Holiness And Justice Belong Together Or Both Fail

Outrage is easy. Obedience is hard. We open the gap between those two with a candid look at why God rejects empty worship and how real justice begins with small, faithful acts right where we live. Anchored in Jeremiah 7 and Amos 5, we wrestle with performative faith, the burnout of nonstop news, and the illusion that posting, marching, or chanting can substitute for loving our neighbor. Then we get practical: how tutoring a student, serving in a food pantry, joining a local rec council, or showing up for oversight work can reshape a neighborhood—and our own hearts.

We also hold a line that our culture loves to split: justice and holiness. James 1 ties care for widows and orphans to a life unstained by the world, and Matthew 5 insists reconciliation is part of true worship. We explore Jesus cleansing the temple—not as permission to indulge our anger, but as a mirror for protecting the vulnerable from exploitation. Humility becomes essential in a fog of misinformation; we learn to slow down, verify, accept nuance, and act with integrity even when the internet begs for instant certainty.

Throughout, we return to the everyday, costly choices that make faith credible: forgiving a brother or sister, setting wise boundaries without hate, serving refugees with rides and presence, and committing to long-haul local work that rarely earns applause. Matthew 25 provides the closing thread: the King recognizes himself in the hungry, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner. If we want prayers God hears, our hands must match our words. Join us as we trade hot takes for holy patience, loud virtue for steady love, and spiritual noise for a life that lets justice flow and righteousness endure.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the City Life Church podcast. We hope it encourages you. If you'd like to learn more about City Life or our mission, connect with us online at CityLifeSandiego.org. And while podcasts and Sunday mornings are helpful, they are no substitute for deeper personal relationships in the church.

The Cost Of Performative Outrage

Reading Jeremiah’s Charge To Judah

Empty Religion And False Safety

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Alright, so my sermon today is on justice. Yay. And I know some of you in the room are gonna bristle at what I say today because you'll think that I'm picking on you. And I want you to understand that I was confronted by the scripture today. I need to be constantly reminded about these things. This week has been God challenging me. God challenging me. So God is not interested in us acting like we care about injustice. He's not interested. Performative justice is not justice. As people, we are so aware of what is happening in the world right now, though, that we move from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing. It's whack-a-mole. If you guys know what that is, I hope you do. But friends, we're not supposed to be all-knowing. You are not supposed to be all-knowing because you are not all-powerful. You don't have the ability to deal with everything that happens. And and you do not have endless empathy from you at least. Do you know why many of you are depressed this morning? It's because you focus on one issue that is terrible, that's happening in the world, it's happening in our country, and you feel the pain of someone close to it because you've seen the video. And then you are forced to move on to the next thing. And you feel powerless because you are not God. You do not have endless compassion, at least you don't have endless adrenaline. Oh, okay. So today is Gaza. Now it's Bondi Beach. Now it's ice in Minnesota. What about Ukraine? Remember that? Oh, what about Gaza? I forgot. Wait, what is happening in Iran right now? Remember Venezuela and Maduro? That happened this year. Does that not feel rough to anyone else? The things that feel like ancient history now were days ago. So rather than actually seek justice around us and where we live, we make statements. We share articles about whatever that recent subject is. But it makes us feel thin. Like uh Bilbo Baggins in the Fellowship of the Ring when he said, I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. Our outrage and our passion are more ineffectual than ever. They are empty words, not because we don't mean them, but because we cannot possibly follow through. Today we're going to be reading from the book of Jeremiah, chapter 7. Jeremiah was a Jewish priest who lived in the kingdom of Judah. For decades, God made him a prophet to his people about their many sins. He had a scribe named Baruch write down everything, all of his prophecies. And as you can guess, a prophet is not popular. And you know, he was not popular in Judah, Jeremiah. But in retrospect, now we know that he was surely speaking for God. So are you with me in your text? Does anyone have a bound, beautiful Bible today? A bound, beautiful Bible? Oh, I just love seeing those guys. Um, no notifications. Um, and uh for those of you who trust yourself, please turn on your Bibles and let's read Jeremiah 7, 1 through 11. This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord. Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and there call out this word. Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says. Correct your ways and your actions, and I will allow you to live in this place. Do not trust deceitful words chanting, This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Instead, if you really correct your ways and your actions, if you act justly towards one another, if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the fatherless and the widow, and no longer shed innocent blood in this place, or follow other gods, bringing harm on yourselves, I will allow you to live in this place. The land I gave to your ancestors long ago and forever, but look, you keep trusting in deceitful words that cannot help. Do you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you don't know? Then do you come in and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, We are rescued? So we can continue doing all these detestable acts. Has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers, in your view? Yes, I too have seen it. This is God's word. Would you pray with me, church? Our world is overrun lately with hatred and division and injustice. But we rarely know how to address it. Truth is slippery, nuance is lost, and it seems like only you know the truth. Everybody has their own truth, but only you know the truth. Father, I pray that you would help us to find unity in places we wouldn't expect. I pray you would give us certainty in you and nothing else, and that you would guide us. Would you show us the places we put um put our trusts that are misplaced? Would you show us places where our hearts are hardened? Would you soften our hearts to our enemies and teach us true justice? Because when you want us to use justice, we ask that you would also give us humility. When you want us to stand up for justice, we pray that um we would have humble hearts. Please teach us by your word today. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you. We pray this all in Jesus' name and all God's people said, Amen. Okay, so today's message is on justice. This is the last message we have in our series on vision that we do in January. Um, it should make us uncomfortable. If you hear this entire sermon and you don't feel any poke in your conscience, I'm not doing my job. If you can't hear a place where God is calling you to repentance, I've not done my job. If I preach to you without any sense of my sins and my failures in this area to honor God, I've not done my job. If I help you to double down and judge people, you are already busy judging, I've not done my job. Friends, you still sin, I still sin. Even those of you who belong to Jesus, even those of you who have been believers for decades, you still sin. We need to be willing to consider how we are getting it wrong. And when I say we, I mean not the person next to you. All of us need to be teachable, and above all, um, we deserve justice. But Jesus took the punishment we earned and he gave us mercy instead. So, how do we respond to undeserved grace? The undeserved grace we've received, it should mean everything. Because God refuses empty worship, but listens intently to prayers from obedient hearts. And so today I'm gonna give you two ways that God views obedience. Two ways that God views obedience. If you've been here long enough, you know two points instead of three doesn't get you out of here any sooner. Sorry. And I'm gonna throw this first one in front of you. Point number one, God sees through empty words and actions. God sees through empty words and actions. In verse three, he said, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says correct your ways and your actions. And I will allow you to live in this place. Do not trust deceitful words, chanting, This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Now, I I just want to say, I got saved around 1998. And um there's a few things going on in 1998. We had WWJD bracelets. Those were fly. And we said fly. Um, no, we didn't. Um but I got saved in 1998. We had um stay with it. We had music back then that was uh it was good. Um, and some of you had different music in 1998. I had, you know, I got saved in a white person church, and so I had white people music in 1998, and it was like there was a song called I Could Sing of Your Love Forever.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

And the chorus goes like this I could sing of your love forever. I could sing of your love forever. I could sing of your love forever. I could sing of your love forever.

Amos: God Rejects Noisy Worship

SPEAKER_02 9:15

And and and um then chorus two would go like this. I could say no, I'm not gonna do it to you, don't worry. We kind of do chants in church sometimes. It's easy when you uh have a lower um uh literacy rate to chant songs. It's good for us and it helps us to memorize scripture at times. It's not always a bad thing. But Judah was chanting here, it was a bad thing. This is the temple of the Lord, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, you know, like that's all they had. So someone might say, it sounds more like a good luck charm, right? Like, you know, knock on wood, right? Or in my family, my grandma had this thing where if you were walking down the street and there was a pole between you, if you didn't say bread and butter, you were gonna get into an argument with them. Oh, did somebody else have that? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I didn't even know that was anybody else's thing. That's amazing. But it was it was not a real thing, though, right? Here, this is the temple of the Lord, wasn't gonna do anything for them. God just said, Stop it, get some help. Um, I'm not interested in your songs, I'm not interested in protecting empty religion. Get yourself right, and then I will listen. Now to understand what was going on, we have to talk just a little bit about history, okay? Like, there were two different parts of Israel at the time, okay? There was the northern kingdom, one uh it was called Israel a lot of times, capital being Samaria. You may have heard of it, but you also had the southern kingdom, who we're talking about today, known as Judah. The capital was Jerusalem, and this is where the temple of God was, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. See, God had warned the northern kingdom of Israel, though, again and again and again. They had prophets, um, Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, and Amos, and they didn't listen and they were punished. The northern kingdom, man, they were kind of like the black sheep, right? Like they had already been invaded with severe casualties by this point. But the northern kingdom was faster to chase after other gods, okay? They had a reputation of chasing sin, chasing other gods, and just being the less obedient child. That was more like, yeah. Meanwhile, you had the southern kingdom. This was like the Goody Tushus kingdom, right? This is where the great King David and Solomon sat their thrones in Judah. They messed up sometimes, but they saw themselves as the more responsible older brother. Where Judah? We have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Yeah, uh, so they got into trouble sometimes, though, still. But the blessing of God was upon them. We are not as messed up as a northern kingdom, is what they would probably say to themselves. They had the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, God's temple, the temple where God chose to dwell, the temple of the Lord. How could anyone destroy God's temple, let alone God? Am I right? This is his, he's not gonna mess with his temple. Now, Dr. Tony Evans, he said this about Judah. So good. He said they were like children playing tag, treating the temple like a base where they would be safe from harm. See, they were operating under a privilege that they didn't really have. We got the temple, we got the temple, the temple of the Lord. Now we may laugh at them, right? Like, that's kind of funny. Um like we look at them and we go, I go to church, I go to church, I go to church. We do the same thing, right? I go to church. Now, Pastor Rick Warren, he says this. He says, Being in church doesn't make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car. I love that line. I think sometimes, though, we lean on the privilege of belonging to God's family so that we don't have to seek justice or we don't have to seek holiness. Now, this privilege was something that not everybody has always had. We have a special privilege. Now, the question is, do we do we leverage it for justice or do we lean upon it and just chant that we belong to church? Now, in France, in 1774, there was a guy named Louis XVI, or Louis, or whatever you want to call him. Uh, he inherited the French throne and he sat in privilege. His his parents like told his grandfather just basically used up the money of the kingdom, but he still was able to live lavishly. Now, the problem was he was living lavishly like people outside his palace were starving to death. His wife, Marie Antoinette, she's famous for having her own palace. Like when she wanted to throw a party, she would have you go to her palace instead of their giant place at Versailles. You may have heard of that too. Versailles. She's also famous for a quote that we don't actually think is something that she said, um, but it is illustrative of what was going on in her life at the moment. The people were starving, they said to her. Your people are starving, they don't even have bread to eat. And what is she famous for saying? Does anyone know?

unknown 14:02

Let them eat cake.

From Posts To Practice: Local Action

Justice And Holiness: Both Required

Defining Oppression Amid Misinformation

Jesus Turns Tables: Why It Mattered

Everyday Complicity And Humble Repentance

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Let them eat cake, right? Like how how confused are you when you're just living in luxury, you don't even realize people are hurting and starving. That's what was happening. She was throwing parties at her palace with extravagant outfits when people outside were starving. Now, when she was with Louis XVI, they often lived in Versailles, where they were well guarded, where they were well protected, where they were untouchable. But here's the thing: his dad, his uh his ancestors, the French kings, had taught him before, you have the crown. This means you're ordained by God. God wants you to be king, so who can touch you? When challenged, Louis said, I have no intention of ever sharing any of my authority. But his trust was in the infallibility of a very fallible crown. France had fallen on hard times, and the more people starved to death, the less he realized that he was in trouble, and his decadence continued though. But he had the crown. He had the crown, he had the crown just like they had the temple, the temple, the temple of the Lord. Just like we have the church, the church, the churchity church, church. Some of us, though, also in our pursuit of justice, we have outrage. Outrage. Outrage. But friends, his confidence, like ours, was in the wrong thing. That crown that made him safe was removed from him on January 21st, 1793. And then his head was removed from his body by guillotine. He saw suffering of the poor, he did nothing to address it. Instead, he insulated himself, he spent the money so he and his wife could live lavishly. But the crown protected him, right? It was given to him by God. And then one day he realized he would have to meet his maker and make an account for the many ways he could have helped the starving, but didn't. Now Judah had a similar arrogance to Louis XVI, confident in their situation, settled into their privilege as God's chosen people. They were protected by the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, and yet God no longer was listening to their prayers. Perhaps if they worshiped, though, Baal, the fake God, maybe they should just ask him for help. But Baal wasn't listening either, because you know, he wasn't a God. Now in the book of Amos, God made it absolutely clear that Israel's sins were numerous. Now, this is to Israel, but this is the same God. In Amos 5, 10, God says, They hate the one who convicts the guilty at the city gate. They despise the one who speaks with integrity. Therefore, because you trample on the poor, exact a grain tax from him, you will never live in the house of cut stone you have built. You will never drink the wine from the vineyards you have planted. For I know the crimes are many, and your sins are innumerable. They oppress the righteous, take a bribe, deprive the poor of justice at the city gates. The people of Israel had denied justice, and so God, he decided, I'm not listening to you anymore. He stopped accepting their offerings, he stopped listening to their songs, and he said their worship services smelled like dookie. Now listen to Amos 5, 21. I hate, I despise your feast. I can't stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. Even if you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. I have no regard for your fellowship offerings or fattened cattle. Take away from me the noise of your songs. I will not listen to the music of your harps, but let justice flow like water and righteousness like an unfailing stream. Dr. King did once quote that. Now to some of you, I believe God says this away with your religious songs. I'm not listening to them. And don't say you are immune to tragedy because you live in the United States or you go to church. You are not. And to some of you, I believe God says, away with your performative Instagram posts. Away with any marches that are only for show. What good is information, friends, if it's only information? We are a generation of internet crusaders. Every article we share, especially an outraged article, gives us a dopamine hit. And it often gives us a sense of purpose. And it usually goes only to the people we agree with. Or it cannot be heard by the people we don't agree with. Friends, God is not saying, wow, Dale just shared that article. I've been dreaming about him sharing. The world is saved. He's usually like Dale, son, baby, don't do that. Go do something constructive. You're wasting your time. Now contextualize 1 Timothy 1.15. I'm gonna put this a little bit in my words. Let me take some water. 1 Timothy 1.15. I'm contextualizing it. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save people who do very little for their fellow man except online, for which I am the worst. But how can we actually seek justice? Well, I would say small things, friends, but small things over a long period of time. You can help care for people today by giving to this food pantry. You can volunteer to help tutor children to read today. Friends, 85% of juvenile offenders have low literacy rates. You can change the world. The Diamond Excellent Education Partnership called Deep in this community is a place you can tangibly plug in to tutor. Or you can help out at Real Teens at St. Stephen's Church of God in Christ on Wednesday nights, or you can help to volunteer in their teen center where they need tutors as well, all the time. San Diego has housing committees. I was on one for eight years. Eight. Oh my gosh. Mount Hope has a planning group that averages about four people. The Malcolm X Library always needs more helpers. Choy Smead, Gompers, Millennial Tech, Lincoln High School, America's finest charter school, they always need help. Caring for these kids who don't get the same resources as schools in La Jolla and Point Loma, that is a justice issue. Mount Hope has a rec council, friends. We desperately need a recreation center here in Mount Hope. All the nearby rec centers are in opposing gang territory. We need a rec center for our kids here in Mount Hope. We need advocating and we need to raise money. And I will just tell you, the city will not give us anything without a fight. But our regular rec councils, four to six people. When our kids have no place to go, they go to gangs, but our rec councils have four people. If you want to do something big for God, we have a police oversight board here in San Diego. Did you know that? You know why it's barely ever meeting? It's because most people get burned out on it. It's called the Citizens Review Board on Police Practices. It struggles to maintain a quorum because it's like a full-time job. We need to be in those things. God cares about these things and none of them are jobs. But they take more time than sharing memes, more time than making videos, sharing articles, sharing videos. They take more time than a one-time march. Now, I'm not telling you you can't march, I'm not telling you you shouldn't share these things, but what I'm saying is they are empty if we don't do something. God cares about justice and he doesn't just want empty words. I didn't even have that much coffee this morning, guys. I was at Gomper's high school on Monday, and I asked the kids this question Does God care more about justice or holiness? It was fun to hear the answers. Now we all know the answer is yes. But does God care more about justice? No. God cares 100% about justice and 100% about holiness. Not either or. James 1.27 says, pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress. All my friends on one side are like, yes. And to keep oneself unstained from the world. All my friends on the other side are like, yes. And God is like, yes. It's both. And that's where we get our second point for the just church. God desires justice and holiness from his children. Justice and holiness from his children. We don't pick, we don't choose. Verse 5 instead, if you really correct your ways and your actions, if you act justly toward one another, if you no longer oppress the alien, the fatherless, the widow, no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods, bringing harm on yourselves, I will allow you to live in this place. The land I gave to your ancestors long ago and forever. But look, you keep trusting in deceitful words that cannot help. Guys, here in the text, we saw how the people of Judah were actively disobeying like six of the Ten Commandments. Now, North Indian pastor Dr. Paul Sawup, he says this. He says, Because every moral infraction profanes God's holy name, worship needs to be matched with ethical behavior. We decide deceive ourselves if we think we can do all the right things. See, Christ's followers should reflect God's desire for justice and holiness. It's not one or the other. Our society is full of churches that focus on holiness. This is good. We also have churches that focus on justice. This is good. Matter of fact, we often focus, though, on one of these subcategories and we judge other Christians for their emphasis on the other thing. But God said he would relent if they acted rightly to one another. It matters how we treat each other, friends. It matters how we apologize, friends. It matters how we forgive. God cares about your relationships. Jesus laid it out in Matthew 5.22. He said, Everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Just angry? Lord, I'm angry like all the time. I'm like the Hulk sometimes. He went on to say, so if you are offering your gift on the altar and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. It's almost as if you have a problem with your brother and sister, if you have a fight going on, that when you seek to pray to God, He's not listening. Almost. It's almost as if empty words don't fly with God. And I know that you can't be reconciled with everyone, friends. But we've learned in the Bible that harboring hatred for someone is not of the Lord. Your battle is not against your brother, even if you have very serious issues. I need to break this to you. You have issues too. You do. You have serious issues. Forgive, show kindness. It's not up to you what they do, it's up to you what you do. It's good to have boundaries with people, no doubt, but their sin doesn't give you a past to sin, ever. Act justly toward your brothers and sisters in the family of God. Now, after mentioning this, Jeremiah went on to describe justice issues. If you no longer oppress the resident alien, the fatherless, the widow, no longer shed innocent blood in this place. See, God is very specific about justice issues, isn't he? Oppression of the sojourner, that that bugs him. The immigrant, the refugee, the orphan, the widow, that angers him. He's not neutral on this issue. Now the issue becomes, though, what is oppression? Like, we have to be careful though, because uh some people will say that a Starbucks cup that doesn't mention Christmas is oppression. Some people say that teaching black history is oppression. These are dumb. Not the people, they're made in God's image, but the ideas are dumb, okay? Like oppression is not always as clear as we think. These issues are nuanced and they're complex. And I just, in the end, what I'm gonna have to do, friends, is I'm gonna have to leave this to you to decide. Like you can have uh you can have people who counsel you, but I may not always be right if you ask me what is oppression. There will be a day when some of you will move away and you'll have a new pastor, and you may notice oppression. You don't wanna need me to answer if it's oppression or not. There will be a day when I stop breathing, then you definitely can't ask me because God already said that's not okay. Um, so I'm going to equip you with the Bible and I'm gonna let you decide what you think it is. But let me just say this the person in the room next to you may not agree. You're gonna have to figure that out. I uh guys, I honestly have to triple check videos now. Like, oh, does that look does that guy's head disappear in that picture? Does that like is this AI? He has four fingers, okay. Like, I need to check sources. It's the wild west for information right now. It's hard to know what's real. Can I get an amen? What is propaganda? I can't respond to every incident anymore because I need to know what actually happened. And sometimes that makes me look like a bad person. Friends, Israel only admitted this week that they killed 70,000 Palestinians. This is a new admission that they made. Um, that may not change actually the way anyone perceives them, okay? But it it is new information. We recently saw a now, I made some people on one side mad. Don't worry, I'm gonna make the other side mad. Don't worry. Um, we recently saw a video of Alex Predi that was confirmed by his family where he is kicking out the tail light of an ice vehicle. Now, it does not mean that he deserved to die two weeks later. You hear me? Never. He did not, but it adds nuance to the conversation. Okay? Honestly, we can't fully know what's going on in this world. But here is what I can say we need to do: care for the weak. The immigrants, the refugee, the fatherless, the widow, the poor. We can all agree that the church needs to be caring for them, feeding them, advocating for them, helping them where there is need. This is what we do, and we're better together. And if we're fighting about something that's happening 5,000 miles away and not caring for the poor in our neighborhood because we're fighting about that, I think we have a problem. I'm not saying those people don't matter, but these people matter too. Don't let outrage separate us. It's always been the devil's plan. His name is divider. You see, Jesus cares about justice, but only God is all-knowing. So so often we want to do what Jesus said. Do what Jesus did. And I want to remind you, we're not Jesus. We have his Holy Spirit, but he goes through a terrible filter. We are not all-knowing of people's hearts. But let's take a second to walk through something Jesus did that we all, like if we're real, we want to do. Okay. You probably some of you of you know what I'm gonna talk about. During the Jesus, the Jews, during that was a mic problem, during the Jewish Passover celebration, Jewish people from the Hebrew diaspora, they came from all over the world to worship near the temple and in and in the temple if they were Jewish. Now many of them were called Hellenists. They were Jewish people living among Greek and Roman people, or they were Jewish converts from those places. They believed in the Torah, but they also followed other styles and traditions. They spoke different languages, and and even still, though, they would make the pilgrimage to the great city of Jerusalem to make their offering before God. You also had a converted Jewish people come into town at the same time to worship. Now, everyone brought with them different denominations of money. Now many of you know where I'm going. Some were only allowed to enter what was called the court of Gentiles, if they were not Jewish. Um, but this is what would happen. Do you know what was set up there? It was the money changers. Apparently, the money changers figured they had a captive audience, and so they changed the money at terrible, exorbit rates. Now, once you got ripped off for your money, you would go to buy an animal for a sacrifice. And you were supposed to offer an animal to God that was free from defects. Of course, what did those guys do? What did those guys do? They likely jacked up the price on the animal, right? And they offered you like a blind, three-legged goat with a weird mange on its coat. That's what they did. Or you'd get like a dove with like tattoos and like one wing, he has like a cigarette in his mouth. Like, I've seen some things, man. That's the kind of dove that they would sell you. See, they were ripping off foreign people, believers, they're brothers and sisters because they weren't from there. They were mistreating them, they were taking advantage of them, they were overcharging them because they were another culture, another ethnicity, and they believed that those people had no other option, so we were gonna take advantage of them. Ripping them off. So, in order to fulfill your promise to God, you had to travel an extreme distance. You would get into a city where most of your stuff would probably get jacked if you weren't careful. Then the people working the money outside the temple would rip you off. Then the person selling you sacrificial animals to honor God ripped you off again and gave you crappy merchandise. This is where the story of Jesus comes into play. Now, I asked Chat GPT to show us that image today where he's um turning the tables in the temple. Did you get it? Do you have it on there? Um there it is. Jesus, oh wait, that's not right. That's not the right. Okay, let's just take it down. I was trying to get Jesus turning the temple turning tables. Sorry, that's the wrong image. Um if you look in your Bibles, the story of Jesus is mentioned in all four accounts of the gospels. It's important. In Mark 11, he says, They came to Jerusalem, and he went into the temple, and he began to throw out those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple. He was teaching them, Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves. Now, John in his account also adds this after making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changer's coins and overturned the tables. Man, oh man, isn't this what we want to be doing? If the can you imagine how good that felt? Oh, must have been amazing. But we're not Jesus, and we don't know their hearts. But it's important here to notice what Jesus is quoting, or who, whom Jesus is quoting. He's quoting our text in Jeremiah 7. Has this house, it was 7 verse 11, has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it. Jesus was livid. And the way, at the way they treated his father's house, they were taking advantage of people who wanted to worship God. They were taking advantage of the foreigner. See, God refuses empty worship but listens intently to prayers from obedient hearts. Christ's followers should reflect God's desire for justice and holiness. See, God had a great care for the foreigner, the orphan, the widow. He told Israel not to harvest to the very edges of the fields because he wanted that food to be available to the needy. That was one of the ways God cared for the poor. God made laws against loaning to the poor with interest. It's there in your Bible. I believe that God would hate check cashing places. God even set up a cheaper offering for the poor. If someone like Mary needed to make an offering of a goat for her newborn son Jesus, but she could not afford it, she was allowed to make sacrifices of something less expensive, like a dove. And let's not forget, Jesus was mad at those who were selling doves too. They were overcharging for something made especially for the poor. Oof, that makes me mad. A dopamine hit, right? Now, anyone remember in 2020 when um people were buying up those N95 masks and like selling them for like 25 bucks? That's the same idea, isn't it? People who are sick, who need it, people who are poor who need it can't get it. Jesus wasn't having this gouging attitude. He wasn't down with it. And so, friends, here's the thing though. We want to judge everyone, but we should be experts in our sins first before we call anyone else out. Even justice. Like one day, people will ask us how we could wear the clothing that we wear, knowing how it was made. Or how we could buy phones made in factories with awful employment practices, or like how we could ever support Chinese companies, Sheen and Timu, who have long been accused of forcing their workers to work. Some people are gonna judge us one day, or they already are. Probably someone working in a factory right now. See, Jesus whipped some people, he threw change around, he likely set the fridge pigeons free so they could poop on everybody, he made a mess. And guys, Jesus is 100% justified in it. But I want to say this to you as as kindly as I can. You are not Jesus. When Jesus says to love your enemy, when Jesus says to not even look at someone with lust in your heart, when Jesus says to allow someone to strike you on the cheek and give them the other cheek, when Jesus says to go the extra mile for someone who who is abusing you in a way, not not abused, sorry, in the Roman, in a Roman leader who was abusing you in that way, we tend to say, Well, I'm just not as good as Jesus. Like, when Jesus says all these demands of our holiness, we're like, Well, I just can't be like Jesus. When Jesus makes a demand about justice, we're like, I will be on team Jesus, right? Is that weird? Is that not weird? When it's time to be outraged, when it's time to turn over tables, rattle cages, we have no problem being like Jesus. You know why? Because allowing someone to take advantage of your kindness doesn't usually give you that same dopamine hit. Caring for someone day in and day out that may or not appreciate you doesn't give you a whole bunch of adrenaline. Actually, it wears you out. But if we smell even a hint of injustice, we are gonna kick over every table in the joint. Church, we need to be humble about this. We're receiving a lot of information on in real time, and it's very hard to know what is real. So I encourage you, be humble, seek justice, be humble, seek justice. Jesus is not only just, he is compassionate too. Uh Jesus exhibits love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. But Jesus also has gentleness and self-control. Eek, but Jesus, I want justice, and I don't want justice in a gentle way. I want to kick me some heads. I want to kick over tables, it's more fun. But friends, let us seek justice. But let us consider ways we can seek justice in ways that are counter-cultural. Let us consider the ways we are unjust and reform that too. Now there are politicians that would claim to love the poor, the immigrant, but unless there is a camera around, you won't see much of it. That happens here in Mount Hope. I bet you've seen it. Our city is a largely democratic majority. If they actually did what they said they do for the poor, the weak, the hurting, we would be a utopia by now. They talk a big game and yet Mount Hope has to claw and fight to scratch to get anything from those leaders that they would love to give to La Jolla and Point Loma. They would love to give it to Scripps Ranch, just ask nicely. We have to fight for those things. It's because many people who talk a big game for justice don't practice it. What if every article you shared about justice, um, every time you shared an article about justice, you had to buy a new pair of shoes for someone in our food pantry? What if every meme or video on justice that you shared meant you had to volunteer for an hour teaching children in this community how to read? That's actually how you help people out of oppression. What if every time you got into a fight online about justice, you had to give an English lesson to a refugee? I think two things would happen. One, there would be fewer powerless people in our society. Because you gave them shoes, you taught them how to read, you taught them a language they can defend themselves with. Number two, you probably post a lot less articles, wouldn't you? You probably vet them a little more, wouldn't you? Uh, and by you, once again, I'm preaching to myself, friends. As God cares about justice, God cares about right actions and righteousness. But after all the justice talk in verse 6, God spoke again. He said, Do you steal? Do you murder? Do you commit adultery? Do you swear falsely? Do you burn incense to Baal? See, he's talking about all these other things. And he says, Then do you come and stand before me in the house that bears my name and say, We are rescued? Friends, God cares about holiness. He does. To my friends who seek justice, God desires holiness from you too. And he makes holiness only possible through Jesus. So many of us are part of this religion that is outrage. And I encourage you to repent. To be about more than just anger, to be about your holiness. And the only way to be about holiness is to surrender to Jesus. Guys, when we go to Jesus with a repentant heart, we allow him to change us. When we look to him and Jesus died on the cross for our sins, rose on the third day, showing he was bigger than our sins. We allow him to start changing us. Friends, real things can happen. And let me just say this: this is not a dichotomy. This is not holiness or justice. This is yes. This is yes. And the gospel is this that Jesus died for our sins, rose again to make us new, but He's also, he also has a kingdom moving forward here on earth, a kingdom that is incompatible with injust systems. We don't just ask God to forgive and save us, we ask for his spirit to dwell in us. And with God's Spirit, God's word and his church, we can seek holiness, not perfection, in a process of cleansing, and we can seek justice. He can help us to be honest. He can help you to reject the gods that want to enslave you. Maybe there are substances, his spirit can help you. Maybe there is selfishness, his spirit can help you. Maybe there is sexual impurity, his spirit can help you. Because God not only wants us to seek the welfare of the weak, he wants us to seek his holiness, his righteousness, he wants us to find him in all things. See, because Christ's followers reflect God's desire for justice and holiness. And while in San Diego, seeking justice loudly will get your neighbor's ant. Yes, they would say. Yes, we like you because you're loud about it. Yes, this lady gets it. F ice. But we have to be willing to stand up without sinning. Seeking slow justice and compassion for the refugee is more difficult. You have to wait in lines. You have to sit, you have to give rides, and rides to doctor's appointments and rides to lawyers' appointments, lawyers' appointments. When you care for a widow and an orphan, you don't get applause very often. Seeking to live a holy life connected to your church and disconnected from the sins of the world will get you booze. You'll be called a religious bigot or a prude. When they ask you why you don't go to the strip club, when they ask you why you refuse to alter your state and get high and drunk with them, when you refuse to make fun of the appearance of a political rival, when you refuse to have sex outside of Christian marriage, nobody is gonna cheer for you. If you reject the movie with explicit sex, nobody cares. They're gonna make fun of you. Your boyfriend is not gonna cheer for you if you decide to not have sex with them. Your friends at school will not be excited when you refuse to cheat on the test and give them the answers. But keeping yourself pure before God was just as much a demand of God in this text as anything else. Refusing to affirm truth in fake gods and religion, he's talking about holiness here. Our God has high demands for us and he supplies the way to live it. But he also gives us the resources to follow through. Like without his forgiveness, without his holy spirit, we'd have no chance. Now, if this sermon is for me, there is one caveat we have to be careful with. In Leviticus 19, 15, there is a text that makes me uncomfortable. It says, Do not twist justice in legal matters by favoring the poor or being partial to the rich and powerful. Always judge people fairly. Does this verse sting you a little bit? We all show partiality, and and I just want to say some show it to Democrats, some show it to Republicans, some show it to the police, and some show it to the poor. And I think there are times when I'm more willing to believe the poor. And sometimes I may show partiality. Lying on behalf of the poor is a problem. Lying on behalf of Israel or behalf of immigrants or on behalf of Obama or on behalf of Trump is still lying. And we have to seek justice and holiness. It's not justice or holiness, it's yes. It's always yes. Because God desires us to seek true justice. God refuses empty worship, but listens intently to prayers from obedient hearts. Christ's followers should reflect God's desires for justice and holiness. I'ma I'ma close real soon. In Matthew 25, Jesus says, When the Son of Man comes into his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as shepherds separate sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me. Friends, I don't want to meet Jesus at the great sorting and hear him say, I was hungry, and you owned people on the internet who said I wasn't hungry. I was imprisoned and you set up a prayer committee to eventually get to some prayer for me. You I also signed a change.org petition to the internet to get me released. I was naked and you lamented my lack of access to clothing online, but in your mind you were disgusted at my smell and thought my clothes I owned were already too revealing. I was sick and you posted an article online about how many of these problems wouldn't happen if more people or less people got the vaccine. I was homeless and you preached to other people about how we need to take care of the homeless, but you were unwilling to help make my situation any better. I was lonely and you left me alone to eventually pray for me. I see you seem so holy, especially online and while marching. You seem so close to God, but I'm still hungry. I'm still oppressed. I'm still lonely and cold. Now I took that from an excerpt of another pastor, and I just adjusted it for today. Guys, we can do tangible things for justice today, but it's costly, it's difficult. Tutoring is annoying. Caring for those who smell bad will always offend your nose. Working in the food pantry is awesome the first few times. Those people who work in the pantry for a long time get real tired when someone comes and tries to take 10 pairs of shoes and you have to tell them no. It's also tiring when you wake up just wanting some me time, but you've got to go to the pantry. Those committees that I'm telling you about are tiring, tiresome. But I'm so glad that Jesus didn't get tired of us. I'm so glad he didn't get give up on us. I'm so glad he looked at us in our sin and he said, They're worth it. Now I don't have to stand on my own actions and chant things like, This is the temple, this is the temple, I'm from church, I'm from church. No, I can seek Jesus and then I can seek justice and holiness with my whole life. I can live as someone not of this world, and I can seek true justice by the power of his spirit. So I say this to you, City Life Church. God refuses gross empty worship. But he listens intently to prayers from obedient hearts. Christ's followers must reflect God's desire for justice and holiness. Let's pray.