A. The story is told about a police officer in a small town who stopped a driver who was speeding down Main Street.
1. “But officer,” the man said, “I can explain.”
2. “Just be quiet!!!” snapped the officer. “Or I'm going to let you cool off in jail until the chief gets back.”
3. “But officer,” the man pleaded, “I just wanted to say....”
4. The officer interrupted, “And I said KEEP QUIET! Now you’re definitely going to jail.”
5. A few hours later, the officer checked up on his prisoner and said, “Lucky for you that the chief is at his daughter's wedding and so he’ll be in a good mood when he gets back.”
6. “Don’t count on it,” said the man in the cell. “I’m the groom!”
B. That humorous little story sheds some light on different aspects of justice.
1. What should justice have looked like for the speeding driver?
2. What should justice have looked like for the arresting officer?
3. What kind of justice was the police chief going to bring about for the driver and the officer?
C. A dictionary definition of justice is: moral rightness, equity, honor, fair play, due reward and due punishment.
1. And so, justice has many parts or applications.
2. Justice involves the important aspect of the administration of what is just by law as by judicial or other proceedings.
3. Justice includes the personal quality of being righteous and moral.
4. Justice also includes the sense of equity and fairness towards all people regardless of race, nationality, income, relationship or anything else.
D. So let’s ask this question, even though I think we all know the answer: Is God concerned about justice?
1. When God looks down and sees what’s happening or not happening in the world with regard to justice, does God care?
2. When God looks at His people, the church, and sees what’s happening or not happening with regard to justice, does God care?
3. When we look into the Bible, it becomes very obvious that God is very concerned about justice.
4. We notice that biblical justice is not first and foremost a set of rules and guidelines, but is rooted in the very character of God and then the outworking of God’s character, which is never less than just.
a. Isaiah 30:18b says: “For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are those who wait for him!”
b. Deuteronomy 32:4 says: “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”
4. We also notice that the Bible is crammed with texts and stories where God expresses his concern for human justice.
5. It’s a major theme of the Bible, especially a major theme of the Old Testament.
E. Look at how God expressed His concern for justice in these instructions given to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 24: 14 “Do not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether one of your Israelite brothers or one of the resident aliens in a town in your land. 15 You are to pay him his wages each day before the sun sets, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be held guilty… 17 Do not deny justice to a resident alien or fatherless child, and do not take a widow’s garment as security… 19 When you reap the harvest in your field, and you forget a sheaf in the field, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you knock down the fruit from your olive tree, do not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left. What remains will be for the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow. 22 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore I am commanding you to do this. (Dt. 24:14-22)
1. Did you notice the specific individuals for whom God was especially concerned about receiving justice? (Hired workers, poor, resident aliens [foreigners], orphans, and widows)
2. These are the individuals in any society that are often overlooked and exploited.
3. In our minds, we might add to or modify that list of vulnerable people to include: single parents, latch-key kids, the homeless, the unemployed, illegal immigrants, refugees, and LGBTQ+ individuals.
4. God cares about them and God wants His people to care about them as well.
F. Here’s a sampling of a few Bible verses about justice:
1. Psalm 33:5: “The Lord loves righteousness and justice.”
2. Psalm 97:2: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.”
3. Psalm 106:3: “Blessed are they who maintain justice, who consistently do what is right.”
4. Psalm 140:12: “I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.”
5. Amos 5:24: “Let justice roll down like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream.”
6. Micah 6:8: “What does the Lord your God require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
7. Zechariah 7:9 gives a summary statement: “Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.”
G. You may have noticed these verses are all Old Testament verses and you may have wondered if there are verses about justice in the New Testament? Here are a couple:
1. Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, and yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These things should have been done without neglecting the others. (Mt. 23:23)
2. James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
H. Because this sermon series is from the book of Proverbs, I want us to see how the subject of justice is addressed in Proverbs.
1. Proverbs 1:3 says the book was written to teach us to do what is right and just and true.
2. Proverbs 17:23 says, “A wicked man accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the course of justice.”
3. Proverbs 19:28 says, “A corrupt witness mocks at justice, and the mouth of the wicked gulps down evil.”
I. Proverbs 21:3 says, “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.”
1. I think that is a key verse.
2. It reminds me of I Samuel 15:16, “To obey is better than sacrifice.”
3. What God is saying in those verses is: “Don’t come to worship with blood on your hands, thinking you can just sing and pray and take the Lord’s supper and get your guilt washed away. Don’t come in here having treated people like dirt and think God is going to be pleased because you are worshiping. Don’t come in here, having taken advantage of people, having assassinated people’s character, having perverted the course of justice. Don’t come in here having stood silently by while other people were neglecting or oppressing the poor. Don’t do these things and think you can get away with it, because God is not impressed nor pleased.”
4. It’s so easy, but so wrong, to think that religion and pleasing God is all about what we do for an hour on Sundays, rather than what we do during the other 167 hours in the week.
J. God expects us to know what justice is and to work for justice in the world.
1. Proverbs 21:15 says, “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers.”
2. Proverbs 28:5 says, “Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully.”
3. Proverbs 29:4 says, “By justice a king gives a country stability. The one who is greedy for bribes tears it down.”
4. Proverbs 29:26, “Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the Lord that a man gets justice.”
K. So, what does it look like for disciples of Jesus to live in a “just way” and uphold the principles of justice?
1. I want to suggest four words to frame what acting justly involves: Honesty, Equality, Generosity, and Advocacy.
2. Let’s briefly consider each word.
L. Let’s start with the word “Honesty.”
1. We need to be truthful in our in speech; meaning that we need to always speak the truth.
2. Honesty in our speech includes keeping our promises even when it hurts. (Psalm 15:4)
3. When called upon to testify as a witness, we must never give a false testimony or corrupt justice by taking a bribe.
a. Proverbs 17:23 says, “A wicked man accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the course of justice.”
b. Proverbs 14:5 says: An honest witness does not deceive, but a dishonest witness utters lies.
c. Proverbs 14:25 says: A truthful witness rescues lives, but one who utters lies is deceitful.
4. When doing business, we must use accurate scales and measures.
a. Proverbs 11:1 says: Dishonest scales are detestable to the Lord, but an accurate weight is his delight.
b. Similarly, Proverbs 20:10 says: Differing weights and varying measures — both are detestable to the Lord.
c. It reminds me of the old story where you go to the butcher and you think you’re buying two pounds of meat, but because he puts his thumb on the scale, you really only get a pound and a half.
d. God tells us not to rig anything and not to cheat; to have truth in selling, truth in merchandising, and truth in advertising.
e. Justice demands honesty in business where there is no price gouging or stealing.
5. Also, with regard to honesty and justice, Proverbs talks about not moving boundary stones.
a. Proverbs 23:10-11 says: Don’t move an ancient boundary marker, and don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is strong, and he will champion their cause against you.
b. Moving boundary stones is an attempt to steal what belongs to others through dishonesty, but as the just and ethical people of God we should never do anything of the sort.
M. A second word that suggests what acting justly involves is “Equality.”
1. Biblical justice requires that every person be treated according to the same standards and with the same respect, regardless of class, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, or of any other social category.
2. God treats everyone with equality:
a. Deuteronomy 10:17 says: For 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.
b. Proverbs 22:2 says: Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all.
c. Romans 2:11 says: For God does not show favoritism.
3. God’s commands us not to show partiality or favoritism to anyone.
a. Leviticus 19:15 says: Do not act unjustly when deciding a case. Do not be partial to the poor or give preference to the rich; judge your neighbor fairly.
b. James wrote: My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in, if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,” haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (Jms. 2:1-4)
4. Jesus is our great example of treating everyone with equality: equal love, equal respect, and equal value, regardless of whether they were sinners, outcasts, foreigners, poor, or sick.
5. God’s promises to pour His love poured into our hearts so we can love like Jesus loved, showing equal love and respect for all people.
N. A third word that suggests what acting justly involves is “Generosity.”
1. While secular individualism says that your money belongs to you, and socialism says your money belongs to the State, the Bible says that all your money belongs to God, who then entrusts it to you. (1 Chronicles 29:14; 1 Corinthians 4:7).
2. In Luke 16:1-16, Jesus calls us to be wise stewards of our wealth.
a. A steward was the manager of an estate under its owner, making him both a master and yet a servant.
b. So, in some respects our wealth belongs to us, and yet, ultimately it does not belong to us.
3. In the Mosaic law, God laid out principles for generosity and the forgiveness of debt.
a. The Sabbath year law required that every seventh year all debts were cancelled (Deuteronomy 15:7-10).
b. And an even more radical law was the law of the “Jubilee” year - every 50 years, the land went back to its original allotments (Leviticus 25:8-55).
1. On average, each person or family would have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to start over, no matter how deeply into debt they had fallen.
c. Then there were the laws of gleaning.
1. Landowners were not to harvest out to the edges of their field, maximizing profits for themselves.
2. Rather, landowners had to leave some of the produce in the field so that both their hired workers and the poor could come “glean” and get food through their own labor (Leviticus 19:9-10; 23:22).
3. Earlier in the sermon, we read Deuteronomy 24:19 which says: the gleanings “shall be for the immigrant, the fatherless, and the widow.”
4. Proverbs has a lot to say about being generous to the poor and we talked about this in the sermon “Be Wise About Money.”
1. Proverbs 14:31 says: Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
2. Proverbs 14:21 says: It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor, but blessed is the one who is kind to the needy.
3. Proverbs 19:17 says: Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the?Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.
4. Proverbs 22:9 says: The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.
5. Proverbs 28:27 says: Those who give to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses.
5. As we encounter people in need, whether they are members of our family, church family, or the community, God wants us to have hearts of compassion and be willing to offer assistance.
1. We obviously, must apply wisdom and good stewardship as we express our generosity, but God would not want us to be judgmental, or cold, or stingy.
2. John, the beloved apostle and the apostle of love, wrote about what love in action looks like: This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth. (1 Jn. 3:16-18)
O. So far, we have suggested that acting justly includes: honesty, equality and generosity, but let me conclude with one more: “Advocacy.”
1. Proverbs 31:8-9 says: Speak up for those who have no voice, for the justice of all who are dispossessed. Speak up, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the oppressed and needy.
2. Proverbs 24:11-12 says: Rescue those being taken off to death, and save those stumbling toward slaughter. If you say, “But we didn’t know about this,” won’t he who weighs hearts consider it? Won’t he who protects your life know? Won’t he repay a person according to his work?
3. Those Proverbs encourage us to get involved and to do something for those who can’t speak up for themselves or who can’t defend themselves.
4. God calls upon us to advocate for the poor, the powerless and the voice-less.
5. Many of us don’t realize how weak, powerless, and voice-less are some people compared to others, and maybe even compared to us.
6. The power, leverage, and voice that we have may come from our wealth, accomplishments, education, nationality, race, or connections, but they can be used to help others who don’t have what we have.
7. God hasn’t given us these blessings and privileges just for our own good, but He has given it to us for the good of others.
P. Something that happened 60 years ago has been used to illustrate the need to get involved and advocate for others.
1. In the early hours of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old bartender, was raped and stabbed outside the apartment building where she lived in Queens, New York.
a. Two weeks after the murder, The New York Times published an article erroneously claiming that thirty-seven witnesses saw or heard the attack, and that none of them called the police or came to her aid and the reason they supposedly gave was, “We didn’t want to get involved.”
b. The incident prompted inquiries into what became known as the bystander effect, or “Genovese syndrome”, and the murder became a staple of U.S. psychology textbooks for the next four decades.
c. Researchers have since uncovered major inaccuracies in the Times article, and police interviews revealed that some witnesses had attempted to contact authorities.
2. How often, though, do we witness injustice and fail to get involved?
3. I pray that we will get involved when we see a need, whether the person needs honesty, equality, generosity, or advocacy, we will be ready to show God’s love.
Q. I want to end with the lyrics of a powerful song by Matthew West called “Do Something.”
I woke up this morning. Saw a world full of trouble now,
Thought, how'd we ever get so far down, and How's it ever gonna turn around
So I turned my eyes to Heaven; I thought, "God, why don't You do something?"
Well, I just couldn't bear the thought of; People living in poverty
Children sold into slavery; The thought disgusted me
So, I shook my fist at Heaven; Said, "God, why don't You do something?"
He said, "I did, I created you"
If not us, then who; If not me and you
Right now, it's time for us to do something,
If not now, then when; Will we see an end
To all this pain; Oh, it's not enough to do nothing
It's time for us to do something
I'm so tired of talking about; How we are God's hands and feet
But it's easier to say than to be;
Live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves
It's alright, "somebody else will do something"
Well, I don't know about you; But I'm sick and tired of life with no desire
I don't want a flame, I want a fire and;
I wanna be the one who stands up and says; "I'm gonna do something"
If not us, then who; If not me and you
Right now, it's time for us to do something, yes it is, come on
If not now, then when; Will we see an end
To all this pain
Oh oh, it's not enough to do nothing; It's time for us to do something
We are the salt of the earth; We are a city on a hill
We're never gonna change the world; By standing still
No, we won't stand still; No, we won't stand still
No, we won't stand still; No
If not us, then who; If not me and you
Right now; It's time for us to do something
If not now, then when; Will we see an end; To all this pain
It's not enough to do nothing; It's time for us to do something
It's time for us to do something; It's time for us to do something
Resources:
• Justice: The Real American Dream, Ray Pritchard
• Justice in the Bible, Timothy Keller, https://quarterly.gospelinlife.com/justice-in-the-bible/
