Astounded | Just (Aug. 22, 2021) Mike Armstrong

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Amen.

Well, of course, you've already taken your seat.

You know the drill by now, but it is great to uh to see you all here uh this morning and great to be back with you.

Uh so good to have uh Joel and Megan with us down from Barrie.

Let's just give them a round of applause.

Thank them for serving us well uh today.

Grateful to uh you both.

And uh some of you may remember Joel was actually technically a staff member here at one point back in the early days.

We had him come in and do some band leading with us for uh a number of months, and so uh many of you would remember him from his time with us.

And so, again, always great to see uh them.

Now, as we uh we're about to get into God's word here in one second, I just want to share one thing.

I know we had video announcements, one thing, just an update on uh the return, the relaunch, relaunch of uh Redemption Kids in the fall.

So just want to give you some updates on that and keep you in the loop so you can know kind of what your expectations uh should be.

But what we're targeting right now is a relaunch date of September 19th.

Okay, September 19th is what we're looking uh to start things off and see uh this going again.

And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna likely be, well we are, gonna be launching this in phases, okay?

So it's not gonna be like, you know, zero to grade five, everyone all at once.

Uh we're gonna do this in phases as um as depending on the need and depending on how many people we have to help out in this ministry.

Um so we're gonna be starting off with uh with nursery and toddlers, looks like for sure.

Okay, so the very youngest ones.

And then um potentially JK and SK as well at that same time.

So again, we'll give you uh more updates on that.

But really grateful to uh to Angela and for all her work and putting all of this together.

And uh want to let you know that we are still accepting uh positions.

If you are, you know, sense a calling and a stirring to come and serve our uh young families in this way.

We would so so appreciate that.

There's places in Church Center on our website where you can find out how to do that.

We also want to know if you have kids and you're looking to uh send them to Redemption Kids, we want to know both how many workers we have and how many uh children we have as well.

So that really helps us figuring out uh numbers.

But then also want to tell you uh that we're gonna have be having some teacher training on uh Saturday, September 11th.

Okay, that's gonna be over at our church office.

And so we're letting you know.

We want to run you through our plan to protect system and what that is all about, and actually let you know what it looks like to be a part of Redemption Kids, so you're not just thrown to the wolves and hey, figure it out.

Right?

So Angela and Jeremy are doing a lot of work uh getting you all prepared for that.

But we tell you September 11th so that you're not you're not waiting too last minute.

Let Angela know, like today, let her know now, uh, so that she can prepare you and you can get that training in so you don't come in uh too late and after all of that.

So again, looking forward to uh having this going again and uh hopefully being a blessing to many of you and your families and getting some uh age-appropriate gospel teaching and discipleship uh into the hearts of your kids.

All right, well, let's get our Bibles open now to Deuteronomy uh 32.

Okay, Deuteronomy 32.

All right, now surely you have experienced something along the lines of the following.

Okay, here we go.

Okay, it's the child who screams out, that's not fair, right?

When their sibling gets a slightly larger handful of candy than they do.

We've heard that before, maybe even our in our own families.

Okay, perhaps it's the person on Twitter who is railing against Bella Rogers because you know I'm getting hosed, I am not getting the treatment and the deals and and the customer service that I demand, that I expect, that I should have.

Perhaps you or someone you know was passed over for the well-deserved promotion, and it was given to somebody else.

It was given to the young rookie punk on your team, who just so happens conveniently to have ties to the family that runs the company, right?

And you feel that.

Or maybe for you, it's this mixture of disgust and indignation, sadness, helplessness as you watch the news today, or any day it seems, but as you've been watching the news this week and you're watching the scenes that are going in uh on in Afghanistan, as the Taliban has come in and they're taking over Kabul by force, and it's people desperately trying to flee their country, and some of the scenes of people getting on the planes, I mean, it was it was heart-wrenching.

We see these people trying to flee their country and the oppression there.

And of course, I could go on with many more examples, but the point here is that we are all wired, hardwired, with a desire for justice.

We are.

We we recoil, we recoil with just this powerful revulsion within us when things aren't fair, when when the bad guys win, or when innocent people suffer.

It's all when when evil appears to be getting the upper hand, whether it's in our own life experience, or maybe it's in the lives of others that we see and we feel it for them.

We want from a place baked deep into the fabric of our being to see wrongs made right.

And so we get angry.

Sometimes we get sad or even to the point of despair, or we or we speak our minds, we we take up a cause and directing both our disdain and our vision for justice at the unjust.

And even at times, if we're being honest, perhaps, at God Himself.

I think it's very easy for us as believers to functionally forget.

Right?

We functionally forget that God is just.

It's kind of that idea that Tripp talks about, where we have gospel amnesia, where yeah, maybe on the surface somewhere, we kind of we understand things, we subscribe to an ideal, an idea, some truth, but deep down, is it really driving us?

And so we have this functional forgetfulness where we remember a phrase like, yeah, God is just, I know that.

We subscribe to that again on a surface level, but deep down maybe we're not so sure if he is.

Or we straight up don't believe that he is.

Though we might not be really willing to admit that to ourselves or out loud or to other people.

Okay, but notice here what Deuteronomy 32 verse 4 says.

Deuteronomy 32:4

Are you there?

Deuteronomy 32 verse 4.

Deuteronomy 32:4

What a verse.

This is from uh Moses.

It says, the rock, his work, is perfect, for all his ways are justice, a God of faithfulness and without iniquity.

Just and upright is he.

Okay, so not only are we to believe that God is just, but we're actually supposed to be blown away by it.

We're supposed to be fired up about this.

We're supposed to be driven and and psyched about it.

And that is why the main point of our message today is this.

I am astounded as I consider that God is just.

Hey, just look at this verse with me again.

Notice the first two words.

It says the the rock.

Okay, now that word rock there is incredibly descriptive, isn't it, when you really think about it.

Okay, it informs us that the Lord is is is immovable.

He is strong, he is solid.

And when we apply that to the attribute of him being just, it means that he has been and always will be just.

He's not moving off that position whatsoever.

He doesn't waver, he doesn't slip, he doesn't slide.

And it's not just a position or a viewpoint that he has.

It's actually who he is by nature.

We've talked a lot about that idea throughout his his attributes.

Okay, so he's never going to at some point become unjust.

Okay, remember the attribute of his immutability.

We talked about that a while back now, but it's amazing how his immutability comes to bear on so many of his other attributes.

Immutability means that he is unchanging.

Okay, so he is just, he is loving, he is merciful, he is all these things, and he will never tweak or waver in any of those things, which is awesome.

He is always just.

His nature, his character is solid and unmoving when it comes to these things.

It's kind of like if you've ever been on a hike.

Our family is a big hike family.

I know some people would consider that boring, but if you've ever gone out to hike in the Muskokas, um, we've we would hike in the Adirondacks when we used to live in upstate New York, and there's this one hike that we would take our kids on called Panther Mountain.

And it was only like maybe a mile up.

It was pretty short.

But there was a spot on the trailer trail where you're walking up, it's forest everywhere, and then there's just this massive boulder that's sitting just to the left of the trail as you're making your way up.

It's about the size of, I guess, around four or five cars.

It's huge.

And the kids always had a great time scrambling up on it.

We take pictures with them, and they were really little at the time, but they loved it.

They thought this was so cool.

Not once when we were walking and hiking up and down Panther, we did it many times.

Not once did we ever think, you know what?

We should push this rock down the hill.

Not once did I ever say, Okay, kids, put lean your shoulders into this, we're gonna shove this thing.

Not once did we think that because we knew it was impossible.

This thing isn't going anywhere.

It was massive, it was it was huge.

Okay, so in the same way, God is a rock.

Okay, but notice here that he's not just a rock, he's the rock.

Okay, with all due respect to Dwayne Johnson, okay, and all of that.

That guy needs to change his name, doesn't he?

Right?

Jungle Cruise with a rock and Emily Blunt.

Okay, it doesn't have the same ring to it, I get that.

But I mean it would be more biblical.

Someone reach out to him, see what he thinks about that.

Okay, but moving on, okay, there's just there's there's no one, okay, there's no one who possesses stronger or better justice than God.

He is the rock, he's the epitome of perfect stability and unshakability when it comes to being just.

I mean that that's the word that the next part of this verse uses.

Notice it, his work is perfect.

It's perfect, for all his ways are justice.

If you think about that, not not some of his ways, not even most of his ways.

He doesn't pick and choose justice for some and not for others.

All his ways, though we though we may not understand all of his ways at times, we're finite beings.

We don't see everything the way that God sees it, but all his ways are in fact just.

Every single one.

Now, again, it's taken us a while at this point in the message to really get to a definition of the fact that God is just, but here's a good one that I like.

Notice it says, what does it mean that God is just?

It means more than he is simply fair.

It means he always does what is right and good toward all men.

He always does.

Now, maybe some of us here we we take issue with that.

Maybe your mind goes in all kinds of different directions, and you come up with different examples in your mind from your life or things that you've seen, where you're like, Really?

Is God just in that situation?

Have I always experienced God's justice in my life?

Have I seen it?

Do I see it?

Perhaps you have a problem with that definition, or maybe even something I said just a moment ago where I said that God doesn't choose justice for some and injustice for others.

Because our verse reads, look at it.

All his ways are justice.

Okay, but again, I wonder how many professing Christians even actually believe that.

Do we believe it?

Because my sense is that there are kind of two major ways that we err when it comes to understanding of a just God.

Okay, so there might be more than two, but I think there are two kind of main ditches here that we can kind of fall into as we're considering what God's justice is.

Okay, the first one is that some people believe it's unjust for God to pour out his wrath and send sinners to hell.

I went to Bible college with all kinds of friends that ended up landing on this position.

Who just abandoned historical Christianity and said, no, this isn't right.

I can't wrap my mind around it, therefore it is incorrect.

And what the Bible says is false.

Some people believe this, it's unjust.

Now, people are okay with God doing that to the worst of people, right?

To murderers and dictators, right?

Or those who have treated them particularly terrible, have committed grievances against themselves.

Okay, but sending innocent people to hell, surely that's harsh, they think.

Surely that suggests that, man, God is God is too heavy-handed here.

He's a cruel tyrant.

But I think what all of that, if that is where our thinking is going, if that is where we've landed on, I think it betrays how little we understand of the gravity of sin.

Because no one is truly innocent before the Lord.

Do we know that?

If God is God, okay, if He is the creator of heaven and earth and all that is within it, then it makes sense logically that he gets to decide what's up.

Right?

He gets to decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good and bad, what is moral and immoral.

But so many times it's because of pride in us.

We we we we want to put ourselves in the place of God.

We prefer to define all of those things for ourselves.

Oh, that's immoral.

I want to I want to change that, I want to soften the edges of that, to make it more palatable to me or to uh to others, to make me more comfortable in how I want to live my life.

Right?

Naturally, of course, we make light of how serious sin really is, our own sin especially.

Again, remember, we often feel the most grieved about other people's sin, don't we?

But instinctively we we like to give ourselves a pass.

And it comes with the different ways that we have transgressed God.

So many times we're blind to it, we don't even see it, we don't notice it.

Remember Romans 3, verse 10.

Romans 3:10

We've talked about this verse many times.

It says, none is righteous.

None.

It says, No not one.

Okay, so each one of us here, every single person who's ever lived, you know, we've all lied, we've all stolen, we've all we've all hated, we've we've done more.

Which makes us, strictly speaking, when you strip it all away, it makes us unrighteous.

It makes us deserving of God's justice.

His justice by way of eternity in hell.

Like as dark and as awful as that is, like that's that's actually what we what we deserve.

Meaning that God is perfectly within his right to exercise justice towards mankind in this way.

And at the end of the day, we're all without excuse.

That's what Romans 1 talks about.

And so it would actually, if you think about it, it would be wickedly unjust for him to just allow sinners, any of us, even you and I, to get away with wrongdoing.

It'd be very unjust of him to do that.

We couldn't worship, you wouldn't be good if he just if he just let that all slide.

Which I think actually kind of leads us into the second way that we err when it comes to understanding God's justice.

Another ditch that we can fall into is this sometimes subtle but incredibly dangerous thinking.

I think Christians have this, that God does show justice to sinners by punishing them, but we as believers, we get away with it.

Right?

They get justice, we don't.

Sweet deal for us, right?

That that's sometimes how how believers view all of this.

We're forgiven, we're shown mercy, so where's the justice in that?

Some might ask.

But once again, I think it just shows how little we understand that you know the seriousness of sin against God and the gospel in particular.

Here's what A.W.

Tozer says.

I think this is helpful.

He says, through the work of Christ in atonement, justice is not violated, but satisfied when God spares a sinner.

How good is that?

Okay, recognize that even with Christ followers, justice has been served through the work of Jesus.

He atoned for our sin.

He received the wrath of God on himself instead of us.

Remember, through the sacrificial death of Jesus, the Father was satisfied.

Sin always has to be punished.

It always has to be.

In the old and imperfect sacrificial system that we read about in the Old Testament, it was through the blood of animal sacrifices.

And then Jesus came to be the pure, spotless Lamb who would be the once and for all perfect sacrifice through his shed blood.

Where you and I are now given this incredible opportunity, and it is a great mercy, this opportunity to have our sins forgiven.

And that be by faith or you know, or trust or belief in what Jesus accomplished.

Okay, so keep in mind, justice was served that day on Calvary.

Your forgiveness, your salvation that you've received, it's not a cheap grace where you just get away with it.

Okay, don't be fooled into thinking that just because you've been shown mercy, justice has not been served.

No, a steep price was indeed paid.

We know this.

God's own son, he suffered for you, and he suffered for me.

That was in our place, right?

It was it was substitutionary.

God would be incredibly unjust, again, to let anyone's sin go unpunished.

So every single person, you and I, we get that we get either justice for our sins by way of eternity in hell.

That's the one option.

Or the other option is we get mercy and forgiveness through the justice that was poured out on Jesus Christ.

Right?

Those are the two options.

That's the choice.

Trust in the person and work of the Son of God who received the Father's wrath, his just wrath towards you.

Or justly receive his wrath yourself when you face him at the end of your life here on earth.

Now you can probably tell which way I'm gonna urge you, right?

Christ.

Like it's it's it's actually an easy, simple decision, right?

It really is.

It's Jesus.

Lean on him.

Confess your sin.

Confess your rebellion.

All of it, all of it is against the Lord.

You've transgressed his law.

But he is waiting and willing and able to forgive you through what his son did.

Would you believe that that was for you?

Would you would you humble yourself?

Would you cry out to the Lord for salvation today?

The other option.

Not good at all.

That's an understatement.

With this here.

Three ways a biblical view of a just God impacts my life.

Okay, three ways.

Okay, first of all, it fills me with a more profound sense or a profound awe of my incredible Savior.

That's what a biblical view of a just God should fill you with.

We're not here this morning or any other Sunday, okay, to just give you a better understanding of some concepts.

Okay, we're not here to just learn another layer of doctrine and theology.

We're not here for those things and that's it.

We're here to become greater worshipers.

We're here to be fired up about the Lord.

That's why this series is called Astounded, because we struggle with that.

We don't get gripped by how great God is, but when we consider the justice of God, when we consider the gospel and how Jesus took all of that, we consider the gravity and the horrors of hell, we consider all of those things.

It's like, wow, God, how awesome are you?

That's what should be ringing through our hearts, that's what should be going through our minds as we consider God's justice.

Profound awe of our awesome Savior.

Here's the second one here three biblical ways, or three ways a biblical view of a just God impacts my life.

It fills me with a right drive for biblical justice in the world.

I think this is very important to say.

There are many different Justice movements in the world right now.

Um, and let's be honest, some of them are not good.

Okay, they aren't.

Like even something like Black Lives Matters.

You're like, uh oh, Pastor, you're getting yourself into hot water here, but some of this needs to be said.

Okay, black lives matters, which I which I think has come from a place of a desire to end racism.

Right?

It's sick of the injustice and and it wants to do something about it.

That is commendable.

But if you actually looked into all of that, like the phrase black lives matters is great.

People are created equal in God's eyes.

Racism is abhorrent in God's eyes, and it should be to us as well.

We should have a strong sense of justice about this.

But that organization is it it goes about it differently.

Well, why?

Well, because they're not believers.

Right?

Of course.

We have to understand that.

And so they're gonna go about justice in in man-centered ways.

And and they're they're you know, I was on their website just recently, and they're looking to you know tear down white supremacy and the institutionalization of all of that.

And they'll even go about that with with violence, as we've seen in some of the protests.

Now, as we're hearing that, we're and as we're seeing that in the news and all of that, as believers, we have to be like, that's that's not it.

Right?

You're seeing tweets from famous people who are reversing the opposite way now.

And they're like, I hate Caucasian people and they all need to die.

I've seen tweets like this.

People with blue check marks, it's going undealt with.

And so they're responding to an egregious evil with more hatred in the other direction.

Again, that's not it.

And so we look at this and we see that's one example, but there are other social justice causes that that are aiming to do something right.

I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater on all of this stuff.

But but they're going about it in a way that that, of course, has nothing to do with Jesus.

That doesn't none of that stuff what they're standing for.

LGBTQ writes all of that stuff.

That that's baked into their ideology.

Okay, and and and just affirming all of it.

Okay, but this is, you know, again, not in line with the gospel.

We have to remember as believers that as we hear about God's justice, we need to be about justice ourselves.

Yes, we need to love all people, absolutely.

We need to be gracious and we need to be kind, we need to bring them the gospel.

Because what is racism at the end of the day?

It's hatred.

Racism is hatred.

That's at the root of it.

And and and how do we deal with hatred?

Christ.

Right?

The gospel gets after that.

The gospel changes people, no matter what side of the aisle you're on.

If you've if you've been mistreated and oppressed because of your skin color, that is that is horrible.

And I'm sorry that that's happened to you.

It's it's it's a disgrace.

But Jesus Christ can get in there and help you to forgive.

On the other side of the coin, if you have been racist, and I'm not pretending that no one has ever had a shred of that here in Canada.

I'm not pretending that.

But if you if you've ever gone that way, the Lord Jesus Christ can save you and transform your heart where you can now love people as image bearers of God.

Do you see that?

Biblical justice is where we bring the gospel to them.

I'm not saying it's always easy and it's always laid out clearly and how we should do that functionally and practically, but it is simple.

Love God, love people.

Let's go be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in the culture.

Let's go be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in Newmarket.

I took a while with all of that, but I think it's important to say.

Right?

When we have a biblical view of justice, it impacts my life by filling me with the right drive for biblical justice.

Not whatever the world says, not whatever the next angry person says, biblical justice.

Here's the third one.

It truly humbles me.

When we have a biblical view that God is just, it impacts us by humbling us.

As we hear things like we deserve death and hell.

We've all transgressed against God.

That should humble us.

That shouldn't make us feel better than other people.

Right?

Not at all.

We should be filled with a deep humility as we consider the awesomeness of what Jesus has done for us.

Again, we deserve wrath when you really think about it, as much as you know, those people, whoever it is that comes to mind as deserving a ton of it for you.

We deserve it as well.

Let's humble ourselves.

As we're humbled, the sky's the limit.

The Lord will take and take us and do with us what he wants as we humble ourselves.

Let's be humbled by these things.

Let's appreciate that our God is just.

Let's understand it well, and let's take that biblical understanding of it to drive us to greater worship, a biblical understanding of what justice looks like, and then humility in all things.

Let me pray for you.

Lord, we thank you for this time together.

We thank you for this this morning.

And Father, we recognize that.

Father, we deserve way worse than we've been given.

Lord, forgive me for how many times even this week I've complained about this country.

I'm so tired of some of these things that we're seeing going on on a political level.

Our hearts are grieved by what's happening in other countries as well, Afghanistan and the U.S.

and many other countries, Lord.

Help us to remember, help me to remember that I am no better than anybody.

Lord, we all do.

Apart from your love for us, that is where we would be headed.

So Lord, I pray that we would come to appreciate these things very deeply, Lord.

Not just in knowing how to say some phrases better, not coming and putting on a mask at church or singing some words and doing it with our lips, but Lord, that we would come to truly appreciate the gospel, come to appreciate you, love you, and love others.

So, God, as we think about your justice towards us, I pray especially for anybody here who's praying for a loved one who does not yet know you.

Lord, and a message like this comes across as hard.

God, I pray that you would save.

I pray that you would hear our cries.

I pray that you would do a work.

Lord, and bring sinners to you, Lord.

Use us, use our church.

God, we pray that.

Lord, I pray for our world right now.

As we look out everywhere and we see injustice everywhere.

Lord, we thank you that you are in control.

We thank you that all of your ways are justice at all times.

We thank you that you are the rock, Lord, who will not be moved, will not be shaken.

Lord, I pray that our confidence would be in you.

Lord, I pray that we would seek to be a church that seeks to take the justice of God out into the world.

And so, God, help us with these things, Lord.

We love you.

We thank you for your kindness to us.

We thank you for your mercy.

We thank you for Christ.

We pray all of this in His name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, that uh does it for us today.

I will say this.

I will uh dismiss you all to make your way outside.

Uh so we have lots of space and room uh out there to uh to mingle and hang out.

Uh, but have uh a great uh rest of your afternoon, a great week, and know that you are loved.