What Is Justice
Movement Live Notes
We are in a fight—a fight for justice. We are seeing, hearing, and living injustice at every turn. In every possible interpretation of the word, someone, somewhere, is experiencing it. Unfortunately, so many Christians play a role in these injustices. But what is justice? Biblical justice involves making individuals, communities, and the cosmos whole by upholding both goodness and impartiality. Jesus came so that we would be justified – declared and made right.
Scripture says in Proverbs 29:7, "The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor, the wicked does not understand such concern.” If you have been declared right by the redemptive work of Jesus, you cannot say that you do not care about justice.
We are seeing so much, and we are watching every day on the news the injustices plaguing our nation. Many of us have this heart, this desire, this passion for seeing justice. We have a passionate desire to see social justice upheld, and we want to desperately see it so much so that we're willing to speak about it all the time. We're willing to discuss it in uncomfortable spaces because we're no longer willing to be uncomfortable in those spaces anymore. We are now more verbal as a culture than we've been in a very long time. We are living out what our history told us did happen and would happen. There is something stirring in all of us.
The conviction that I had was just before all of this became a bigger deal in the past year; God placed on my heart that there's no way this world will change unless there's more of Him in our hearts. That is the only way that we're actually going to triumph and experience Christ. That's how the change comes - by allowing the gospel to create new hearts within us. That is how we experience the real Jesus.
We cannot allow our cultural condition to create our purpose. Most importantly, we have to remember how we are to participate with God in what He is doing, in His plan. Friends, as we cling to Jesus as a church network, a missional movement, a group of individuals, drawn together into the mission of Jesus Christ by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, remember that you can participate this week in the work of restoring lives. You can join in the work of being the church and restoring the world, not by our spirit, but by the Spirit of the Lord. Family and friends, we the church, ought to live now. Right now, this day, we are to live in the light of Jesus. Not just the light of Jesus, but in light of Jesus’ restoration of all things.
We've got to realize that His death wasn't just for our sin, but it was for the restoration of all things. When we look at justice, it is about the wholeness of all things and no impartiality. So, we experience wholeness in Christ Jesus. Therefore, because we experienced wholeness in Christ Jesus, we should carry wholeness. And you cannot carry wholeness, devoid of the gospel, and you cannot carry the gospel devoid of justice.
