Sermons About Justice
Guilt and Grace
Because the perfect justice of God and the perfect grace of God met at the cross of Jesus Christ, we can be declared innocent before God; made right with God and reconciled to Him.
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God is Just
While the justice of God is often neglected as one of His attributes, if we have experienced grace through Jesus Christ, then God's sin-destroying justice should cause us to rejoice in who He is and what He will do for His glory.
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What Then Shall We Do? - Love, Mercy, and Justice part 7
Two weeks ago at Sovereign King, we looked at a passage in Micah where God was literally holding court against His people. In His case against them, He accused them of forgetting several key things. They had forgotten… That God had taken them from slaves and made them children. That God had protected them from their enemies when they came into the Promised Land. That God had not always punished them as their sins deserve. That God had given them the freedom to worship Him without fear. Our take away from that sermon was that even though we may remember what God has done for us in the past, just remembering is not enough. If that memory doesn't give us hope for today, then we are essentially forgetting God as well. I encouraged us all in the day to day to remember what Jesus has done for us by His work on the cross. We can do that in some very simple ways: By sharing with others what Christ has done for us. By recognizing that Jesus' death was sufficient for us and therefore not living in guilt. By celebrating the fact that when we are faithless, He is faithful still. As we return to the book of Micah and we find that God's court case has come and gone, the people of Micah's time finally get around to asking the right question. They want to know, "Well, what should we do?" Now it is difficult to determine exactly out of what motivation the people of God were asking their question, but I do think this is the best time to ask that question. Knowing that God has been, is presently, and is always going to be faithful to you because of Jesus Christ, that is the perfect time to ask Him what He would have you do because you know that no matter what, even if you fail or succeed, God is going to be there for you. This is sort of like learning to ride a bike when you were a kid. My experience wasn't very good because my brother put me on the bike at the top of a hill and just pushed me down. I wound up with a broken nose, so that didn't end very well. No, most folks have a parent walking beside them, steadying them on two wheels. And if the child starts to fall, the parent catches them. Eventually, the child figures out that they can risk falling and risk riding because they know they have their parent there to catch them either way. That's what it is like if you are asking God what He would have you do when you know that He will be faithful to you even if you are faithless. So having said all that, in the sermon this Sunday, why don't we seek to answer the very question that the people of God were asking. They asked that in light of God's faithfulness, "What should WE offer back to God?" Let's find out.
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Justice and Generosity for the City
Injustice and oppression in the covenant community dishonors God. Christ's ministry on our behalf frees us not only from guilt but the bondage of sin, particularly greed. He works in us that we might fear God and therefore become both just and generous. He works through us to free others from bondage through the gospel.
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I Remember You - Love, Mercy, Justice Part 6
I knew a couple who told me a story about the morning of the wife's birthday. This couple generally made a big deal out of birthdays. I can relate because Amy and I are like that; birthdays in some ways are bigger than Christmas for the two of us. Well, this couple got up in the morning, and the husband didn't mention anything about the wife's birthday. At first, she thought maybe he was going to surprise her and was just playing it cool, but after a few hours, she started to worry. Well, the time came for them to head to the wife's family's house to celebrate her birthday, so she said, "I guess we need to head to my parent's house." The husband was getting ready to ask, "What for?" when the reality that he had forgotten her birthday hit him full on. Now instead of manning up and just saying, "I forgot sweetie; I'm sorry," he said, "Oh, hey the money was tight this week so I couldn't afford to get you a card. I'm sorry, but hey, happy birthday." Now, we've all forgotten something that was important at some point in time whether it was a meeting or even a commitment. Sometimes those slips ups come from just being busy, and sometimes they come up because honestly we are just not very considerate. But when we forget something really important, it hurts the people that are involved because when we forget something for someone, it is like forgetting them personally. That is the point that God is going to make in the book of Micah this week: forgetting what God has done is the same as forgetting God. So we should approach our study from the book of Micah this week asking, "What have we forgotten that God has done for us, and what would change about our life if we remembered?"
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The Purpose of God's Remnant - Love, Mercy, and Justice Part 5
When I was in college, I didn't have a standard meal plan where you could just go to the college cafeteria and eat. I just couldn't afford one, so I made it through 4 years in the dorm room by cooking all my meals in a toaster oven and a microwave. There was a particular semester, when classes were over, that I was flat out of money. I had $.27 in my bank account and the cupboard or the dorm fridge, if you will, was bare. Since I was an RA in the dorm, I had to stay a couple of days after the semester ended to wrap things up. I was extremely curious as to how I was going to eat. Well as one my residents was leaving, he wished me an enjoyable break and said he would see me next semester. A few minutes late he walked back and said, "Hey I've got 4-5 meals left on this meal card, do you want it?" A similar story happened when Amy and I were engaged. We had absolutely no money for a honeymoon just weeks before the wedding, and we did not know what we were going to do. I got a phone call one night as we were making last minute wedding plans. It was from an insurance adjuster. You see, I had been a passenger in a head on collision about 6 months prior, and the insurance adjuster wanted to know how I was feeling. After a brief conversation, he wanted to know if $700 was adequate for the suffering I had incurred in the wreck. I thought to myself, "$700 is adequate for a honeymoom at the beach." I imagine we all have had those situations where you had a bill and you just did not know how you were going to pay for it. And then, either a friend, or a spouse, or your mom and dad just happened to be setting some money aside in case something like this happened. A good friend of mine calls that J.I.T. – Just in time. Once again this week, I asked for the congregation's help, and they gave me some examples of similar experiences. We came up with some great stories. Let me give you a few examples. · We had one couple who told me about when they first got engaged. One partner brought in some bills and debt to the relationship. It just so happened that her fiancé happened to have the exact amount tucked away for a rainy day and was able to pay the bills. · Another one of our folks talked about being stuck with a huge car payment and all of a sudden getting a new job that exactly covered the payment. Well, the reason I tell these stories is because the idea of sticking aside a little money for a rainy day or saving some money just in case you have an emergency in similar to the idea in scripture called "a remnant" – a remnant is something that is saved for a later time with a specific purpose. We see two explanations of who or what a remnant is in scripture. · Romans 11:5 speaks of God saving a remnant of Jewish people. Through out the biblical days and in the present, the majority Jewish people do not believe in Jesus Christ, but God has promised to specifically choose a remnant of Jewish to believe by His grace and not their by their own doing. But that is not the only description of a remnant in scripture. · Acts 15:17 also describes any that would believe in Jesus from the Gentiles as a remnant. Essentially, if you believe in Jesus you are a remnant chosen out of the world to believe in Christ. This is very important to remember as we look at these next few verses in Micah because the application of the promises found there meant something specifically to the people that first heard it and also something very specific to us. So let’s look at those promises and seek to understand how they apply to them and to us.
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Congratulations, You're Expecting: Love, Mercy, Justice Part 4
Now, many of you may know this, but in case you don’t, Amy and I have 3 children: 3 wonderful girls Meredith, Landry, and Emma. Now I can tell you what my initial reaction was when we found out that Amy was pregnant with each of them. I can tell you what it is like to be in the delivery, and I can even tell you what it is like to cut the cord. What I cannot tell you though is what it is like to find out that there is baby growing in my tummy. I can’t tell you the emotions that occur when that baby begins to grow and move, and I definitively cannot tell you what happens emotionally when you give birth. But scripture sure does speak about the concept of being pregnant or being in labor a whole lot. It is a metaphor that immediately strikes an image in your heart and mind whether or not you have ever been pregnant. Either way, towards that end, for anyone who has difficulty relating to scripture, I’ve enlisted the help of those who do know what scripture is talking about.. Here are a few examples from ladies in our church who shared with me via email what it was like to find out that they were pregnant. Great joy, followed by sadness as the child was miscarried after a only a few weeks into the pregnancy My response was joy, disbelief, amazement, panic, awe, and worry...all mixed together. Then I threw up. You don't want to use those words I'm your sermon! At first I couldn’t believe it when the nurse called & told me that I was pregnant & then I was very emotional & gave thanks to God for blessing me with a child. We even had one mom say that doctor got her due date horribly wrong and it made it look like she had been cheating on her husband. They soon got a new doctor. I must admit reading those responses was entertaining and hopefully they helped all of you to get a picture of what it means to be pregnant. Clearly, finding out you are pregnant and being pregnant are life changing and life altering occurrences. Not everyone person has the opportunity to experience pregnancy and in those situations, we trust that God has some other incredibly amazing experience reserved for us. Well, this week at Sovereign King in the book of Micah, we are going to see the prophet use this pregnancy and labor image to set the minds of God’s people to a sense of expectation. So, whether we have been pregnant, never been pregnant, or even pregnant right now, lets do our best to get in the mindset of waiting for something with expectation. With that, we will ask, what is it that God is asking us to look forward to with similar expectancy as a pregnancy?
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STAY IN LOVE WITH GOD: Worship
Perhaps the primary way we are able to "stay in love with God" is through the continual practice of meeting together in worship, knowing that worship is never about us but all about God.
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Poetic Justice
In the verses that we're looking at here in Habakkuk 2 God gives us not only a principle of faith, but also a promise. This Scripture teaches that when you see injustice and struggle with your questions you can choose to live by faith knowing that, in his time, God will judge the world with poetic justice and cover the earth in the knowledge of his glory.
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