up being, we are only as generous as we want to be with a few people as possible and we feel justified in doing so.
Friends, that's a deadly combination.
◑Then, if we have denied justice in this way, then where do we get the hope to reflect God's character of being so just and so righteous and so merciful? Is justice delivered? How does Jesus do justice? Because the world is falling and fragmented, disintegrated and disordered, as a result of sin and people have to be treated as they deserve, justice demands judgement.
Let me see if I can just break it down and this might be and oversimplified definition, but let me give it a shot anyway. Grace is getting what we don't deserve, mercy is getting not what we deserve, and justice is getting what we deserve either for punishment or for protection.
In other words, because of our sins, we are unaccountable to our holy God. So there needs to be a penal justice, there need to be punishment, there needs to be judgement. But at the same time, within the calming grace because we have been created in the image of God.
All those who are vulnerable, all those who are marginalized, all those who are in need, have the right to receive protective justice. So, if we were to look at it this way, a criminal commits a crime, receives penal justice. The poor receives protective justice, but a sinner receives mercy because Jesus receives the penal justice as the substitute in our behalf, in order to give us his righteousness. And if that is the case, this is going to lead us into three things:
▶1. We are going to be motivated by grace. It's going to be grace-fueled, not external over internal, but internal over external. Not outside in cleansing, but inside out cleansing. It will be rooted in the grace. That'll be a real change of heart, where there will be a genuine, authentic transformation, that will not be merely hypocritical. We deserve judgement, but he delivers justice in Jesus.
In 1 John 1:9, it says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." A handful of commentators have mentioned, "Why doesn't it say when we confess our sins, he is faithful and merciful. Why does it say he is faithful and just?" Because when we come before the tribunal of God's holiness and His judgement, ultimately, we're going to want to plead for justice and not mercy, because if Jesus Christ has died on the cross, became a substitute for us, received our penal judgement on our behalf and has given us His mercy, then God can't demand another payment for a payment that has already been made.
In other words, God can‘t ask for a payment because He provided a penal judgement on His son and look to us and say, "Well, I also want a payment from you." In that way, God can't double dip because God is just. And the only way for us to be gracious is to know that we have received grace. The only way that we can be radically merciful, is to know that we have received mercy.
The only way for us to know that we can be radically generous in doing justice, is to know that we have received the perfect justification from God. You know, 2 Corinthians 8:9, I love the way Apostle Paul addresses the issue of money and roots it in grace. You see, in 1 Corinthians 15, he was appealing to the Corinthian church because the Jerusalem church was under great amount of economic distress. So he was appealing to the churches in Macedonia, Berea, Philippi, Thessaloniki and they were more than generous as it says in 2 Corinthians 8, that they were begging Paul to participate in the partnership and the fellowship in being able to generously give to the needs of those Jerusalem christians.
But the Corinthian church, even though the appeal was given in 1 Corinthians 15, they were dragging their feet little bit. So Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8, he says that, "You excel in faith, in speech, and in many other things but, one area you are failing to excel in and that is in the area of being radically generous and giving of your funds." and he gently reminds them.
But you know how he reminds them? He doesn't uses apostolical authority and press the will, but what he says is, "This is not a command." He says, "Jesus Christ who was rich, for your sake, became poor. So those of you who are in poverty might be rich in him." He ultimately rooted in the reality of the grace of God. To motivate us, the logic of the gospel must reshape and renew the motivation for us to engage in doing justice.
▶2. We have the capital now to be radically engaged in self-giving, rather than being measurable.
▶3. And lastly, we have now the ability to be radically generous and just and merciful, that is rooted in a generous justice that overcomes stinginess.
The gospel explodes our understanding of neighbor. That's what it does. Now, I want to take us to a really beautiful picture of this in the Old Testament. Usually, we don't see this in the context of justice, but let me see if I can tie it in this way.
There is a character in 2 Samuel chapter 9, by the name of Mephibosheth, his name means shame-something, and he was the son of Jonathan and the grandson of Saul. And while King David was ascending as the king, there was an accident and he became physically disabled. And so, because he did not want to live under the rule of King David, obviously, for the actions of his grandfather, he was living in a remote place called Lo Debar, which means "No more pasture," or something like that.
He was essentially living outside the covenant community of God's people. And so David, comes to Ziba, who was one of the servants in the household of Saul, and says "Is there anyone remaining in the household of Saul because I want to be generous to him." And he says, "Oh, there actually is, there is Mephiboseth, who lives in no more pasture." "Why don't you go get him." So Mephiboseth is living out there as a physically disabled person and he gets a knock on the door, not that he never wanted to hear and Ziba says, "King David wants to see you."
So he comes and prostates himself before King David, thinking that David will knock his buck off because of what his grandfather tried to do to him, that he had every single right to execute justice and judgement to the household of Saul. And what does David say and do? He says, "Mephiboseth." "Here I am." "I am going to show you kindness and steadfast love on account of, for the sake of your father Jonathan and you will now have all the servants who will be serving you, and you will sit at the king's table. Everyday you will sit at the king's table and you will essentially be treated like you are my own son." And how does he respond?
Well, he responds in a rightful way. He says, you know, "Why are you showing this kind of regard for a dead dog such as I?" Now, do you think Mephiboseth doubted at times? Of course he did. Do you think he was sitting there, looking around, saying, "Yup, I don't belong here. Here, all the children of David. This is royalty, I'm from Lo Debar." But everytime he doubted, where would he look? Where would he find his hope? Where would he find his confidence? He will find it in the gospels according to David, which was, "I will kindness and steadfast love on account of another."
And when I look at the picture of Mephiboseth, he was not somebody who was just taken out of some form of enslavement and bondage and lifted up, receiving all the benefits and the privileges and for somebody who's heart was not moved and he looked the other way, but his heart was stern. He deserved judgement, but received kindness.
And so, what do we find in chapter 19? David goes on to some sort military campaign and Ziba, because he was wicked, he lied to King David and said that Mephiboseth did not want to go out with him and so, on the spot, David says, "Well then, all the inheritance I promised will go to your family." And he goes and comes back and now, he sees Mephiboseth, and look at the way he responds-He had neither taken care of his feet nor trimmed him beard nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he came back in safety.
When he came to Jerusalem to meet the king, the king said to him, "Why did you not go with me, Mephiboseth?" He answered, "My Lord, O king. my servant deceived me for your servant said to him, 'I will sadle a donkey for myself that I may ride on it and go with the king.' for your servant is lame. He has slandered your servant to my lord the king."(2Sam 19:25-27)
Now listen to his heart. This is somebody who understood an inside out cleansing, not an outside in. He understood that God demands a radical, interior radiance, not just hypocritical, external activity. He is somebody who reflects the character of God. He understands that he had received the mercy rather than the judgement, and his heart was so stern and moved. This was his response, "-But my lord the king is like the angel of God, do therefore what seems good to you for all my father's house were but men doomed to death before my lord the king, but you set your servant among those who eat at your table. What further right have I than to cry to the king?"
Friends, we have received the gospel which says that we have received mercy, steadfast love, counter-conditional love, not the judgement of God, which we rightfully deserve because of our sins. That Jesus Christ absorbed the penal justice of God, that we might receive the mercy of God and our hearts should be stirred because we know the gospel according to Jesus which says that we have received mercy on account of another, a greater another, a greater Jonathan, which means friends that this should move us to have a willingness to suffer and to be disadvantage for someone who is in desperate need.
It was the ultimately strong, rich person, Jesus, who disadvantaged himself for the weak and the poor. We, who are poor and weak might become rich and strong in him. Dear friends, we're called to be strong, rich, friends in generosity, in justice and mercy and sacrificial one-way giving, because we have the capital. We have the emotional and the spiritual capital of the good news of Jesus Christ, which calls us not only to engage in the great commission, but also, to respond to the great commandment, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
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