This is a copy of a sermon I gave on July 5th 2020, at the Flint Citadel Salvation Army. I was targeted for cancellation by activists in The Salvation Army world, and was temporarily banned from preaching by leadership for a period of one month. Once leadership reviewed the text of the sermon, they restored my speaking rights and dropped all complaints. This incident took place five years ago, but now I feel free to share this faithful message, given that I’ve moved from leadership in The Salvation Army to leadership in The Church of the Nazarene, by the deliberate leading of the Lord. I don’t share this message to provoke controversy, but to simply and openly share the word the Lord gave me.
A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death.
“But I don’t ask for justice,” the mother explained. “I plead for mercy.
“But your son does not deserve mercy,” Napoleon replied.
“Sir,” the woman cried, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for.”
“Well, then,” the emperor said, “I will have mercy.” And he spared the woman’s son.
-Luis Palau, Experiencing God’s Forgiveness. Multnomah Press, 1984
In a world where so many cry out for justice, that justice be done, that yearn for the right, it’s wise to remember, that for others we cry out for justice, but for ourselves, when we’ve done a wrong, how desperately we desire mercy.
Yet we all have within us the desire for justice. And we serve a God who loves justice. In Isaiah chapter 30 verse 18 we hear these words from the Lord: “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”
Psalm 37:27-29 ESV “Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever. For the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.”
We live in a world where there is a great deal of injustice. There are many countries in the world where you can be arrested if you simply criticize the government, or have an unpopular opinion. Even in the United States, there are areas of society where we still struggle with injustice. Particularly in recent times we’ve seen the issues of racism and police violence take the center stage. Later we saw violent riots, and subsequently statues and monuments being torn down.
So we as the church, as a light to the world, now wrestle with this concept of justice and injustice in the world. We want to care for and be a shield to those who are hurting and oppressed. We want to carry the torch of justice and rally for those who’s rights are violated.
These are good and holy desires. God has given us each an internal conscience that desires justice, liberty, and equality. So let’s just jump right into it: How can we live out justice in a biblical manner? What does God say about justice? And what does the world say about justice? So let’s consider worldly justice, God’s view of justice, and then how we apply ourselves to living out biblical justice in a broken world.
The world around us has some interesting ways of responding to injustice. We’ve seen in recent times many run to social media, to share their outrage and their sense of injustice. We’ve seen a growing “cancel culture.” We see a sort of angry mob on social media attempting to cancel people with whom they disagree. Anyone with dissenting viewpoints must be cancelled and shut out of society. You’ll see activists dig into the past of public figures in our society, trying to find some speech or offhand comment they made that could indicate they are evil, or wrong, or racist, or bigoted. Then that person is summarily cancelled.
There is no mercy, only justice for these people. There is no mercy for the statues of the past, only justice, they find something from that person’s past that they disagree with, and then declare they must be torn down. This is cancel culture. And we as Christians should take no part in cancel culture. Our sense of biblical justice includes the concept of mercy and forgiveness. The worldly view of justice says if you made one mistake in the past, made one comment that indicates you are immoral, then you are cancelled forever. (Talk about the apostle Paul)
But a Christian sense of justice says yes, we’ve all sinned, we’ve all done terrible things, if any of our sins were hung out for the world to see, which of us here could stand? If someone brought out a copy of our internet browsing history, which of us could stand? We’ve all fallen short, we’ve all sinned, and thankfully we serve a loving God, a God of justice, but in which whose concept of justice includes the powerful cleansing reality of mercy.
Increasingly within the church we’ve seen a new “woke” paradigm beginning to take hold. We are told we need to read certain books, and study certain concepts, like critical race theory, like intersectionality, and systemic inequality. The number one best seller in the nation right now actually, is a rather extreme and disturbing book called “White Fragility” by Robin Diangelo. In this book we see that all people are portrayed as racist, and all interactions between different races are grounded in racism, and also, if you disagree with any of the ideas in White Fragility, this is actually an indication that you are simply protecting your power structure and are racist. Which means, its unfalsifiable. No matter what, you are wrong.
We also see the NY Times pushing this agenda called the 1619 project that attempts to paint the history of the United States as a fundamentally racist history on every level.
It’s quite concerning to see these political and social ideas invading the church, and being pushed in various church movements. You may have your own viewpoints on these things outside the church. That’s fine. But we want to be very careful, about what ideology we’re embracing inside the church, when fighting for justice in the world. Because if we embrace worldly ideologies, that divide us up into groups, and promote hatred, distrust and division, we may find that all our efforts in the end have made these problems worse, and not better, in our society.
So, if that’s the worlds view of justice, what is God’s view of justice? Time and again in the scriptures we see the concept of unity. Romans 12:4-5 “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
So instead of considering people as groups, who are aggrieved and victimized, and viewing the world through the lenses of critical theory, of oppressor and oppressed, we see that God would have us view ourselves through the lenses of unity.
But not uniformity. In the biblical definition of unity, we see a unity that is diverse. We find unity in diversity. We as the body of Christ are an example of this. We’re all very different, one plays beautiful music to the glory of God, another preaches to the glory of God, another cares for children, another evangelizes on the streets, and still another serves the elderly in their homes, and another is a missionary who goes to foreign nations to preach the gospel.
So we see that humanity in the same way can be viewed as a unity in diversity. We have people whose ancestors hail from different parts of the world. We have people who have all sorts of different skin colors, and different features. Yet we are one humanity, united as a human race. So we ought to focus on unity, instead of carving each other up into group, and power structures.
3rdly So how do we live out biblical justice in the world?
First of all we must realize that any biblical view of justice must include mercy. I am not here to stand in judgment of people who look differently than me. I’m not here to stand in judgment and condemn those who I disagree with. I must humble myself because as a Christian, God says you are to show mercy, and you let God deal with vengeance. God said, “I will repay.” There is so much hate in our world, so much division, the last thing we want to do as Christians is add to it. We are to show mercy, to the oppressed person, and even to the oppressor. Because the truth is we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And we all deserve strict justice, a gavel slam and off to the hot place. But instead God through Christ Jesus gives us what we do not deserve, that is mercy. Extensive mercy.
And if our brothers and sisters are feeling that they are oppressed, or mistreated in our society we should take that seriously and investigate that. But not by tearing down the system around us. Nowhere in the word of God do I see a call to tear down the world. Instead we are to be salt and light to the world, using our influence as Christians to make the world a better place. So we should do that.
How do we live out biblical justice? We ought to reject the hateful, divisive, cancel culture of the world that divides us up, and pits us against each other. And we ought to embrace a biblical view of justice that includes loving mercy, and more importantly, a staunch desire for unity in diversity. A lot of people don’t want unity, they don’t want people to come together, it’s more politically advantageous if we’re constantly fighting each other. But God calls us to holy unity, a unity in diversity.
Galatians 3:27-29 says, “27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ like a garment. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.”
Some of you , your ancestors, came to this nation, the United States, as immigrants. Some of your ancestors were the original colonists who founded the nation. Others have ancestors who were enslaved and taken here by force. Others have ancestors who had to endure racism, and segregation. Others fled European nations hoping for religious freedom. Others simply came here looking for a better life. And at some point we became part of the body of Christ, in this nation, and began a new life.
Some of you were liars, some of you were cheaters, some of you were sexually immoral, some of you were alcoholics, or drug addicts. Some of you worshipped false gods. Some of you came from rigid systems of legalism. Others came from lives of selfishness and self worship. But today, you are no longer any of those things, they do not define you any longer, you are born again in Christ Jesus. And there are no more divisions among us.
The heart cries for justice in the brokenness of the world. Let your heart continue to cry for justice. But do so humbly, with a justice that includes great love and mercy. And focus on God’s design for justice, not the designs of the world. God’s way of unity in diversity is right. I want to wish you a happy July 4th independence day.
