He Will Bring Justice

Amen.

Sacred mission.

Well, it's such a joy to be with you on this Advent Sunday, celebrating this season that we're in.

We talked about how Advent isn't just us looking back to the first coming of Jesus, but those who are in Christ.

We eagerly look to his coming again in his second Advent.

And so we want to balance those two realities out as we gather for worship this morning.

We're going to be talking, as Michael said, about the subject of justice.

And one of the things that God has promised to his people is that he will bring justice.

And my hope is that we see how Christ fulfills that promise this morning.

I want to start by submitting this to us as a church gathered.

Where justice is withheld, the wicked oppress the righteous.

Where justice is withheld, the wicked oppress the righteous.

You see, justice is a it's a virtue that when righteously employed brings equity to the people who reside beneath it.

Justice promotes goodness and equality with inside of society.

It exists to uplift the righteous and oppressed within culture, and it actually works to debilitate the unrighteous and the oppressors.

When justice is employed in fairness, impartiality, and righteousness, those beneath it are not crushed by it, but they're actually lifted up from it because of it.

They are raised to experience the fullness of their well-being.

One of the things that makes God good is that he is a just God and that his justice is righteous.

That makes God good in his person because a good king is a just king, a king who rules over his people with righteous justice.

In a land where justice is withheld, or where that justice is partial or unfair or unrighteous, the wicked prosper and the righteous are oppressed.

In that land, in that type of land, there is no presence of a good king.

We might be able to look throughout our own culture today, from our news feeds to our social media feeds, right?

And we see places where justice is withheld, right?

Or where it's employed in unrighteous, partial ways.

And what are we seeing?

We're seeing good people, righteousness be oppressed by the wickedness of the oppressor.

I mean, we we live in a time where those who are seeking to do good are almost giving up on the effort because what they're witnessing around them, underneath unjust rulers, is that the wicked seem to prosper and that they continue to be trampled underfoot.

This is because our rulers are unjust.

And when our rulers are unjust, the people suffer inequity.

For God to be a good king, he must be just.

And for him to bring goodness to his people, he must employ righteous justice.

And so as we approach the text this morning and we start with this Psalm of David, here's what I want us to see that the justice of God is for the good of his people.

The justice of God is for the good of his people.

David is writing a psalm, and he stirred within his reflection of the wonderful deeds of God.

He's stirred to exalt and to praise the glorious name of God for all the good that he has shown to him in executing this justice.

The central theme of God's wonderful deeds is that he is actually causing the wicked to perish before his justice.

It's that their name is blotted out forever, that they have come to an end in everlasting ruin.

In fact, the way that David kind of summarizes this is that he writes in the Psalm, the very memory of them have perished.

This is what extent God's righteousness and his justice has been against the unrighteous and wicked within the land.

David's heart is provoked to worship as he reflects on a king, a king that is greater than he, who governs his people with righteous justice.

We see in verse 7, David write this But the Lord sits enthroned forever.

There are a few things that we need to unpack this morning as we approach the text about God and his involvement with mankind.

The first thing that we see is that his authority is eternal.

He sits enthroned forever.

What this means for us is that there's no power, no ruler or authority that is able to dethrone him.

He resides within this seat of authority forever.

But it also means that there is no evil or wickedness within the earth that is able to climb to such heights as to drag him from his seat.

The psalmist further means by this expression that it's impossible for God to actually abdicate the office and authority of judge.

If his throne is forever, if he sits in throne forever, God cannot judge, he cannot not judge with authority and power.

He is unable to not govern all of creation in his righteousness.

In this, we also see that his justice is to govern the affairs of mankind, that he is actually at work within our lives.

He is not a God who is removed from his people, but he is a king who is actively seeks the welfare of the pe of his people through justice.

Because this justice, this righteous justice is something that's employed from one to another.

It demands an exchange, it demands some sense of interaction and engagement with one another.

This takes us to verse 8, which describes the nature and scope of his justice.

Verse 8 says, He judges the world with righteousness, he judges the peoples with uprightness.

So here we observe three distinct things.

The first thing is this that God judges.

God judges.

We've already shown that he does this out of his very being.

Because God is, as part of his essence, just, he must judge.

He must use the standard of his own inherent righteousness to affect the well-being of his creation through judgment.

But God doesn't simply judge.

The scope of his judgment is that he judges the world.

God judges the world.

The scope of his judgment is universal.

There's no place or person that is removed from it or able to flee from it.

We must persist, though, this morning in understanding that this reality is for the good of his people, that the scope of his judgment is universal.

There's no person or place that can be removed from it.

This actually works itself out for our good.

The justice of God governs all of mankind to the end of their own good and well-being.

God judges, God judges the world.

The third thing we see is God judges the world in righteousness.

God judges the world in righteousness.

This means that the judgment of God is fair, it's true, and it's right.

This is what his judgment being righteous means.

They're derived from his own righteousness.

When he judges, there's never a lapse in judgment, right?

There's never one that's casted falsely or one decreed from an unrighteous motive, right?

It is his uprightness that lifts up the oppressed and crushes the oppressor.

His righteousness delivers equity to his people.

This is what the psalmist is trying to help us understand.

This reality of God and his throne.

It actually is supposed to give comfort and confidence to his people.

God is seated above all things, and he will deal with all wickedness righteously.

David declares these judgments again to be righteous in order to persuade us.

It's in order to persuade us to find our comfort and our refuge in God.

That he actually comes to the aid and help of his people, that we should come to God in times of trial and trouble, expecting, expecting to obtain his assistance.

Since he judges the nations in righteousness, he will not permit injustice and oppression to always reign without consequence in the world.

Nor will he deny his help to his people.

As we come to verse 9 and 10, we see the same thing reiterated twice over.

The first time in verse 9, we see it communicated kind of pictorally.

And the second time in verse 10, we see it communicated more literally.

But it says this that the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

And those who know your name put their trust in you.

For you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

In the same way that God is the eternal judge, for his people he is an eternal refuge.

I love the way that the Young's literal translation interprets verse 9.

It says this that, and Jehovah is a tower for the bruised, a tower for times of adversity.

For those who are battered and bruised by the hands of injustice, God becomes a tower of protection and defense.

As much as the unrighteous cannot overthrow his throne, neither can they destroy his people.

And God's aid comes in the right time.

It comes in this time of adversity and trouble that we face.

God's promise to his people is not that they'll escape every situation or that they'll escape or pervade every time that the wicked reach out their hand to bring affliction to them.

It's not that they'll escape these things, it's that their end will not be successful, their purposes will not triumph, that they cannot destroy God's people.

He promises that he will be their refuge.

Verse 10 gives us this little literal understanding of God's relationship with his people.

We see a sense of intimacy that when they call on your name, those who call on your name and put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

This intimacy of knowing the name of God to call upon, to putting our trust in that name.

And that name that he's referring to is Yahweh.

Yahweh meaning he who was, he who is, and he who always will be.

His very name communicates his own eternality, that he is and was and always will be.

As his throne seats uh forever in justice, so he resides upon it.

That's why we can actually put our trust in him.

The reason that we can trust God is because he is forever able to be trusted.

He had no beginning, he will have no end, and we will not be forsaken as his people.

Fundamentally, we're not forsaken because God cannot forsake himself.

You see, when we are in him by faith in Christ, when we truly and sincerely call upon his name, we will not be forsaken because God cannot forsake himself.

Our trust is fully and totally in him.

The justice of God is for the good of his people.

It lifts up the oppressed, it crushes the oppressor because his justice is righteous.

He is a good king.

Yet at times, if we're honest with ourselves and what we experience in this life, the trials and troubles that we go to, it seems as though his justice is withheld, right?

That his aid is delayed and that he has forsaken his people altogether.

Through the different struggles that we experience in this life, we can be convinced to believe as if God is not very concerned with our affairs.

There are times of despair that we experience where it seems as though there's actually no refuge to be found.

Wherever we may look, wherever we may run, we have no strong tower to flee to.

It appears that the wicked will bring us to our ruin, that our weeping will find no end, that we will be crushed under injustice.

But his delay in employing righteous justice does not mean that he has been removed from his throne or that he's ceased from his office, nor is it that he is no longer interested in the well-being of our life.

No, his delay has always been rooted in patience.

Patience for the ultimate good of his people and the glory of his name.

You see, God's not an emotional God like you and I are.

That it will come to fulfill all that it has promised to, and he proves to us this first and foremost by sending us Jesus his son.

What I want us to walk away with this morning is seeing and understanding that Jesus came for righteous justice.

Jesus came for righteous justice.

The advent of Jesus proves that God will bring his justice upon the earth.

Psalm 98 9 declares this truth.

It says, For he comes to judge the earth.

And Jesus is the one who's going to come, who has come to fulfill that promise.

Because Jesus is the full presence of righteous justice, and he has come to deliver judgment.

You see, in John 5, we see actually how Jesus is the promise of the Father to bring righteous justice upon the earth, and that the authority, the authority of judgment has actually been handed to the Son.

John 5 22, it says this, for the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.

You see, it's Jesus who has come with the Word of God.

He's come with the judgment of the Father to fulfill all righteous justice.

God had been patient with our sin.

He had delayed his judgments.

But in the sending of Jesus, in the coming of Christ, he communicates that that patience has an end.

Paul actually communicates this in Athens as he's speaking the gospel publicly to all of those who adhere.

He says this in Acts 17, 30 and 31.

He says, The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.

And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

What does Paul commune?

There's so much theological depth in those two verses that Paul declares here in Acts 17.

One of the things that he says to us is that the time of God's patience has ended.

He formally overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he commands people everywhere to repent, to repent of their sin and unrighteousness and turn to Jesus in faith.

The coming of Jesus establishes an urgency for mankind, right?

He will judge the world as the authoritative representative of God's righteous justice.

He comes to deal with the wickedness, the unrighteousness of mankind, and he deals with it through judgment.

We see this all throughout the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus comes to judge and he casts his judgment through his preaching ministry.

We see Jesus as he judged the hard-heartedness of man, how he judged the hypocrisy of dead religion.

He judges the injustice of society, how the wealthy and those with power oppressed the poor and marginalized.

He judged mankind's self-righteousness, their trust in themselves and their absence of faith.

He judged the wicked, the scoffer, the charlatan, the liar.

Jesus came to bring judgment upon all unrighteousness and to call all people to repentance.

One of the very first messages we see Jesus publicly declare in his ministry is in the Gospel of Matthew.

After he had been baptized by John the Baptist, and he had been led into the Spirit by the Spirit into the wilderness for his temptation with Satan, he comes into the city center, declaring His first public message repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Turn from your unrighteousness and turn toward God.

Why?

Because his patience has come to an end.

His kingdom is present in here.

While we see Jesus function as judge throughout his earthly ministry, we can know that he's actually been appointed with the authority to judge by his resurrection.

This is what Paul says there in Acts 17, 31.

It's not simply that Jesus is some type of prophet who came into the world and declared God's judgment, that of like Isaiah, Elijah, Jeremiah, all of these prophets before had come and declared God's judgment, but only Christ, the final prophet, had been given the authority to actually execute that judgment.

And we have this assurance by his resurrection, by a man, Paul said, whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

This is how we can know Jesus is the final prophet, not the one who just came to declare God's judgment, but who has been given authority to execute them also.

It is the resurrection of Jesus that establishes him this way.

And this resurrection is a sign, that assurance to all men that the righteous judgment of God is at hand.

Yet many of us, if we're honest with ourselves, we deny the reality of God's justice, his righteous justice and coming judgment.

Or maybe we misunderstand who will be the subject of it, right?

Some of us we live as though there is no judgment to come, right?

We live in this denial or this twisting and misrepresentation of the nature and person of God.

And we live in such a way that we actually believe there's no judgment to come.

Many of us have a perception of God without him being just.

We simply fabricate God into this person or this being that we desire him to be.

We tend to have a view of God that that fits our own definitions of things of like being loving, kind, benevolent, a God who would only accept and affirm, not judge and condemn.

Right?

We want a nice guy, God, who accepts and affirms everything.

He wouldn't dare judge, he wouldn't dare condemn.

He's loving, he's kind, he's benevolent.

But we only understand those words through our own definitions and experiences.

And here's the reality of a God like that, a God who is so weak that he does not employ righteous justice against wickedness.

That is not a good God.

That is not a good God.

And here's the reality: when we have that view and perception of God, we have no real answer for the wickedness that we see within this earth.

We have no real answer for the evil that we see triumphing around us.

We have no real solution.

Is God truly just supposed to affirm and accept everything that we do?

Is he not gonna judge and condemn?

Is he not gonna execute justice against unrighteousness?

Look at what we see happening throughout our society.

Will God not bring that wickedness to a ruin?

A good God would, a good God will.

It's like us.

If we allowed someone to come into our home and just uh uh permit them to cause violence against our family, because hey, we're kind, we're nice, we're gonna be the good guy over here, we're just gonna accept and affirm, we're not gonna condemn, we're not gonna intervene in the affairs of other people, we're just gonna kind of allow this to happen.

We would be wicked.

We would not be good.

The way that we execute goodness is by the execution of righteous justice, that we would actually stop the intruder, that we would crush him in his pursuit of wickedness.

That is goodness to protect those who are trying to be oppressed by his oppression.

You see, without God dealing with all that is unrighteous in the world, he cannot be a loving, kind, and good God at all.

A good God, a loving and benevolent God must deal with the sin of man.

He must deal with the ways that wickedness have oppressed goodness.

Some of us, though, we do believe that God's judgment is coming.

The way that we live our life is we live as though God will only judge others.

We we fail to see ourselves as the recipients of this judgment.

We compare ourselves to the person sitting next to us.

Well, at least I'm not like him.

He better really be worried about God's judgment because I've seen how he lives his life or I've seen the things that they have done.

You see, we fail to see ourselves as the unrighteous person.

We fail to see ourselves as the one whom God's justice is set against.

We fail to understand ourselves as the oppressor.

But we all have been that person.

Everyone in this room has sought to use something about their life, whether it be their age, their influence, their power, their gender, their whatever, you have sought to use something that you've held to oppress people around you, to get the leg up, to get the higher ground, to be able to make it ahead, to be able to get your own self-sense of power and richness and pleasure.

You have done it.

You and I are sitting in a room full of oppressors, a room full of unrighteous ones, immoral, unjust, deserving of God's righteous judgment.

Paul actually helps us understand this.

And the letter to the Romans works as kind of this biblical anthropology.

Who is man, right?

In his nature and essence.

And Paul helps us understand this in this laundry list of the heart and condition of man, he writes in Romans 3:10 through 18.

Romans 3:10–18

For we have already charged that all.

Notice the universal reality of Paul's statement.

We have already charged that all.

Both Jews and Greeks are under sin.

As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside.

Together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one.

Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive, the venom of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruined and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Do you hear that?

None is righteous, no, not one.

We can sit here in this room and pretend that we have always been the victim, that we have always been the one oppressed.

But if we're really honest with ourselves, we'll look in the mirror and we'll discover that we are the oppressor.

And we have played that part time and time again.

That justice should be employed against us.

We are the problem.

What the scriptures reveal, what the story of mankind shows us, is that we are the hell that has prevented heaven on earth.

When we look to the garden, this is the reality of our story, of our condition.

That we ushered in hell in all of its unrighteousness, and the chasm between earth and heaven was created.

This is why God's justice is necessary.

To bring heaven back into harmony and unity with his creation.

God's justice is necessary, and his justice is one that we can never stand against.

Because Paul also says in Romans 1.18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against what?

All ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

You see, God's righteous justice is employed through wrath.

And his wrath is against all unrighteousness.

Fundamentally, this would mean that his wrath is against us.

His judgment is coming.

He has assured us of this through the resurrection of his son, and it is his son who will come again to execute his justice against all.

That God is a good king who will now allow injustice to go unpunished.

You see, the cross actually shows us this.

The cross actually guarantees us of this.

God is not a God who just looks at our unrighteousness and sweeps it under the rug or turns a blind eye to it or acts as though he doesn't have to deal with this over here.

He's just gonna come over here and deal with this greater uh uh reality of unrighteousness and wickedness.

No, God deals with every single aspect of the unrighteousness of man, and he most fully shows us this in the crushing of his own son for us.

He is a good king, and God shows us not only that he's good, but in the cross, he shows us that he's merciful, he's a merciful king by punishing his righteous son in our place.

2 Corinthians 5 21 says it was for our sake, for our good.

He made him, Jesus his son, to be sin who knew no sin, to be unrighteousness who knew no unrighteousness, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Can you start to see how your hope is in God's righteous justice?

Because in Jesus He deals with every aspect of our own unrighteousness.

Because in Jesus' condemnation, we are assured that we stand fully acquitted, fully justified, fully righteous.

Since he was crushed for our unrighteousness by the Father, we are now judged by Jesus' righteousness as we stand before his throne.

This throne that he sits on forever, that's established for justice in Christ.

When we approach that, do we understand how the scriptures help us see that in Christ we're able to boldly approach the throne of the Father?

Why are we able to boldly, not because of anything we've done, because if we stepped forward to God's throne of justice in our unrighteousness, we will be crushed by his wrath.

We would be brought to our ruin.

But in Christ, we are able to approach his throne in boldness because we step forward clothed in the righteousness of his son.

That is good news that God is just and he deals with all unrighteousness justly.

You see, the cross demonstrates the demand of God's justice, but it simultaneously displays the richness of his mercy.

And this mercy, this righteousness, this goodness will be sung forever in the new creation that awaits us.

Revelation 15, 3 through 4 says this: Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty.

Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations.

Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.

That will be the song of heaven.

God is just and true, that his righteous acts have been revealed.

And so for us now in this place, as we are sojourners within this earth, my hope for us is this that we would find our refuge in Jesus' throne of righteous justice.

Remember, those who call upon his name, those who trust in him, he becomes a strong tower for the bruised.

He becomes a refuge for those who are oppressed by the oppressor.

We who are in Christ are able with full hope and confidence to actually cling to the throne of God's justice, that he will deal with all wickedness in this earth.

To know that from it you and I will be judged by Jesus' righteousness, and that all remaining unrighteousness within the earth will be dealt with by his wrath.

This is what we find our refuge in.

Through Christ, a new creation is being prepared for us, a new city, one where all unrighteousness is banished by his justice, and where righteousness reigns forever for the good of his people.

Listen to the vision that John the evangelist puts forward in the book of Revelation of what it looks like for this new city, with the throne of God's justice sitting in the center of it.

He says this in Revelation 21, 27, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

One of the first things that we see is that through God's righteous justice, he banishes all unrighteousness from ever entering into this new city.

That we actually dwell and reign and rule with him in righteousness forever and ever.

Because as much as you and I have been oppressors, I'm not trying to dismiss the reality that we have also been oppressed by others' sin and wickedness in their life.

We have been trampled underfoot by others who have sought to seek their own good and self-interest.

The promise of God is that those types of things, those motives, that oppression will never be able to enter the gates of his city.

A home where the throne of his justice resides in the city center, and his people rejoice because life flows from it.

Let's read from Revelation 22, 1 through 3.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from what?

The throne of God and of the Lamb.

Through the middle of the street of the city also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

No longer will there be anything accursed, what?

But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

You see, in the new city that God is preparing for us, his throne sits in the middle.

He remains enthroned forever.

Nothing can remove him from his seat of power and authority, nor can he abdicate his role as judge of the cosmos.

His throne sits at the center.

And what does that mean for his people?

That goodness, righteousness, joy, peace govern their lives forever and ever.

This is good news.

This is what we put our hope in.

We who are in Christ can find complete refuge in his throne.

Because we can have full assurance that God will judge all unrighteousness.

And you and I, we can know this first and foremost because he has dealt with our own unrighteousness in Christ His Son.

Amen.

Let's pray.