Jesse: Heavenly father, I thank you for an opportunity to come together outside in this beautiful weather that you have preordained before the foundations of the world to bring you worship and glory.
Jesse: I pray that as we open your word from Micah 6- your prophet speaking words of truth throughout the generations, that we will listen and heed what you have to tell us.
Jesse: I pray that you will give strength and constitution to my brother as he brings your word.
Jesse: And again, I pray for our hearts to be ready to receive and obey.
Jesse: And in Jesus name we pray.
Jesse: Amen.
Justin: Amen.
Justin: I greatly appreciate the prayer of my brother for me today.
Justin: However, I don't like it when he is on the upward side of an incline as I'm already shorter than him and felt like a very small child-like human.
Justin: Everybody awake.
Justin: If you're in your cars, how's your horns working?
Justin: Anybody?
Justin: Alright, I got one beep.
Justin: More of you are in your cars, but I loosen up that wrist.
Justin: Got a beep.
Justin: It's all in the wrist air.
Justin: It is very nice.
Justin: It's all in the wrist.
Justin: Um, we're going to be speaking from like a six today.
Justin: Uh, we are going to depart from, uh, first Peter.
Justin: I'm going to try to use my paper copy of the Bible, but one of the, uh, wonderful, advantageous, advantageous, advantageous advantages of being outside, uh, is that it is beautifully cool today.
Justin: This gorgeous weather.
Justin: We have a wonderful breeze, uh, however that breeze tends to blow paper.
Justin: So we will, shall see how reading from the hard copy here of God's word shall go.
Justin: Um, and I'm going to not put this on the incline.
Justin: I'm going to switch it over to here.
Justin: So we're learning, we're learning and adjusting as we, uh, develop ever more and more each week in our, um, desire to have a community church come together, um, and learn what it's like to have outdoor services and parking lot church and this whole thing that we're in.
Justin: Honestly, I love it.
Justin: I love being outside in the beautiful sun and the breeze.
Justin: Um, and I will try to remain brief this morning.
Justin: Um, so that you, a lack of sunblock and your ill preparedness does not actually inhibit you later in the day.
Justin: Um, so no one can be ignorant in our generation with technology the way it is of current events that grip our nation and uh, that is in many ways a good thing.
Justin: Um, we can know things that happen anywhere in our country at any given moment, uh, and with at times very impactful detail.
Speaker 3: This is a good thing.
Justin: So we're a small church here in New Jersey, right?
Justin: And we are very, very far from Minneapolis, Minnesota,
Speaker 3: very far from it.
Justin: And yet we can know what is happening there.
Justin: We can hear, see, and because of those things, we can begin to feel a sense of urgency that is welling up in that place.
Justin: Although we are in this place
Speaker 3: and that's a gift.
Justin: That's okay because as a church we can not simply get stuck in thoughts that may just be for us, but we can broaden our thoughts to what may be God is doing everywhere or anywhere at any particular time.
Justin: And we can be encouraged.
Justin: I want to encourage you with two stories this morning before I began opening up God's word from Micah chapter six.
Justin: That'll be our main text today.
Justin: So if you want to get to Micah six, you will not be there in vain.
Justin: You will be there in good preparation.
Justin: Micah chapter six is where we will be this morning.
Justin: Um, I want to give you first a story that is simply personal.
Justin: So, uh, yesterday because of, because of the situation we are in, in our world, the
Speaker 3: Mmm
Justin: pandemic and the shutting down of local businesses far more things are being purchased online and shipped.
Justin: So, uh, I work in the shipping industry so to speak.
Justin: I might be what you would call the last line of the shipping industry.
Justin: Um, and we are working a lot.
Justin: And so, uh, we're working six days a week right now.
Justin: So I was able to work yesterday and I kept telling myself all day, it was a really, it's kind of a hot and gross week at times and it's a little earlier than we're used to that heat.
Justin: Maybe it's, uh, it's about right.
Justin: We're, we're at the end of may.
Justin: We're at Memorial day.
Justin: We're, we're past that.
Justin: So it's about right for it to be getting sticky and muggy out here in New Jersey.
Justin: Right.
Justin: Um, but, but all day yesterday I sat with my six day a week, I said, I'm just gonna take my time.
Justin: I'm going to work.
Justin: I'm going to do everything in the truck and go get it all done.
Justin: There was stuff that's there from for Monday, so kinda, kinda get myself ahead, but I was going to take my time.
Justin: I wasn't going to, I wasn't gonna work too hard.
Justin: Right.
Justin: I felt like I had just gotten rehydrated the night before and I was hydrated again.
Justin: I was like, alright, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna overdo it.
Justin: Alright, I'm going to, I'm going to work steady.
Justin: So I didn't get back to the building.
Justin: I was one of the last human beings back at the, uh, the building where all of our trucks come out of.
Justin: And, uh, and I was with one of the last human beings left in the building, in our, in our center.
Justin: And I came in at a time when they were getting a phone call with very, very bad news.
Justin: And, and most, most people that I work with know that I am a pastor.
Justin: Um, and some are surprised that I could be a pastor because they know I'm also a sinner.
Justin: And I have to constantly remind people that, um, just because you're a sinner doesn't stop you from being a pastor.
Justin: In fact, um, I pastor that's a center, uh, has, has indeed a great realization of the message he has to preach is not his own.
Justin: Um, so I have to remind them of that fight a lot, but as I get in and this news is being shared and it is bad, I'm able to pray with them, right?
Justin: And, and, uh, I'm able to violate social distancing and we were able to embrace and I was able to pray with them and the reminder here in as we can, as we get to interact with news across the nation as a little church here in New Jersey.
Justin: Right.
Justin: The reminder is nothing, nothing happens that is outside of the sovereignty of God.
Justin: Right.
Justin: So me in reminding myself constantly all day, not to work too hard, causes me to be back very late, which causes me to not get home when I want to and not accomplish the things I wanted to in a day causes me to arrive at a place specifically where I can engage with the love and truth of the gospel to a person who needs it.
Justin: At that moment, God does not do anything outside of God's purpose, right?
Justin: This is true sin, right?
Justin: Evil, it happens.
Justin: What a trite saying.
Justin: It happens, stuff happens.
Justin: All things happen to the glory of God.
Justin: Adjust.
Justin: Holy, merciful God.
Justin: I want to share with you another story.
Justin: This is a historical story.
Justin: History is important.
Justin: We have to remember history.
Justin: You remember history because we don't remember history.
Justin: We forget the lessons that history has already taught and then we need those lessons again and again and again.
Justin: Sadly, that is the truth of sinful people, broken people.
Justin: I want to tell you the story of a man named Gabriel.
Justin: He would have been known, uh, here at the turn, at the end of the, uh, but where I think we're talking late 17 hundreds, 1799, I want to say towards 1800.
Justin: He would've been, it would've been known as processors.
Justin: Gabriel was a enslaved black man in Virginia.
Justin: He was the son of a blacksmith, traditionally thought because he himself also was a blacksmith.
Justin: He had a lot of autonomy because of his skill and trade.
Justin: He could go out and earn money for his master in the marketplace.
Justin: He could literally solicit his own work, like independent contractor.
Justin: Right?
Justin: This allowed him to actually be able to keep some money and give the rest to his master.
Justin: It was a situation right in which he became well versed in learning.
Justin: He was in town.
Justin: He was literate.
Justin: He would engage with reasonable thought and there's something about thinking, right?
Justin: There's something about thinking and knowing God.
Justin: There's something about thinking of knowing God.
Justin: That leads you to a couple of questions.
Justin: What is truth and what is it mean to be free?
Justin: Freedom and truth are often in God's word, specifically at the mouth of the savior.
Justin: Jesus Christ linked together.
Justin: Jesus himself would link these words together.
Justin: These concepts are literally instilled in the creative order, right?
Justin: That by having truth, you can understand freedom by by being free.
Justin: You will know truth.
Justin: In fact, when you think of the opposite of these things, you understand the truth lies.
Justin: Do not bring freedom.
Justin: Lies bring enslavement, lies bring captivity.
Justin: If you are a person given over to fear, do you know what fear has control over you?
Justin: If you're a person that's given over to drugs, no drugs has control over you.
Justin: If you're given over to your passions, your passions have control over you.
Justin: You are a captive, and so as a man enslaved after the revolutionary war had sought the freedom of men after the learning he had done.
Justin: After understanding, we'll see the gospel, the word of God.
Justin: There is so many questions in this man's mind and his desire is much like he had seen through the American revolution, right?
Justin: Our revolution.
Justin: By the way, in which many, many African American slaves had sought their freedom through fighting in the revolutionary war were granted their freedom.
Justin: Through the turmoil of the war were able to escape a captivity.
Justin: And here he said, post this era, this revolutionary war, enslaved thinking, learning, reading, knowing, seeing truth and freedom linked together.
Justin: He began to cultivate passions for freedom.
Justin: This is only natural and right.
Justin: This is true.
Justin: He was a, as he's developing these freedoms, he, he was moved to action.
Justin: This is also what happens when you contemplate freedom and truth, particularly as seen through God's word.
Justin: It pushes you to action.
Justin: Now, this particular action was the stealing of a pig, which doesn't sound like much today.
Justin: It's not much when you can go to any store and buy bacon even during a pandemic, right?
Justin: Yes.
Justin: I mentioned bacon.
Justin: I'm looking out to make sure that someone acknowledges that I had mentioned, okay, bacon.
Justin: I tend to like bacon and it tends to be a meat.
Justin: I mentioned a lot.
Justin: It's a great meat because it covers, um, the old covenant, the new covenant coming together.
Justin: All right.
Justin: He's still a pig.
Justin: And for this thing, he was then confronted by his master.
Justin: See if you search for him, you will find his name as Gabriel Prosser.
Justin: Prosser was the last name of his master.
Justin: And so it was actually processors Gabriel cause he was possessed.
Justin: He was a possession.
Justin: That's what slavery does.
Justin: It makes you, it makes the thing and slaved a possession of that which holds the power and authority over it.
Justin: When he was confronted, there was an altercation because a Prosser was a blacksmith.
Justin: He was strong, able bodied.
Justin: And in this particular altercation he pulled the Mike Tyson and as they were struggling, I believe he actually bit the ear of his, of his and slaver causing disfigurement.
Justin: And in Virginia at the time, there was laws on the book that if you were an enslaved man and you disfigured your master, the punishment was death execution.
Justin: And so he sat accused.
Justin: In fact, not only did he sit accused, but after the trial was 100% guilty, he had done the thing for which he was accused.
Justin: I will remind you that he had done the thing he was accused of, but that doesn't make the law right.
Justin: Amen.
Justin: That doesn't make that law just, it simply makes that law satisfied.
Justin: In that system, the law was corrupt.
Justin: It was evil, it was wrong for him to have been able to be owned by another human being, wasn't a front to God.
Justin: Now, just because the law was on the books doesn't mean the magistrates, the judicial officials actually wanted to enforce that law.
Justin: It doesn't mean that everyone agreed with the law.
Justin: You would say, how could they not agree with the law and yet not ever turn it?
Justin: There's always such a slothfulness in activity towards evil always.
Justin: It always takes a long time for people to actually act against evil, and oftentimes that is what makes it so hard to overthrow evil because we have let evil become so entrenched.
Justin: You know this to be true.
Justin: This is true in your life and my heart, in my mind, this is true.
Justin: When evil gets a hold, it's hard to get it out.
Justin: Amen.
Justin: So while sitting there, these, these justices over this trial recall a very interesting legal minutiae.
Justin: It's called the benefit of clergy and said that if an enslaved man, first offense could recite a passage of scripture, then instead of X, there would be a stay of execution.
Justin: He would not be killed.
Justin: The benefits of clergy.
Justin: And so they look at Gabriel and they say that by the way, this is totally an action of the judiciary, that the man that the owner wanted him executed.
Justin: Okay, the enslavers wine in Mexico, but the judiciary said these are such archaic laws and they knew about an archaic law that was even better because it could get him off, it could save his life.
Justin: And so they said, we're going to have to take the benefit of clergy Gabriel.
Justin: If you can recite a verse, then your execution will be stayed.
Justin: And then it was with that in mind.
Justin: Gabriel thought for a moment and it was recorded for us that he read from Psalm 27 Psalm 27 verse one he says this, this is the word of God and this is what Gabriel recounted.
Justin: The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?
Justin: The Lord is the defense of my life.
Justin: Whom shall I dread?
Justin: Wow, that that's a verse to say in front of your captives.
Justin: That's a reminder first, Peter, is it not?
Justin: What can man do to me if I am God's, what can this place hold for me?
Justin: If God is my Lord and master the magistrates rightly looked at each other because it turns out back then they didn't know the word of God.
Justin: One of those baffling things is how could slavery have even continued to exist in a country where the word of God was preached?
Justin: Thankfully, because the word of God was preached, slavery did not continue to exist in that country and 400,000 men gave their lives to figure out whether or not it was right or wrong.
Justin: It turns out, as God says, it was wrong.
Justin: It was evil, it was unjust, so the magistrates turn each other in.
Justin: One magistrate says, you do know the next verse, don't you?
Justin: The next magistrate says, yes, I know that verse and he reads it.
Justin: He then would recount right there.
Justin: Next verse for memory.
Justin: Psalm 27 verse two when evil Doover doers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumble and fell.
Justin: Posture's Gabriel knew that.
Justin: Verse two he knew first two and verse one man.
Justin: That's true.
Justin: In fact, that verse would then be made true for the civil war brother against brother, family against family, a nation divided and 400,000 would give their lives to decide, and there were times at which we didn't know exactly who would win, but God, one God always wins and sometimes we don't see it yet and sometimes we're in the middle of what looks like a loss.
Justin: God has not done.
Justin: It is not over.
Justin: There's more to do.
Justin: I recount that verse because during the protesting there was a sign that I saw in Minneapolis.
Justin: I'm not in Minneapolis, I am in South Jersey.
Justin: And because I am so far away, I'm not there.
Justin: But that doesn't mean I can't view things.
Justin: See things cause we have technology and I saw a sign and the sign to me was so, Oh, there's so many layers to it.
Justin: It said all men were created equal America.
Justin: You lied.
Justin: That was the sign.
Justin: Those were the words on the sign.
Justin: All men were created.
Justin: Equal is not America's lie.
Justin: It is God's truth.
Speaker 3: [inaudible]
Justin: but as long as sin has been, whether through oppression, fear or coercion, sinful men have sought to exercise manipulative authority over any people they could possibly do.
Justin: So over always and forever.
Justin: This is true.
Justin: How can I control, manipulate?
Justin: How can I either through fear or through coercion or through bribery, manipulate a person or peoples to do what I want them to do?
Justin: It has always been the case.
Justin: So I'll be brief.
Justin: Now that I've been so long, I'll be brief because Mike has six is pretty clear for us.
Justin: The title of the sermon today is what does the Lord require?
Justin: Our main verse, we make a six eight but our first thing to do is to get context.
Justin: Micah six one through seven listen to these words.
Justin: This is our context.
Justin: I'll read the first five verses and then I'll read this verses six and seven.
Justin: Micah six verse one is the recounting of the prophet Micah relaying the words of the Lord to the people of God.
Justin: And so people of God hear the words of the Lord.
Justin: This is what I say to you.
Justin: Children of God, hear the words now of the Lord here.
Justin: Now what the Lord is saying, arise, plead your case before the mountains and let the Hills hear your voice.
Justin: Listen, you open the mountains to the indictment of the Lord and you and during foundations of the earth because the Lord has a case against his people, even with Israel, he will dispute.
Justin: Verse three my people, what have I done to you and how have I, we read you answer me.
Justin: Indeed.
Justin: I brought you up from the land of Egypt and ransomed you from the house of slavery and I sent you before Moses, Abraham and Moses.
Justin: Aaron and Miriam first five my people remember now what Baylock King of Moab counseled and what?
Justin: Bail him son of Bay or answered him and from shutter team to Gil gal in order that you might know the righteous acts of the Lord.
Justin: What God is saying here is how can you forget?
Justin: He's looking at his people and saying, you, you were enslaved.
Justin: You were trapped.
Justin: We know this, right?
Justin: We've studied judges as a church for good long while constantly the people of God would turn to God and God would bring them salvation and then they would run from God and find themselves outside of God's protection, but they weren't really were they?
Justin: They simply found themselves in the midst of what sin sows.
Justin: Sin sows and trap mint and slavery.
Justin: Every time sin sows the same thing you reap.
Justin: You reap the consequences of sin.
Justin: You find yourself enslaved.
Justin: God always comes with freedom always.
Justin: God always brings freedom and so he would constantly be freeing his people.
Justin: He looks at his people and he says to the prophet, Micah, how have you forgotten?
Justin: I have freed you again and again and again.
Justin: I have freed you yet.
Justin: You keep forgetting.
Justin: He then goes on in verse six Micah six verse.
Justin: I'm sorry.
Justin: Yes, I'm right, my wife.
Justin: Okay, I'm, I'm, I'm here.
Justin: Micah six verse six this is what God says with what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high?
Justin: Shall I come to him with burnt offerings with yearling calves?
Justin: Does the Lord take delight in thousands of Rams in 10,000 rivers of oil?
Justin: Shall I present my first born for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sins of my soul?
Justin: I'm going to read that again.
Justin: I'm going to say this.
Justin: I would say it's before I read it.
Justin: People of God hear the words of the Lord with what shall I come to the Lord, bow myself before they got on high?
Justin: Shall I come to him with yearling calves?
Justin: Does the Lord take delight in thousands of Rams in 10,000 rivers of oil?
Justin: Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sins of my soul?
Justin: This passage reminds us of other passages here he sees he is placating on what the Israel lights the children of God would think they could do to satisfy a Holy God, right?
Justin: What could they do to our tone, to God?
Justin: Did they think they could simply spill the blood of animals that that is enough?
Justin: Do they think that they could offer up the things that they have?
Justin: The oil, the, the food?
Justin: Is that enough to satisfy a Holy God?
Justin: What if they give their firstborn?
Justin: I love the way it ends there.
Justin: In verse seven the end of that verse is so clear, right?
Justin: The fruit of my body for the sins of my soul.
Justin: Is that enough?
Justin: Is that enough for God?
Justin: The fruit of my body for the sins of my soul.
Justin: This reminds us of Isaiah 64 six which we won't turn to.
Justin: I don't want to not going to go too long.
Justin: Here we can turn Isaiah 64 six what?
Justin: You'll find that that's a clear verse in which it tells us your righteousness is like filthy rags to a Holy God.
Justin: That's what your righteousness is like.
Justin: This is expounded on in Philippians three, eight through nine.
Justin: We're more clearly, we see what can I offer to God that I may attain salvation?
Speaker 3: What can you do?
Justin: God will answer you.
Justin: Micah six eight is clearly the answer.
Justin: Yeah, Greek scholar and well also a Greek man spirit Zodiac.
Justin: He is in his, um, specific Hebrew to Greek, uh, translations because this verse Micah six eight right, the most profound verse of the old Testament in that no verse more clearly sums up thousands of years of God's interaction with his people in one verse.
Justin: Then this verse, all of the law, all of the worship, all of the building of the tabernacle, all of the erecting of the temple summed up so clearly in one verse culminating, what is it?
Justin: What is the relationship between God and his people?
Justin: Here in Micah six eight, we read this.
Justin: He has told you, Oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you?
Justin: But to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Justin: What is good?
Justin: What does the Lord require?
Justin: What is good?
Justin: What are God's requirements on you?
Justin: And me.
Justin: The law is just so filled with rules that I am to follow the the rabbi gives me so many things more.
Justin: I must follow the pastor from his high elevation and his pulpit.
Justin: Breathe down on me.
Justin: What righteousness looks like, the things I am to do.
Justin: There's so many.
Justin: What could be good God, what is good too?
Justin: You got, what do you require?
Justin: He gives you three things.
Justin: Do justice, love.
Justin: I said, that's the word there.
Justin: Mercy.
Justin: Walk humbly with your God.
Justin: What does it mean to do justice?
Justin: This word, this verb for do here is so beautiful.
Justin: It actually embodies the idea of making of building.
Justin: It's this idea that it requires an action to construct justice, but whose justice, whose justice does God want?
Justin: When you ask the question that way doesn't answer itself.
Justin: Whose justice does God want God's justice?
Justin: That is what we should be for God's justice.
Justin: God's justice is against sin.
Justin: God's justice is against all sin.
Justin: It is there.
Justin: There is no greater equality to be found than the equality in the hands of a Holy God.
Justin: That is justice.
Justin: That is equality.
Justin: Justice is God's.
Speaker 3: No.
Justin: The next thing, um, I read from the NASB it translate the, or the word has said there like to say it with, with more chutzpah.
Justin: The word said there, uh, with as the word kindness you read from other versions, you mean we'll see the word.
Justin: You may say the word mercy.
Justin: The word has said is such a hard word to translate.
Justin: They don't know exactly how to go with it.
Justin: And so what do we use?
Justin: Kindness and mercy are your most common translations of the word has said, I believe mercy is most appropriate here because it follows directly after the words justice do justice.
Justin: Do you know what kindness applied to?
Justin: Justice is?
Justin: Mercy.
Justin: You want to do justice?
Justin: God's people are to do justice and you are to love mercy.
Justin: There's a reason you love mercy after you do justice.
Justin: You can't love mercy before you do justice first, you must do justice and then you can love mercy.
Justin: If you love mercy, before you do justice, you simply create injustice.
Justin: And that is truth.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Justin: If you want to do justice and be God's person, God's people, you must then love mercy.
Justin: It's awful.
Justin: From my human perspective, I don't like that message.
Justin: God, you see, when you are the person who wants justice, you will find yourself not also wanting mercy when you were the person who will be the recipient of justice, you find yourself very much wanting mercy.
Justin: The people of God do not get a choice, so hear me.
Justin: You will do justice if you are the people of God and you will love mercy.
Justin: This is the giving up of your right to have the full penalty of justice applied.
Justin: That's what mercy is.
Justin: Mercy is this, all right, you have done this and you deserve this and I will withhold that thing which you deserve.
Justin: It is the withholding of the rightful, deserving punishment from doing an action.
Justin: That's what it is.
Justin: That withholding of consequence.
Justin: That's why when we are seeking justice, we do not like mercy.
Justin: When we are seeking it, we want it fully.
Justin: In fact, we want it to, we want the justice to crush.
Justin: God says, if you're going to be my people, you will love mercy, but let us not forget.
Justin: If you love mercy before you do justice, what will you not do?
Justin: Justice, because mercy is such a beautiful thing, you will never see justice accomplished.
Justin: You will never call it evil.
Justin: What is evil?
Justin: You will never identify sin.
Justin: What is sin you will simply have.
Justin: This is why there's such a dangerous message for us to say.
Justin: God is love without also saying God is just God is Holy and God is love because God is Holy.
Justin: I can turn to God's word and know what I write as a finite broken man.
Justin: I'm to say his sin is to say I am to say is unjust.
Justin: I am to call for justice against because I know what God is against.
Justin: God is against murder.
Justin: Amen.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Justin: God is against the oppression from authority.
Justin: Amen.
Justin: This is true.
Justin: I have not met the person, although there may be the person and if there is that person, I pray there are one of 10 people living alone in isolation from the world where they will die alone in isolation from the world.
Justin: But I have not met this person that looks at the death of George George Floyd and thinks that's okay.
Justin: You know why?
Justin: Because it is not okay because it is evil.
Justin: It is wrong.
Justin: The sad reality is it doesn't matter.
Justin: It doesn't matter inherently what race anyone is when they are murdered.
Justin: Because George Floyd was an image bear of the Holy God.
Justin: He bore the image of God and his M Mago day reflection was taken from him by another image bearer.
Justin: And that is perverting the image of God.
Justin: Amen.
Justin: That's the truth.
Justin: That's the reality.
Justin: Sometimes I look down at my arms when I'm working, particularly to identify how uh, burnt I am cause I am, let's just say a little lighter skinned and I drive a truck.
Justin: I drive a truck with the door open on the left side.
Justin: I drive to the driver's side.
Justin: And so I have an uneven tan.
Justin: My left side of my body is always darker than my right side of my body, but I feel like God created me and people like me as a joke for times like this because there's a reality to what makes us identify a race and it is not the reality of the scripture.
Justin: God identifies ethnicities.
Justin: God.
Justin: God creates ethnicities that is different varieties of people.
Justin: God does not intend for us to identify people by their melanin.
Justin: God identifies us to intend.
Justin: I identify people by their ethnicities, their commonality as an ethnicity, and here's the truth about it.
Justin: Here's why I feel like a joke cause I looked down at my arm.
Justin: I literally am a speckled person.
Justin: I am varying shades of melanin.
Justin: What a joke.
Justin: If you identify me by my mail and then you would be very confused depending on which.you chose to look at at the time.
Justin: Why is that a joke?
Justin: Why is that funny?
Justin: Because God looks down and he says, you're so concerned with this layer of skin that a simple scratch from a peach sharp piece of glass will erase.
Justin: Instead of remembering that you are the image bearer of me.
Justin: I made you, I formed you, I knit you on your mother's room.
Justin: I gathered Holy dust together and created you from the ground.
Justin: And even that didn't do anything until I breathed in you life.
Speaker 4: Praise him.
Speaker 4: Amen.
Justin: And that is why the snuffing out of the life of George Floyd is a complete and total affront to a Holy God.
Justin: And if a church does not rise up against that, then they are in a front to a Holy God.
Justin: Amen.
Justin: Do justice, love mercy.
Justin: Walk humbly with your God.
Justin: There was a commentator that did a wonderful job illustrating what this is kind of expressing, right?
Justin: It's like a what?
Justin: To do, what to love, and where to go.
Justin: What do you do?
Justin: What does the center of that thing, the thing that you love and, and where do you go with it?
Justin: Walk humbly.
Justin: Sounds nice by itself.
Justin: Being humble is good.
Justin: It's one of those virtues listed in the book of virtues, the big old giant book that you can find many poems and sayings from people throughout time.
Justin: And if you look in the book of history, book of virtues, book of history, the book of history, the book of virtues, you can find humility.
Justin: Humility is a good virtue to have.
Justin: And simply it says, do justice, do justice with your God.
Justin: Love mercy, love mercy with your God.
Justin: Walk humbly with your God.
Justin: Here's why.
Justin: Here's this.
Justin: This is a simple reality.
Justin: We can all, I want you to grasp this church.
Justin: You and I have responsibility because there is not, there's no possibility there is no, there's absolutely no human way to find any reconciliation apart from God.
Justin: Now, here's the problem because of the Juliet situation with George Floyd, everyone wants racial reconciliation.
Justin: I went to a conference called the frequency conference.
Justin: This is several, several years ago in which a man that had, uh, marched with Martin Luther King, dr Mark dark, Dr.
Justin: Martin Luther King was there.
Justin: His name was Dr.
Justin: John Perkins.
Justin: And he said so clearly for me, he summed it up so nicely.
Justin: There will be no racial reconciliation apart from gospel reconciliation.
Justin: Here's the reality.
Justin: When you have a problem with your friend and you want to reconcile, you're gonna first have to grapple with the gospel to reconcile correctly.
Justin: I know this to be true because if not you Barry, you dig a hole and you shove your remorse and frustration and anger into it and you bury it up and guess what?
Justin: When you bury something in the dirt, it tends to grow and it grows and take seed and root and the roots grow deep and sometimes there's no fruit, right?
Justin: It's like bamboo.
Justin: It can grow underneath the surface.
Justin: It's like it's like Moss.
Justin: It's like fungus.
Justin: It can go under the surface of the dirt for years and years before you ever see anything come from the ground making a network so strong that you could not possibly tear it out
Speaker 3: [inaudible]
Justin: what you need to reconcile truly is God church.
Justin: If, if you have seen what has happened and you have a desire and you have a desire to, to reconcile the issues of race in this country, I've got great news for you.
Justin: Got wonderful news.
Justin: One, we are in a place in time where by God's grace you can no longer own a person.
Justin: This is good news because for the vast, overwhelming majority of the history of the world, you could own a person.
Justin: I'm not saying as far as the Eastern slave trade goes that I can tell you it's over, but I can know.
Justin: I can tell you this, the Western slave trade is over.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Justin: And we are just inside of a window that is so small that that is even possible to utter those words.
Justin: And here you sit, church, even more so you are in a place in a time America, America now has become a dirty word.
Justin: I don't know if you can find a nation that does not have a sorted past, please show me.
Justin: It turns out wherever people go also sin follows, but by God's grace, can I tell you something?
Justin: God follows.
Justin: God follows people.
Justin: God here, right?
Justin: Church people of God that I'm speaking to that Micah six speaks to children of God.
Justin: Listen, you sit in this place where we have a cell phone that can capture not all the instances, right?
Justin: Not all the instances where there is racism, but he can capture one.
Justin: You can see that one, that one instance and you can speak out and you can say the truth of God's word over it.
Justin: Church, family, if you, if you feel a desire and a call to racial reconciliation, I can tell you this, it only begins with gospel reconciliation.
Justin: It only ends with gospel reconciliation and let me tell you, it will end.
Justin: It will end with gospel reconciliation.
Justin: Look, the best thing we can do down here is some sort of arbitration of justice mauled and marred by human hands.
Justin: We don't even, we don't even have a true concept of what justice looks like because true justice is only found in the hand of God in one day.
Justin: Every instance of racism will find its satisfaction in one of two ways.
Justin: You will find it.
Justin: Satisfaction in the nailed hands and feet of God on the cross where blood spilled from his side or blood poured from every wound on his back where it dripped down from the holes of the thorns in his crown and that Holy blood will cover that racism by the grace of God, to which we hate in our human form, that it could possibly be covered.
Justin: How can, how could it be covered?
Justin: Because God forgives because God is merciful and he loves a mercy or it will be found in the righteous hand of a Holy injust God who will justify and condemn and raise up his glory by the true in right application of justice, of which we only partially mess up down here.
Speaker 3: [inaudible]
Justin: we can attach it a value of years of life lost or of oral immediates and C and Swift words are not coming anymore.
Justin: They're just, they were there and then gone execution, right?
Justin: So, so we can give them years or we can, we can take their life from them.
Justin: You think that's justice before it eternal God, that's the best we've got.
Justin: God will bring justice.
Justin: I memorized the quote and then forgot the Puritan that said it.
Justin: So I do apologize to my brother, but the court is simply this, that the two hands of God hold two separate things.
Justin: One hand of God holds justice and one hand of God holds mercy.
Justin: The same God has both hands.
Justin: The SA the both hands that hold justice and mercy are held by the same God.
Justin: God is justice.
Justin: God is mercy.
Justin: God, let me tell you loves both.
Justin: And it is because God loves both church people of God, that he has forgiven you through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Justin: You, me, disgusting, filthy, evil sinner, hater of God, disobedient.
Justin: That's who I am and he saved me
Speaker 4: [inaudible]
Justin: praise God that he has given me that justice through Christ.
Justin: Whoa to the man who does not have that justice.
Justin: Woe to the man who will stand before God and deal with his justice.
Justin: Not satisfied by the cross, but satisfied by the eternal expression of that man's guilt, paid for to the exaltation of the glory of a Holy God.
Justin: That's justice in doing this.
Justin: Do you know what we don't do?
Justin: We don't run out.
Justin: We don't wave a flag, right?
Justin: That's not what we have to do.
Justin: We must, I use two words with my, with my son that I teach my son regularly.
Speaker 4: [inaudible]
Justin: I teach, I beat these ones, the newest.
Justin: I don't beat it.
Justin: That's that's wrong.
Justin: Okay?
Justin: This is on the internet.
Justin: I don't beat my son.
Justin: I pound them into his head now with a hammer, but repeatedly with my words.
Justin: I teach him to be vigilant and to have fortitude.
Justin: You want to walk humbly with God.
Justin: That's what you need to have.
Justin: Vigilance and fortitude.
Justin: You don't need a megaphone.
Justin: You need every Christian across this country to move forward one step at a time.
Justin: With the gospel action movement, it is requirement to do justice.
Justin: It is a requirement to love mercy and you will not walk humbly if you are not walking every foot in front of the other one step at a time.
Justin: Church, the church has changed things across this nation many times.
Justin: It has had to rectify its own mistakes by doing what is the righteous call of God.
Justin: It has had to say no.
Justin: That man that preaches somehow from God's word that it is okay to own another human is wrong and I will show you from God's word why he is wrong.
Justin: He stands in a front, not just to God for his racism.
Justin: He stands in as a, as in a front of a false teacher of the word of God.
Justin: Yeah.
Justin: The church has had to fight that fight.
Justin: It had to fight that fight when it was funny against racism in the South that owned human beings had to fight that fight when racism and other places was enacting laws that made other ethnicities other layers of melanin as less than others and church.
Justin: Now we have another fight to fight.
Justin: We need to fight because good men in things that we are calling systems of racism need to be protected from bad men that are in systems that we call systems of racism.
Justin: See, not all of any one person is everything that we call that one thing that that was confusing on purpose.
Justin: I am, although dotted a white person, it turns out not all white people are racists.
Justin: It turns out not all black people are racist.
Justin: It turns out not every police officer is racist.
Justin: In fact, if you're gonna carry the title of officer, you best not be racist.
Justin: But you know what?
Justin: There are some that are, and if those words, if those few words, there are some that are, do not cause you deep pain, then you did not understand that you must love justice, that you must do it for the glory of God.
Justin: There are racist people.
Justin: Do you know what people that aren't racist want?
Justin: We want to identify them and crush their ideas because their ideas are evil and in a front to a Holy God, I would much rather them stand up and speak boldly so that I can look at them and I can laugh and assault them with the truth of a Holy God and put them in their place so that they all one of those 10 people that find themselves living alone somewhere where they will die alone because they have horrendous and evil ideas to a Holy God.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Justin: Walk humbly with him because you know these things, you must walk humbly.
Justin: You must not be a proud and arrogant person.
Justin: This requires you to think deeply, to love passionately.
Justin: You must because you must listen well and you must answer thoughtfully and you must speak clear truth because nothing will heal the hurt without the gospel.
Justin: Children of God, that's it.
Justin: I'm done.
Justin: I've been too long as it is.
Justin: I believe you have one more song that we're gonna play, correct?
Justin: Am I right on that?
Justin: As the song plays, I would challenge you to think deeply about these three things.
Justin: What does it look like for you to do justice?
Justin: Oh my goodness.
Justin: This verse, these, these three things are bullet points all over social media right now.
Justin: This is one of the key verses for racial reconciliation.
Justin: It is.
Justin: It is literally a verse about God bringing people out of slavery and the requirements God has on man.
Justin: I mean, that's what it is, and with that they're giving you, they'll give you a million things you can do for each point.
Justin: It can.
Justin: I tell you the truth, I wouldn't tell you the truth, brother and sister in Christ.
Justin: You have to talk to God and God will tell you what to do through these things.
Justin: He will awaken in you passions, he will give you open doors and he will, he will put these things in front of you, but pray.
Justin: What does it look like for you to do justice?
Justin: What does it look like for you to love mercy?
Justin: What does it look like for you to walk humbly with your God?
Justin: My, I suggest Christians in front of me, church that maybe watch you on the internet, that the first thing you could possibly do is actually pick up your Bible, open it up because there may be a chance that you don't know what doing justice looks like because you don't even know what justice is because you haven't gone to the source of all justice.
Justin: God might I suggest that you think you're being merciful when you've never actually attested to the mercy of God outlined in his word to you.
Justin: Maybe you think you know so much, but you don't actually know the one from whom all knowledge flows, whatever it is, children of God, whatever it is, pray about it.
Justin: Think about it.
Justin: You don't have to sing the words of this song.
Justin: You can hear the words of this song, but pray to God.
Justin: That is a spiritual act.
Justin: In fact, I was tempted to teach just Roman, just not just one verse from first Peter.
Justin: Just first Peter four verse seven first Peter four seven tells us, Hey, time is ending.
Justin: Pray deeply.
Justin: Pray fervently.
Justin: Pray to God.
Justin: That's the message.
Justin: It's the message I give you right now.
Justin: Respond to God and pray.
Justin: What does the Lord require of you?
Justin: What is good?
Justin: Do justice, love mercy.
Justin: Walk humbly with your God.
Justin: Let's respond together.