What does God want ?
Justice
Deuteronomy 10:12-21
Micah 6:8
With Peter Veysie
George Methodist Church
Sunday 23rd January 2022
8am and 10am
(Dt 10:12-21)
12And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
14To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. 15Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. 16Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. 17For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. 19And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. 20Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. 21He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
Mi 6:8
“8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”
Jeremiah
(Je 31:7-14)
7 This is what the LORD says:
Sing with joy for Jacob;
shout for the foremost of the nations.
Make your praises heard, and say,
O LORD, save your people,
the remnant of Israel.’
8 See, I will bring them from the land of the north
and gather them from the ends of the earth.
Among them will be the blind and the lame,
expectant mothers and women in labor;
a great throng will return.
9They will come with weeping;
they will pray as I bring them back.
I will lead them beside streams of water
on a level path where they will not stumble,
because I am Israel’s father,
and Ephraim is my firstborn son.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, O nations;
proclaim it in distant coastlands:
He who scattered Israel will gather them
and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’
11For the LORD will ransom Jacob
and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they.
12They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion;
they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD ”
the grain, the new wine and the oil,
the young of the flocks and herds.
They will be like a well-watered garden,
and they will sorrow no more.
13Then maidens will dance and be glad,
young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into gladness;
I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.
14I will satisfy the priests with abundance,
and my people will be filled with my bounty,
declares the LORD.
We are surrounded by issues of injustice on a daily basis in South Africa and it stems from a lack of strong morals, ethics ,and values. Corruption,gender based violence, unemployment,hunger and starvation and abuse to name just a few.
The word justice comes from the origins of
Heb: mispat
Gk. dikaiosyne -pronounced -dikayasunei
God, the Righteous Judge. Justice is rooted in the very nature of God ( Isa 40:14 ). He evenhandedly rewards good, and he does not ignore the sins of any ( Psalm 33:5 ; Psalms 37:6 Psalms 37:28 ; 97:2 ; 99:4 ).
At the same time, justice is not a virtue for judges and kings alone; all Israel is to follow in the “paths of justice” ( Gen 18:19 ; Psalm 106:3 ; Prov 21:15 ; Isaiah 1:17 Isaiah 1:59 ).Pursuing justice in life is of greater worth than religious ritual ( Prov 21:3 ; Micah 6:8 ; cf. Matt 23:23 ).
Justice must lead to honesty, even in mundane business transactions ( Lev 19:35-36 ; Hosea 12:7 ).
In the New Testament, the love of justice is a virtue ( 2 Col 7:11 ; Php 4:8 ), yet Christians may not take justice into their own hands ( 1 Thess 4:6 ). At times it is better to suffer injustice than to bring the gospel into disrepute by taking a brother to court ( 1Cor 6:7-8 ).
Divine Justice and the Justification of the Wicked. The gospel promises escape from God’s just wrath against sin ( Rom 1:32 ). Before human judges the Savior was unjustly tried and executed ( Isa 53:8 ; John 7:24 ; Acts 3:14 ). From the divine perspective, however, Jesus’ death satisfied God’s justice ( Rom 3:26 ). Thus God remains a righteous judge even as he justifies those sinners who believe in Christ ( Luke 18:14 ; Gal 3:11-13 ).
Justice and the Kingdom of God. The Old Testament looks forward to the time when God will exercise absolute justice over all creation ( Psalm 98:9 ; Eccl 3:16 ; Isa 28:5-6 ; 29:19-21 ). The New Testament emphasizes the approach of final judgment, when all people will be evaluated according to their works ( Rom 2:5 ; 3:5-6 ; Rev 20:13 ).
We have to pay attention to justice because :
- It’s close to the heartbeat of God.
It’s time for the Church to pay attention to justice, because justice is close to the heart of God. Doing justice is a critical part of every Christian’s vocational call. It is, according to Micah 6:8, something that “the Lord requires of us.” We need to see the centrality of justice in the Christian life, to understand God’s passion for it. And then, to honor and obey Him, we need to become doers of justice.
Justice:( Rights and Wrongs). For us, a foundation built on the following five basic Biblical pillars offers a strong start.
- God hates injustice and is committed to rescue and redress.
God is clearly committed to the challenges of injustice and intervenes in history and also in our lives when justice needs to be done.
Exodus 2:23b-25: “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.”
Psalm 102:19-20: “The Lord looked down from His sanctuary on high, from heaven He viewed the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death.”
But not only is God simply aware of injustice. He is committed to doing something about it.
God rescues the oppressed. Psalm 35:10 says, “Who is like you, O Lord? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them… from those who rob them.” And Psalm 103:6 refers to God as the one who “works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.” It seems obvious that He wants us to share that passion. We, like our Heavenly Father, are to be people who are attentive to the groaning of the oppressed and willing to be actively involved in their rescue.
3) We need to delight in justice and JDI – just do it !!!
I think there is a thin line in our reponse to others in the delight part, because some people delight in correcting or rebuking you, but I think it’s the old thing of examining ourselves first and making adjustments and then ensuring that the law is upheld for the safety of others. Break my heart for what breaks yours!!
God refers to Himself in Deuteronomy 10:17-18 like this: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.”
He calls himself “a just God and a Saviour” (Psalm 45:21).
Since time immemorial, and for endless ages to come, God is worshipped in the heavenly courts as the God of justice as the heavenly hosts sing “Just and true are all thy ways, O Lord” A God of faithfulness and without injustice good and upright is he.(Revelation 15:3). God delights in doing justice. He doesn’t just do it because it needs to get done. As Psalm 99:4 teaches, “The King is mighty, he loves justice – You have established equity, in Jacob You have done what is just and right.”
3) God connects justice with true worship.
God says plainly that the doing of justice is an essential part of genuine worship. In Isaiah 1, God tells the Israelites that their prayers, sacrifices, and festivals are detestable to Him. Instead, He tells them to “stop doing wrong; learn to do right. Seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”
4) God connects the doing of justice to “knowing” Him.
I often talk about the rod and staff in Psalm 23 and the importance of staying close to Jeus and listening to the tapping of his rod – there is a depth of knowing Him in this and becoming.
At the heart of Christian discipleship is the pursuit of truly knowing God. All sorts of spiritual disciplines – prayer, fasting, solitude, generosity, Bible study – are devoted to this end. How often, though, have we heard that a critical way of “knowing” God is to do justice? This plank in our theology of justice is perhaps asserted most powerfully in a short passage from Jeremiah 22. In verses 11-17, God is commending good King Josiah for doing what was “just and right.” And then He drops the bomb. He says: “Is this not what it means to know me?”
5) The centrality of God’s heart for justice revealed in Jesus’ three-fold mandate for mission.
In His “inaugural address” in Luke 4, Jesus announces His top priorities. He reveals that He has come to earth to :
(1) preach good news to the poor; (2) restore the sight of the blind; and (3) rescue the oppressed. If justice is in His top three, it needs to be on our “short list” of priorities as well. It’s not optional or peripheral: it’s at the heart of Jesus’ agenda.In order to “do” such actions, though, we need to “be” certain kinds of people.
The Hebrew term tsaddiqim, used multiple times throughout the Old Testament, is typically translated either “the righteous” or “the just.” In order to do justice, we need to be the tsaddiqim. (hyperlink to blog on Proverbs 9:11) The tsaddiqim, the “doers of justice” are marked by an attitude and posture of responsibility and solidarity. That is, they understand that they are knit into the social fabric, embracing their role in the community. God desires that His followers be the tsaddiqim: people who look to the needs of others and recognize that they do not exist for themselves alone. They accept that they are, indeed, their brother’s keeper.
In ancient Israel, important public business was conducted by the “assembly at the gate.” There, in what we today call “the public square,” societal leaders oversaw judicial proceedings. Deuteronomy 21 and 22 gave instructions to the Israelites about coming to the “elders at the gate” in order to settle family and legal issues. In Ruth chapter 4, we read of Boaz negotiating at the gate to become Ruth’s kinsman-redeemer. In 2 Samuel 15 we read of Israelites coming to the gate “for justice.” Ideally, these elders were to be holy, reputable, faithful men. Proverbs 24:7 tells us that there was no place for a fool in the assembly at the gate. In other words, the assembly at the gate in the Old Testament was an assembly of the tsaddiqim. And that matters for Christians today. When the Apostle Paul sought a word to use for “church,” he chose the Greek word ecclesia. This is a notable selection since other Greek words were available to denote the idea of assemblies or gatherings. Ecclesia was the word specifically used in the Septuagint (the Old Testament translated into Greek) to mean the assembly at the public gate – i.e., the assembly of the tsaddiqim.[1]
For Paul, “church” was not meant to be a body of people concerned only with their own fellowship. The “church” was never meant to extract itself from the cares of the larger community, to form a “holy huddle.” No. The church – the ecclesia, the assembly at the gate – is to give itself for the life and flourishing of the community. This is what it means to “do justice.” This is an area where we have to be especially intentional; an area that affects greatly the common good of our communities.
The church at the gate.
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