God and Justice

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0:00 We've been thinking about the season of Pentecost, we're kind of rounding the corner on this season of Pentecost. Of course, the season of Pentecost is launched with the commemoration of that first Pentecost, where folks from all over the Jewish to Asphra that had been spread out throughout the Roman Empire, Asia Minor, even North Africa, they had come together in Jerusalem to celebrate this feast day.

0:33 And right there, after the ascent of Jesus, remember he ascends from the hill of Galilee. He says, I've got to go down in order that I could send the Spirit. So God the Father and God the Son together, send God the Spirit, release God the Spirit onto the people of God at Pentecost. It's released like it hasn't been since the days of creation. It's released indiscriminately. Men and women, young and old, everyone gets this life-giving original Spirit of God.

1:06 And it pulls them together, it gives them courage to repent of their sin, of their shortcomings and failures. It builds this beautiful, what we call the beloved community there in Jerusalem to begin with. I was saying that if you had come to Pentecost, to Jerusalem for Pentecost, you were sure you were headed home shortly after. When the Holy Spirit comes though, all plans change and they're on this summer camp that doesn't end in Acts chapter 2, where they just keep living together

1:37 and vibed by the Spirit of God. They have a new and renewed faith that allows them to put into context all the things of the world. As a matter of fact, many of them start selling all their possessions and they have the confidence to hold all of it in common together there in Acts chapter 2. This is the beginning of the church. And what we see very early on in that first generation of the church is that these people, enlivened by the Spirit of God,

2:09 living under the reign of Jesus now, develop their own culture amongst themselves. That in some ways is always in conversation with the culture where they're living, but it's never assimilated into it. Takes parts of the culture where they're living, and so it creates problems for the early church with the Jewish community. It creates problems with the Roman community. And we'll see if you follow the course of the church throughout time that as it engages with different cultures,

2:41 it begins to have different components to it. So as the church engages with North Africa, we see Coptic Christianity. As it engages with the Eastern notion, we see Orthodoxy. As it engages with the Romans, we see Roman Catholicism. As it engages with Enlightenment and Western Europe, we see Protestantism. And as it engages with America's manifest destiny and rugged individualism, we begin to see evangelicalism. And so the church always is like having the culture.

3:11 We define the church as the people called out of the world to live under the reign of God. We might add, called out to the world to live under the reign of God, empowered by the spirit of God. That this group of people has its own cultural set, that it is a core DNA to it. And as culture is made by things like values and symbols and rituals and language, what we've been looking at for the last several weeks are one of the core values of the church that might have be in conflict with the cultures of the world that we live in.

3:49 What are the core values of culture that is created by the church that might run into some conflict with the cultures of the world? And we look at economies and money. We look at work. And this week, I want to think a little bit about the notion of justice in the church. The notion of justice in the church. Of course, this could go in a lot of directions.

4:19 But the phrase when it occurred to me was when I was explaining I was explaining the way I understand supply chains to someone. And I was telling them that in the kingdom of God, justice runs deeper than law and order. And under the reign of God, justice is not necessarily about, doesn't originate out of right and wrong.

4:52 There is right behavior, but it's not right for its own sake, just because some law makes it right. And so we want to get deep into this notion of justice because it is formative even then for understanding of love, which we'll go into next week. And so to start with the notion of justice, I want to look at the very beginning of the story. So let's look at the very beginning in Genesis chapters two and three.

5:25 If you have a paper copy of the scriptures, that's all the way at the beginning. So you go all the way to the left. And the key is here, the first key to understand justice under the reign of God is this story of creation because at creation, it says that in the first, we mentioned last week that there are kind of two tellings of the story of Christian, Genesis one, and then the beginning of Genesis chapter two. And then Genesis one, it says he created them, male and female, he created in his

5:58 image, he created them, right? And then in Genesis chapter two, he says the same thing, that they are the image bearers of God. And the image bearer of God, what came to be known in the church is the Imago days, Latin phrase for the image of God is put into all humanity. It's what dignifies humanity and sets humanity in the place where it is so that it is different from the plants. Humanity is different from the animals. Humanities roll in responsibility

6:33 in the world is different. It's different even than angelic beings. Humanity is the one creation that bears the image of God. This is the bedrock for the notion of justice under the reign of God. That all humanity bears the image of God. Now people, there's been a lot of stuff written about what it

7:07 means to be the image bearer of God. I mean, so much that we can't do it justice but here right now. But the way that I am inviting us to think about the image of God is not that we all look like God, but that we carry a similar countenance as God. The word Christian was developed in Antioch as

7:40 they were beginning to try and describe what it looked like, what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. And they describe this word Christian to mean little Christ, people who began to look like Christ, to act like Christ. This came out of the notion of what it meant to have a rabbi that you would learn your rabbis understanding and begin to live and make choices as your rabbi. This is what it means for me to be the image bearer of God. That the God creates all of the animals in the ultimate act of creativity, spins the whole world into existence out of the God's imagination, and then

8:16 takes the human with him and says, now what shall we name all of these creations? So that immediately humanity is mirroring back to the God, this core characteristic of creativity. And then God says, this whole earth is mine, I am God. And then he launches humanity into the gardens, is now you rule over it and subdue it. So that God creates in his ultimate act of authority,

8:51 a place that belongs to the God and then sets humanity and gives them a similar opportunity for authority. So that the image bearers of God are the ones with the capacity to mirror back God's behavior to God. This doesn't mean that humanity becomes God. It means that they are like children of God. I realized this in seminary one time, one of the professors that I had the most

9:30 friction with, I had two professors that I had friction with in seminary, it was healthy friction, it was not disrespectful. But one of them was in my first preaching class. I just the paradigms they wanted me to operate inside of felt constricting. I didn't like it. And so I think that because of the way I interacted in class, the class kind of culminated with this like in the basement of the building, you have this mock very traditional church

10:08 with a pulpit and then you put a robe and the stoles on and your classmates sit in the pews and you ascend the pulpit and preach a prepared sermon on a text that was given to you, videotaped, filled with VHS tapes, and then you go and watch the tape with your professor afterwards. And I deliver my sermon and I think that the professor was surprised because of the interaction

10:42 we had in class that he likes the message. Oh, he liked it. But he said something interesting. He said, you know, the truth is we try and put some bumpers on your preaching, but you learned preaching way before you got here from the preaching that you sat with, sat under, and listened over and over and over again. And it's true. I grew up every Sunday listening to my dad preach over and over and over again. I mentioned here, I loved church. There was more than one Sunday

11:16 where I would go twice, not because they made me just because I liked it. I liked being in there. I can remember in middle school talking about messages with my dad, hey, why did you decide to do it this way? Why didn't you think about saying it that way? I will never be my dad, but I am a person like my dad in the world. You cannot be God, but fundamental to who you are is that you have the capacity to mirror back to God God's characteristics. And not only you,

11:53 all of humanity bears the image of God. Created out of love, sustained with the ongoing power of life, and future preserved by the death and resurrection of Jesus, all humanity bears the image of God. This is the bedrock for our notion of justice in the church, that all humanity are image bearers, bearers of the image of God. But now look at Genesis chapter three. Remember how it goes,

12:30 he gives them all the garden, and then he makes this one point of distinction where he says, right behavior looks like this, wrong behavior looks like this one thing. Don't eat from this tree, this one tree here. He calls it the knowledge of good and evil. I wonder sometimes if it was anything intrinsic in the fruit, or if it was just the act. Like is there something intrinsic in the fruit that turns a light on, or is it the act of disobedience,

13:03 the act of like saying, I can be God. God sets boundaries, not for me, I set my own boundaries. And that acting on that impulse opens up the knowledge of good and evil more even than anything that's necessarily the fruit. It's like the fruit is some magic fruit, but that action of saying, I don't need God's boundaries, I'll set my own. Now I'm no longer an image bearer, I have arrived as the image. I have arrived as the original. Adam says, I am no longer the image bearer of the God,

13:41 I am Adam, the God. This is the problem in the garden. And today for you and me, whether we will be image bearers or little gods. And there are consequences when he chooses the fruit, right? There are real repercussions.

14:12 Here people debate whether these are punishment from God or natural consequences of the actions that they've taken. Where they abuse these three dynamic relationships between God, earth, and each other, and then there are curses between God, earth, and each other, that when they break those relationships, then there is a heartbreak and turmoil struggle inside

14:42 those relationships. We don't have time to figure that out right now, but what I want us to see is that our notion of justice in the church is built on the reality that all humanity carries the image of God and then because there is this image of God, because God is God and we are made in his image, then there is right and wrong behavior. There is good and evil. There is helpful and less helpful

15:16 behavior is how I describe this sometimes. This is helpful. This is less helpful. It would be helpful to take Eve as your wife, populate the earth and subdue it. It would be less helpful to get enamored with your own capacity and feel like you could be God and just eat that for it to prove it to him. That would be less helpful. That would be wrong. That would be evil because it undoes the core bedrock of who we are, not God, image bears of the God because it uses Eve because

15:54 it uses the earth. There is right and wrong and it is built on this bedrock. Then when you think about it, if we were to go forward into Matthew chapter 22, remember let's look there real quick. If you have the dexterity in your fingers this morning, in Matthew chapter 22, Matthew you know is in the New Testament, Matthew marked with John. The Pharisees challenged Jesus to summarize all

16:29 the law and the prophets. In Matthew chapter 22 verse 34, when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. One of them, a lawyer, he had silenced the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the sect of the Israelite church that had controlled the temple and they were trying to push Jesus out and he had gotten to where they couldn't answer him. He put them so the Pharisees said, okay, well he's not going to be able to ask, we know the law better than anybody. This upstart Rabbi from Galilee, come on. They come to him and say, all right, let's see

17:05 what you got. They go to one of their lawyers. Now this guy is an expert in the matters of the law, all the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible. The lawyer asked him a question to test him. Verse 36, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law and he said to them, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourselves. All these two commandments saying all along the prophets. You see how this is the outgrowth of

17:35 the image bearers of God. That all right and wrong, all helpful and unhelpful behavior, all good and evil inside of the church, our notion of what is just is built on this reality that all humanity carries the image of God, that humanity is not God, there is a God. And so our proper behavior between the God is to love him with all our heart, soul and mind. Love is demonstrated in action. It's not an emotion. It moves towards the God that we love the Lord God's all our

18:11 heart, soul and mind and because we are surrounded by fellow image bearers, we love our neighbor as we love ourselves because we are on equal footing. Right? This is right and wrong. This is how we begin to meet out what is just and appropriate under the reign of God. This is the bedrock that we love the Lord God with all our hearts, soul and mind and we love

18:42 our neighbor as ourselves. Why? Because we are image bearers and so are they. We are not the God, we are the image of the God and so are they. Now that's one thing when your circle is Galilee with a couple hundred people and you've got to love your neighbors in Galilee and demonstrate actions of love in

19:13 faithful living with heart, soul, mind and strength to the God. And you have those types of things you in order to act justly ought to love your family with all your heart as you love yourself and love the Lord of God. And you have all your heart, soul, mind and strength. But what's gotten what is interesting to me is as this notion of justice built on the image of God

19:48 that what is just is to love your neighbor as yourself gets expanded in the world that we live in. So that you are entangled with people in ways you don't even realize. What is your responsibility to the little cyber friends that you have on the little screens that populate your home and your pockets? What do you owe them?

20:26 What does it look like to love your little cyber friends that populate your screens? What does it look like to honor the image of God in all those little cyber connections? Now you can make subgroups of your cyber connections, so is it only your close friends that are that are you are responsible to dignify as the image bears of God and the extended ones or not?

20:59 Maybe because that's too many or maybe maybe yours are open. They're not private, secure. So people are observing. So then you feel like you have a little platform on your screen in your pocket or on your screen in your house. How do you project out now the image of God? The one that really animated me is like these supply chains. When I realized for me it was like coffee. When I realized that I could get to the bottom of where

21:34 coffee that every time I buy a cup of coffee I'm entangled in life. You know? Then once I went down that rabbit hole you'll never come back. I mean it's just like the metal in my phone is mined illegally in the Congo. The diamonds in our jewelry is stolen from mines in the right. The clothes on our backs are made by children in

22:07 Indonesia, right? The cars, the tomatoes are picked locally in the state by illegal workers in terrible, like you are caught up, right, in neighbors all over the place. And unique among the church is that we take seriously the image of God in all those spaces.

22:37 The justice of God takes seriously the dignity, the image of God in all humanity. We don't get a path because life is complex and hard. So then the phrase that comes into my head is there is no one righteous, no not one.

23:17 Under the reign of God we create this culture around justice that's built on the bedrock that all humanity are image bearers of God, that humanity is not God there is a God. And we in his image return back, mirror back to the God, the behavior that God demonstrates us, love, creativity, right? Faithfulness. And then we love our neighbors, the fellow image bearers, in order to honor the image of God and them we demonstrate actions of love to them and we fail

23:51 on both accounts. Misherably we fail on both accounts. We use the people around us, we exploit them to make our lives easier, we judge them based on their worst decisions and their failures. We usurp God's authority over and over and over again but this is a core characteristic of the culture of justice under the church is that we look straight at our failures

24:26 and acknowledge them wholly. This may be the greatest point of departure for the culture of justice in the church, from the culture of justice in the world. We readily admit we are miserable failures at our own standard. Paul said there is no, there is none righteous, not one righteous, not one that lives up to the standard of justice.

25:02 Of course we can stare our failure in the face because of the steadfast faithfulness of God. Look with me at Romans chapter 5. If you go to the right, if you were in Matthew, we are going now to the right in Romans chapter 5, actually Romans is like kind of does this where

25:37 it lays the DNA for the culture of the reign of God as they are gathering in Rome, the heart of the Roman culture. If you were to go through all of Romans you would get many of the core characteristics of the culture. But in Romans chapter 5 let's look at the beginning of Romans chapter 5.

26:10 Therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through him we have obtained access to faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. More than that we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us the shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. The first thing or the next thing to remember is that there are will be natural

26:46 consequences to your failures. It is not okay to exploit, to judge. And so like in the church we would be okay acknowledging a history of racist thinking or behavior in our families or in our

27:18 own stories. We would not be afraid of that because there is none righteous not one. We would not shy away from taking in the full breath of our failure with our unconscious bias with our acts of judgment and racism. We would not be afraid of that as an example. Because there is none righteous but and then part of looking at that and acknowledging it

27:54 might break certain relationships that we have with people we have harmed or people who's thinking we are departing from. There are natural consequences in the world when we act on the justice that is part of our culture as those living under the reign of God. It will happen when Adam broke with God in unjust evil behavior. There were natural consequences. He had to work the

28:28 earth. He's separated from the garden. He has to MMT between him and his wife. There is a problem. When you acknowledge your failure there will be natural consequences in the world. But Paul says therefore since we've put grace more than that we rejoice in our sufferings. Knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. When I persist through

29:00 hard things it forces me to say why and I'm pushed back on the image of God in me and the others around me. It forces me in sufferings to lean harder on that bedrock. As I do that I get endurance and as I get endurance I get deeper character because my convictions are more robust. As I get deeper character I get sincere hope because my hope is that the God will come in his glory

29:32 where we'll see him as the beginning and end of all things all beauty all justice all mercy all love. And so as you take this high standard for justice the image of God love God love others. Acknowledge wholeheartedly completely your failures. Acknowledge those between your neighbors and between your God then you accept the consequences of your failures wholeheartedly why because it

30:05 produces in you hope hope in what hope in the great reconciliation between humanity and God that is coming. Oh my. This is the promise from the beginning. God says I will crush your enemy. I will restore life will

30:36 come again. Christ says I have brought the reign of God that will last forever down into your midst and I will come back in all of my glory to bring it uninterrupted and when I do I have prepared a place for you. I will call you about the great and set you into it forever when we can become the church embodying the culture of justice built on the bedrock of the image of God manifest in love towards God and love towards others willing to accept our failures receive forgiveness from God

31:09 and consequences from the world we create a cycle that mirrors the beloved community that all the world will recognize because it is different. Look you are called to a high standard of justice and I am encouraging us this morning to persist to to develop endurance character and hope move into our failures when you own this notion of justice all your failures become fertile ground

31:49 for God to reconcile. Oh it gets exciting when you uncover a vein of your unhelpful behavior because it's a new place to own your failure and ask for God to reconcile and God acts with people of faith repent. Oh the God gives us a gift of repentance this morning in order that he might also be

32:25 that gift of restoration and we could be a group of people that cultivate a culture of justice amongst ourselves. Next week I do want to talk about love because I see love in some ways as the moving out of justice into the world. Actions of justice look like love. Love looks like acts of justice so we're going to talk about that next week let me pray for us. Hey Lord thank you for

32:57 your generosity and faithfulness the persistent image that you have placed upon us and in us give up humility to look our failings full in the face to set in front of ourselves a standard of justice on the bedrock of your image in others and in ourselves. We love you Lord because you have loved us love

33:35 this morning in Jesus name you pray. Amen.