Justice
About this series:
The title of our teaching series throughout 2023 is The Kingdom Of God. The essential goal is to help people understand the Bible’s teaching on the kingdom of God and raise confidence in God’s plans for his kingdom’s expansion / multiplication.
Teaching about The Kingdom Of God is a great way to address life as a church community - this is how life together under God’s reign should look like. And to address our lives in the world - demonstrating to those in our sphere of influence the reality of God and what life looks like when God is your king.
The second part of our teaching on the Kingdom is called “Kingdom Priorities.” Here we look at some familiar biblical themes, and bring an emphasis on how they are a feature of God’s kingly reign.
About this talk:
Scripture: Micah 6:6-8
Micah prophesied during the reigns of three of the kings of Judah (1:1). The shame and disgrace of both northern and southern kingdoms are made clear in 1:3-2:11, with the nations’ leaders then coming in for special rebuke in 3:1-12. As so often in Old Testament prophecy, these words of rebuke and judgement are interspersed with hope - God will, in the end, forgive and restore his people because he has covenanted himself to them and will not break his promises.
The most famous of these words of hope is chapter 5 where Micah prophesies, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times…He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth” (5:2,4). It was this prophecy that led the chief priests and teachers of the law to inform Herod that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, when Herod was visited by the Magi (Matthew 2:1-6).
In chapter 6 God repeats many of his charges against Israel and Judah, with Micah now asking a number of rhetorical questions (vs 6-7), asking what God would be pleased for Micah to bring to him. Micah’s reply is, v 8, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” In essence, what God requires is that we love him (by walking humbly before him) and love our neighbour (by acting justly and mercifully) - see Mark 12:28-31.
Because God is perfectly just, it follows that his kingly reign is one of justice and that the people who acknowledge him as king should, likewise, be characterised by justice in their way of life. This is exactly what the nations’ leaders and prophets have been criticised for: “Should you not embrace justice, you who hate good and love evil…you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right” (3:1-2, 9). How can the people who claim allegiance to the God of justice despise justice?!
What God expects justice to look like in practice can be discerned from some of his criticisms of his people in Micah’s letter and also from passages such as Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 58:6-7 and Jeremiah 5:26-28. It’s absolutely clear in the New Testament that justice is a particular characteristic of Jesus (Matthew 12:17-21; Hebrews 1:8), that injustice is an evidence of ungodly religion (Matthew 23:23-24) and that God’s people are to judge rightly and conduct themselves according justly (James 1:27).
Can you give some examples of where you’ve seen both injustice and justice being practised? What does justice look like in practice in our world?
Each of us has an area of influence. Where is God asking you to be concerned about justice or act justly more than you currently are?
What are some of the barriers we experience to being concerned for justice?
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