Gospel Justice

Sunday's sermon, the third in our Gospel Commitments series, was on gospel justice.  Why "gospel" justice?  Many evangelicals in our day, to their great credit, are interested in social justice.  Drilling wells, feeding starving kids, and combating human sex trafficking are all, along with a host of other issues, very worthy causes.

Unfortunately, what many have done is divorce the gospel from their efforts.  This sermon, on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, was an attempt to say, "Yes!  We should be concerned with social justice."  It was also intended to provide a slight corrective.  We must not participate in injustice.  We must fight for justice.  But we must do so, not simply out of a general care for humanity; we must do so because we are propelled by the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The text for the sermon was Micah 6:6-8.

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

We saw in several places throughout Micah that God's people were involved in perpetrating injustice (Micah 2:1-2; 3:1-3, 9).  Then in Micah 6, God reminds His people of His work of redemption in their lives.  He led them out of slavery in Egypt, gave them leaders, protected them from the curse of Balak, and parted the Jordan River for them to pass through from Shittim to Gilgal (Micah 6:4-5).

God had been gracious to His people, but they responded with a lack of justice and kindness toward their fellow image bearers and a lack of humility toward God (Micah 6:8).  Micah rhetorically asks how they can make things right (Micah 6:6-7).  Will burnt offerings do the trick?  What if they offer up their firstborn?  Will that be enough to atone for their sin?  The implied answer is an emphatic, NO!

God had already revealed to His people what He required of them.  It was written in the Law given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments.  Micah summarizes that law in verse 8.  The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God.  The final six deal with our relationship with other people.  Micah's instruction to do justice and love kindness summarizes the final six commandments, but all of this is for naught without the instruction to walk humbly with God which serves as a summary of the first four commandments.

Our world is filled with injustice.  Millions of babies have been aborted just in America since Roe vs. Wade.  Millions of people will go to bed hungry tonight.  Close to 2 million people will die of AIDS this year.  An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, and the average age for entry into street prostitution is between 12 and 14.  Human trafficking results in a global annual profit of approximately $31 billion each year.  $9.5 billion comes from the U.S.

You see, I could go on and on and on citing the injustice that abounds in our world today.  I do not cite these statistics to guilt you into action.  No, sometimes we just need to be reminded or made aware of the injustice around us.  We also need to be reminded that we have the only source of hope for a broken world, the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the remission of sins for all who would repent and believe.  This gospel is for all, oppressed and oppressor alike.

We must go forth.  We must fight against the injustice of AIDS, starvation, racism, abortion, human trafficking, etc.  We must bring with us a cup of cold water, but we must not forget to do so in Jesus' name.  He is the only true and lasting source of hope.

He will one day return and right every wrong.  The prophet Micah assures us of that reality (Micah 4:6-7; 5).  Until that day, may we resolve together like the prophet Micah, that though "all the peoples walk each in the name of its god,…we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever" (Micah 4:5).