Justice and Righteousness - 5/3/26

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, great to be with you, Alderwood, on this beautiful sunny day. You all get a jewel in your crown in heaven for being here on the first 75 degree Sunday of the year. And if you're watching online, half a jewel for you as well. And uh we're we're glad to be here. We're back in our series in David and First and Second Samuel. As we get started this morning, I just want to think with you for a second about one of the most amazing parts of being a human being made in the image of God. There's this aspect of who we are as these human creatures in the world that is almost a superpower. God gave us the ability to imagine the world the way it should be, not the way it is. To be able to picture an ideal, even an ideal that we've never even seen. We have the ability to imagine how we think things ought to be. And it's the reason why humans have been able to do so much amazing things in the world. Like the reason why we build rocket ships that go into outer space, the reason why you have an iPhone in your pocket, like the reason why there's bridges and dams and skyscrapers and all of that, is because God gave us the ability to imagine something we think should exist, even if we've never seen it before. But that amazing superpower that we have, it has kind of a dark side also. It is the reason behind so much of our disappointment and our anger and our frustration in the world is because what it means is that in any given situation we're in, we not only know how things are, but we know that they could be better. And often that's how we compare our lives, not to reality, but to an ideal. And you know, that that affects us in in so many different ways. I I was uh thinking of this as I was in traffic on 405 this week, and I know that like this is some of your lives that you commute south right now, and so the ship canal bridge uh construction has just like ruined your life. Uh and I don't have to do that hardly ever, but this week I did. I had to go to Bellevue, and as I was sitting there in like 70 minutes of 405 traffic from Linwood to Bellevue, and I was freaking out. I mean, I was just I was like beside myself. It did kind of like for a moment I had perspective and I was like, why am I so mad? Like, I, you know, most human beings who have ever lived would still be jealous of my 70-minute experience on 405. I mean, I'm in an electric car, it's basically driving itself. I'm just sitting there, you know, it like to go 10 miles in 70 minutes. I mean, most human beings never got to experience that. They had like a donkey that they rode. That was the best thing they could possibly have. And here I am furious about it. And the reason is because I have this God-given ability to imagine a better world. One I've never seen, one where 405 does not have bumper to bumper traffic. And that's how I compare my life, right? We all we all live that way. And the reason why I bring that up this morning is because we're gonna see something in the story of David that shows us that God actually cares a ton about this gap that we experience as human beings all this time. Uh, this gap between the way things are and the way things are supposed to be. God is actually passionate about that. He created the world to be a certain way. And the fact that the world isn't that way is something that God talks about all the time. And we're gonna learn that uh in just one verse in 2 Samuel 8 this morning that tells us about why David was such a great king for a brief period of time. Let's get caught up in where we are in the story. Uh, we're we're in part three now of the life of David. We're gonna be in here through the rest of the summer. And if you've been with us, you you've seen really one of the most amazing stories in all of history, whether you're a follower of Jesus or not. I mean, this the story of David is this incredible story. This boy who was not of royal lineage, who was the youngest in his family, was a shepherd uh who rises to become the king of Israel and like the most powerful person in the nation who does all kinds of amazing things, who has other kings coming and paying tribute. I mean, just that story arc we've been on is this amazing thing. And we've seen all kinds of ups and downs. We've seen David do some incredible things and really trust God, you know, like the story of David and Goliath, where he has the faith to stand up against a giant because he believes that God's gonna deliver him. And we've seen some really low moments as well. Uh, you know, we've seen David just live completely for himself and not care about the effect that it has on others. Uh, but through the highs and the lows, we've gotten to this point now where David is king. God's promises to him have been fulfilled. Uh, and he is in a in a really good spot. He's loving God, he's trusting God, he's praising God, and God is blessing him in incredible ways. Where we left off our story last was in 2 Samuel 7, and it's where David comes to God and he says, I want to do something great for you. I want to honor you because of everything you've done for me. And so I want to build you a temple. And and God kind of surprises us and he says, You know, uh, thanks, but no thanks. I'm good. Uh, I don't want a temple. Um, I actually am gonna do something for you, David. You want to build me a house, I'm gonna build you a house, I'm gonna make you a dynasty, I'm gonna bless you, I'm gonna use your family for all of eternity. I'm gonna work my plan for all of creation through you, David. And as we pick back up the story in 2 Samuel 8, what we're seeing is God beginning to fulfill that promise in David's life. I'm gonna summarize most of 2 Samuel 8 for you. It really just details all of the military victories that David has at this high point in his kingdom right here. So here's a map of Israel. And if you can see this uh area that's shaded green all around kind of the center of Israel, uh that is all of the territory gains that David gains for Israel in just this one chapter. Okay, in the beginning, he goes west and he defeats the Philistines. And this is the last time the Philistines are ever a major threat to Israel. This is the group that's been this pain in Israel's side for generations. And Israel, uh uh David, I should say, captures one of their capital cities and defeats them. And as soon as he's done there, he goes east and he defeats Moab and another nation that's been an enemy of Israel, and he has military victory there. And then when he's done in the east, he goes north, and uh up here are the Arameans, and there's a king named uh King Hadadzer of Aram, and he defeats that army. And and Hadadazer actually has friends come, the Syrians come to help, and David defeats the Syrians also. And when he's done there, he comes back to the south and he fights the Edomites, and he defeats the Edomites. I mean, just there's a series of years where just everything David does, he finds success. And we're told what's happening in in one verse in this chapter, in 2 Samuel uh chapter 8, verse 14. We're told that the Lord made David victorious wherever he went. There's this picture of this brief window where all the hope of who David could be, of God wanting to honor him and use him for the good of all of his people, where it's really happening, where David is honoring God and God is using David in these incredible ways. And where we're gonna slow down, and I just want to look at one verse with you this morning, because it shows us why God is uh is wanting to use David's life, like what God's purposes are. This is what it says next. 2 Samuel chapter 8, verse 15 says, So David reigned over all Israel, administering justice and righteousness for all his people. This is God's purpose in David's life, that he would reign in a way that administers justice and righteousness. And the reason why we're gonna slow down is because these two words right here, justice and righteousness, they're some of the most significant words in our Bible. And they're not just random. You know, the author who's writing the story of David, he's not just kind of like thinking off the cuff here, like, what are the good things that David did? Ah, justice, oh, you know, righteousness. No, these are major themes in the Bible. They get said, they get talked about over and over and over. These two words, they show us a window into God's heart, into who he is, what he cares about, and also his desire for us. And so I want to slow down and think about them with you. Um let's start just at the top. Okay. What do these words mean? What are righteousness and justice? And we'll start with the first one. What does righteousness mean? What is being told to us when we're told that David reigned with righteousness? This word righteousness is not one that we use very much in uh modern English anymore. Some of us are old enough to remember when righteous was kind of in the vernacular, you know, it was like 70s, 80s. You might have said, like, you know, those are righteous bell bottoms you're wearing. I don't know, you know. I wasn't there. I don't know how it was used. But uh at some point, it meant cool or uh yeah, excellent, you know, something like that. That's dropped out of usage. It you probably never hear people use the word righteousness in your everyday world. If you were to hear it, what it kind of means culturally today is like uh morally good behavior, but strangely almost with like a negative connotation, like kind of holier than thou. So you might hear it like, uh, you know, hey, did you invite Sally to the party this Friday? Uh no, I didn't invite her, she's way too righteous for that kind of thing. You know, this kind of like dismissive, she thinks she's better than us, like that kind of is how we use righteous in English today. But that's not at all uh the connotation of the word in the Bible. Uh this is this is what this word means when we read it in our scriptures. Righteousness is aligning yourself and your relationships with what is right. So if we go back to what we started with, this this uh truth that human beings have the ability to imagine the ideal, to imagine how things should be, righteousness is getting at that. It's saying when you think of yourself, when you think of who you are and how you behave and how you operate in the world and your relationship with God, that there's a way that that should be. There's a way that you should be. And righteousness is living in a way that's aligned with that. And when you think about your relationships, when you think about your friends and you think about your family, your relationship to your parents, your spouse, whatever it may be, it's saying there's an ideal there too. There's a way that your relationships should be, and righteousness is treating people in a way that's in align in alignment with that. That's what righteousness is all about. And so whether or not you would ever use the word righteousness to describe it, you experience it all the time. Whenever you deal with any feeling of shame in your life, whenever you're disappointed in yourself because you think you should be better than you are, whenever you deal with guilt and you feel regret over something you've done, you are experiencing a longing for righteousness. You're saying, there is some ideal that I know I'm supposed to live up to and I'm not living up to it. Whenever you experience a broken relationship, whenever you know someone is mad at you, whenever someone stops talking to you, whenever you think about the way that you wish your parents had been when they were raising you, whenever you think about your sibling that you're not close with any longer, the the feelings you experience there, there are a longing for righteousness. This isn't how it's supposed to be. That's what righteousness is all about when we think about the ideal for ourselves and for our relationships. And justice is similar, but in a in a slightly different context. So, what does justice mean? In our modern world, we do use the word justice quite a bit. Uh, most often we use it in reference to like our criminal justice system. And in that context, it means that when someone does something bad, when a crime is committed, justice means them getting what they deserve. Uh, a different way we use the concept of justice is in the concept of like social justice, and that is a different thing, but in its broadest sense, social justice is about uh creating a society and a community that is fair, where people are not taken advantage of, where people are protected, and exactly what that looks like is obviously a very contentious thing in our world today, but the the general concept is just society being ordered fairly, it's social justice. Both uses of the word justice actually go to their root in the Bible. Because in the Bible, here's what justice means it means fixing what is wrong, disordered, or vulnerable in the world around us. So if righteousness was about the ideal for who we are and in our relationships, justice is about the ideal for the world, for community, for society. It's looking around you and saying, how does God want this world to be? And doing justice is being a part of the solution, looking at what's wrong and fixing it. And so again, like you experience this all the time. Every time you turn on the news, you go to the homepage of your favorite news site and you read about all the broken stuff in the world. You read about the wars, the famines, you see, you know, criminals who have gotten away with horrible things. Uh, you hear stories of, you know, poor people that that can't afford to live anywhere or put food on the table. You know, you see stories of kids who are being taken advantage of in some way. Like when you have that ugly feeling in you when you read those stories, that is a longing for justice. It's saying there's a way this world should be, and this isn't it. So these words, righteousness and justice, that's what they're getting at. They're getting at the way God wants things to be in us, in our relationships, and in the world around us. And these two words, they get used together all the time in the Bible. Uh, they're what one of my favorite Bible teachers, Tim Mackey, describes as a hyperlink in our scriptures. So every time you see those words, you're supposed to remember all the other places they've been used. And that's what's happening in 2 Samuel 8 here, where we're saying David reigned with righteousness and justice. And we're supposed to go, wow, okay, that's a big deal. Because what we know is we know that God cares more about righteousness and justice than he cares about almost anything. Like, let me just show you a few other places where these words show up. This is Psalm 89, uh, praising God for who he is as king. And this is what it says righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Faithful love and truth go before you. Like when you think about God reigning as king over creation, the foundation of his throne, like what he sits on as king, is righteousness and justice. That's how core it is to who God is. We're told in Psalm 33, verse 5 that God, He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the Lord's unfailing love. When you think about who God is and what he's about, righteousness and justice, they're what he cares about. And the flip side is true as well, which is that when you think about what breaks God's heart, what what makes him angry, what what upsets God, when you read the Bible, what you see is that it's it's a lack of righteousness and justice that that really ticks God off. Like you see this in this beautiful passage in Isaiah 5, when God's people have not been living righteously, they haven't been living in a way that pursues justice, and God's kind of letting them have it. Uh and he he uses the prophet Isaiah to deliver his message of wrath, and he uses this story, it's a parable of sorts. God says, you know, I'm I'm like a farmer, uh, and I got this beautiful piece of land and I planted a vineyard. And I loved this vineyard. I poured myself into this vineyard. I gave it, you know, the best soil. I I watered it faithfully. I even I built a wall around it so that nothing could get in. He's like, I there was nothing I didn't do. I was at Home Depot getting a miracle grow constantly. Like I just I loved this vineyard. There's nothing the vineyard needed that I didn't give it. And then it came time for the harvest, and I came out and I wanted to see the good fruit that the vineyard would produce. And lo and behold, what I actually found was that it didn't produce any good fruit. It produced sour grapes that were good for nothing. And God explains this metaphor about what has disappointed him so much. And what he says is that the good fruit I was looking for, it's righteousness and justice. This is how he says it in Isaiah 5 that this farmer he expected justice, but he saw injustice. He expected righteousness, but heard cries of despair. There's nothing that breaks God's heart more than a lack of righteousness and justice. And so, understanding this biblical theme, like let's go back to the verse we looked at earlier, it says, So David reigned over all Israel, administering justice and righteousness for all his people. Do you get what a powerful statement that is? David reigned in a way that he was bringing about the things that are nearest and dearest to God's heart. He was bringing about a kingdom that reflected God's heart and character. Like this is what it's about when we say that David was a good king, that he was a man after God's own heart. He was creating a world that was how God wanted things to be. Now, of course, the tragedy of David is that this is gonna last like one more chapter and then it's over. Uh, you know, really soon. We're like three chapters away from David doing some really, really bad things, doing some unrighteous things, doing things that are gonna bring about all kinds of injustice. And that's why our Old Testaments they end in such a weird place because you know, the Old Testament story, we have all this hope, this desire of God for how the world should be. There's some characters that look really good for a moment, but at the end we realize like, this is never gonna happen. There's no human being here who's actually going to bring about God's vision for the world. And we need him to send someone else. We actually need him to come personally, and that's the the promise of the Messiah, of Jesus. Like, really, the the longing of the Old Testament story is that Jesus would come and that he would bring justice and righteousness. This is this is where this story points us that righteousness and justice are what Jesus came to accomplish. And we we see that in the prophecy. So this is Isaiah again speaking of the coming king who would fix things and make things the way they're supposed to be. So the dominion will be vast and his the its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. It's like we we've seen a glimpse. David reigned with justice and righteousness for a couple years. But we need the person who's gonna come and reign with justice and righteousness forever. So like that's it's not gonna just be a flash in the pan. We we need someone who can actually come and change things for good. And that's who Jesus came to be. When the New Testament begins and you open up the gospel stories and you start reading about who Jesus was, what you see about how Jesus teaches and how he acts in the world is that he is this king who reigns with righteousness and justice. This is how the Sermon on the Mount begins. Jesus' most famous sermon in the Beatitudes, Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Jesus saying, Look, who, like, who are my people? Who are the people that are going to be blessed? They're the people who really want their lives to reflect the way that God designed things to be. They're the ones who want their relationships to reflect the way that God designed things to be. And those people who long for that, they're going to find it. See, Jesus' heart for righteousness and the way he taught about how we honor God with our lives. You know, the two most important commandments to love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That's righteousness. That's what that is. To live rightly in your relationship with God and to live rightly in your relationship with the people around you. That's what Jesus cares about. And he really ups the bar of righteousness too. He says, you know, it's not just about what you do and just following the letter of the law, it's about how your heart is and whether you actually love these people or not. Jesus is all about living in a righteous way, and he's he's also about justice. Jesus was more passionate about justice than he was about almost anything. You know, in all his kind of feuds with the Pharisees and the religious elites of the day, really what they they were so conflicted with each other about was the concept of justice. Jesus looked at the Pharisees who were following the letter of the law all over the place. They they wanted to worship God exactly the right way. They were tithing from their spice rack. They were giving a tenth of their cinnamon or whatever, you know. But he saw the way that they looked at the poor and the marginalized and the oppressed around and didn't really care that much about them. And so Jesus he rebukes them. He says, like, hey, like, cool, good for you that you're tithing your spices, but there's a problem. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law justice, mercy, and faithfulness. What gets Jesus angry enough to start flipping over tables in the temple? It's looking at the way that the religious people are taking advantage of the poor who just want to come and worship God. Jesus saying, that is not the way the world should be. And I'm not going to stand for it. Jesus came to be the king who reigns with righteousness and justice. And if you're a follower of Jesus here this morning, if we're going to be a community of people who follow Jesus together, then we have to understand our part in that as well. Our question needs to be how can we be people of justice and righteousness today? If this is what Jesus cares about, if this is what he's doing in the world, then we need to ask the question, okay, how does he want to use us in our community for those same purposes? I want to give you just two things to think about as we consider how we can be people of righteousness and justice today. The first thing is to recognize this that justice and righteousness start with our hearts. See, every human kind of instinct around making the world the way it's supposed to be is to start by just basically saying, okay, well, I'm I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna try harder, I'm gonna be a good person, I'm gonna design the killer app, I'm gonna, you know, do whatever, like I'm gonna make it the way it's supposed to be. And the story of the scriptures is actually holding this mirror to us and helping us see reality for what it is, which is every time humans decide that they're the solution to the problems of the world, they end up actually making it worse. Because in all of us is this heart that is bent towards ourselves, that's selfish, where we care about ourselves more than we care about our neighbors, where we're kind of, whether we act like it publicly or not, we we really do love ourselves more than we love anyone. And when we all live in the world that way, we all make the world the broken place that it is. And so Jesus came to reign with righteousness and justice first by actually transforming us from the inside, offering to give us a new heart, new desires, new loves. That's what the cross is all about, is Jesus taking our sin and our brokenness on himself and giving us new life. If you want to be the kind of person who makes the world a better place, it has to start with saying, Jesus, I can't do this without you. I need you to come into my life and change me. That's where it begins. But secondly, what I want you to think about is this reality that justice and righteousness are about what you do more than they are about what you think. Here's what I mean. We live in a world right now that has placed a tremendous amount of value on what you think. Okay? In every political conversation right now, in every debate about how the country should be, how the world should be, it really comes down to what kind of person are you? Are you the kind of person who supports leaders like these or leaders like these? Policies like these, policies like these. What do you think about the war in Iran? Good, bad, should it end, should it keep going? Like, like we just that's how we identify each other and how we think of being the kind of person that is bringing about a better world is about what stance you're advocating for, what you think. And in reality, when Jesus talks about righteousness and justice, he he really primarily doesn't talk about what our opinions are, he talks about what we do. I was thinking about that uh as I was reflecting on this story about a couple friends of mine who really reflected God's heart for justice and righteousness. Um I support a couple of aldered missionaries here, Corey and Christine Kramer, who are doing church planting in Albania right now. And a few years ago, uh there was this incredible story that they got to be a part of. Um, there was a baby boy born in a hospital near them in Albania, and this is him. And when he uh when he was born, it was discovered that uh there were some things that hadn't developed in his body in quite the right way. He had uh problems with his hands and problems with his feet, and he was gonna need a lot of medical care, including some surgeries. And when his mom realized this, uh she was she was out. She didn't want any part of it. And so she left him at the hospital. And in Albania in particular, there's not really a strong social safety net. There's no foster care, the government's not stepping in. And so the hospital just has this baby with no one to take care of it, don't know what to do. And someone says, Well, there's this church down the road. Like, let's take the baby there and see if these church people can do anything about it. And so Corey and Christine have this baby really kind of like dropped off of their door, and they decide uh this is what God wants us to do. And so they take him in, and they raise him in those first months and years as their own son. And they tell everyone who's supporting them here in the States about what's going on, and people are praying for him. And actually, one of their supporters uh in the US says, We want to adopt this baby boy. And it's this crazy process that just, I mean, you could not imagine how much paperwork and court dates and lawyers and like just over and over and over to make that happen. But God navigates through all of it, and eventually, after more than a year, that's what happens is that this couple in the United States adopts him and is raising him right now as their own flesh and blood. And I was thinking about that because like this is what righteousness and justice are all about. Right. I mean, as followers of Jesus, Corey and Christine are saying, like, the way God wants things to be in the world is for babies to have moms and dads, for there not to be orphans. And and so when God puts this opportunity in front of them, they say, well, we can be people who are advocating for that kind of world. And so they did. And I was thinking about that because at the exact same time that whole thing was going on, I was living here in the United States, and I was, you know, reading the news and hearing the political discourse and the arguments, and like I was really passionate about a lot of things, and I wanted to argue with people about what things should be and how the world ought to be and whatever. And I was just thinking about this disconnect of like what's really going on, what God's really doing in the world of righteousness and justice is things like this that are never gonna be in the news. That no one's ever gonna ask me what my opinion is, you know. But this is how God calls the church to be people who step up and actually, as the hands and feet of Jesus, work to bring about the world that God desires for us to live in. Jesus kind of talks like this as well. There's this amazing passage, a challenging passage in Matthew 25. And Jesus is talking about the judgment day, one day when all of us will stand before Him and give an account for our life. And Jesus says, you know, I'm gonna be standing before these groups of people. And on my left, there's gonna be the group of people who don't know me, who I have no relationship with, and who don't receive salvation in my name. And there's gonna be this group of people on the on the right, he calls them the righteous, and these are the people who who do know me. And when he's talking about how he's gonna identify the people who are his people, the righteous, this is what he says. He says, of them, 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. And he goes on to say, the righteous are gonna say, What Jesus, when did we do that? We don't remember that at all. And he says, Well, anytime you did that for one of the least of these, you did it for me. So now hear me. I uh Jesus isn't saying here, you know, go do good things and that's how you get saved. He's saying, This is what a transformed heart looks like. This is what my people who have believed in my name and faith, who have received what I've done for them on the cross, this is what it looks like in the world. These are people who see the brokenness, who in their own lives and their relationships and the world around them see the way that things aren't how God wants it to be, and they step in. And as my people, they meet those needs. They bring about God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And that's the same thing that Jesus is doing today. He's still at work in the world, just like he always has been. He's still using his people, you and me, this community, to be a part of his reign of righteousness and justice. And so, my question for us this morning is just what is our part to play in that? What is Alderwood's part? What is your part individually? How can you be a person of righteousness and justice as we follow Jesus together? And maybe it's just something really small and simple this morning. Maybe there's someone you need to forgive. Maybe there's a relationship that you need to restore. You know, maybe as you think about living righteously, it's just when you get home today from church for the first time in a long, long time, you just need to pray and to be open before God and to confess your sin and to ask God to work and to cleanse you and to continue to transform you into the person he wants you to be. How can you be someone who looks around at our community, at our neighbors, and says, How can I be a part of Jesus showing up here? Maybe that's partnering with our compassion center here at Alderwood and giving groceries to people in need. You know, maybe that is stepping up and getting involved in your kids' school. Maybe that's supporting some of our missionaries around the world. Like there's so many ways to get involved. But this is what God is about. This is what he loves. He loves righteousness and justice. Jesus' heart for our world is righteousness and justice. His heart for us as a community is righteousness and justice. And so if we're gonna follow Jesus, how can we be people of righteousness and justice together? Let's bring that to God and ask him to use us as he keeps working here. God, thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for your passion for the world to be made right, that you're not content to just leave us in the mess that we've created here, but that you aren't gonna give up, that you're not gonna stop until everything has been turned the way it's supposed to be. And so, God, give us a heart that aligns with you on that. Give us a passion to see that come about and give us eyes to see the opportunities and the places that you're calling us to go be your hands and feet in the world. Help us to live in a way that shows the world the reality of who you are, what you love, what you're inviting people to. We want to see the name of Jesus lifted up high. And so we ask you to use our lives in whatever way you want. In Jesus' name. Amen.