Do Justice, Love Mercy: Walking Humbly with God

``But with God, the God of the bible, stern justice and kind mercy are together, always together. Justice that upholds truth and the right order of things so that people can flourish is joined with kind mercy for sinners who fall short and repent. You see this again and again in different ways throughout the bible. John chapter one which we read at Christmas time, tells us that Jesus Christ came among us filled with grace and truth. [00:34:29] (34 seconds)  #JusticeAndMercyTogether

And then they suggest offerings and sacrifices that maybe they could bring, but perhaps sensing that there's really nothing that they could bring that really make things right. The the the offerings that they suggest get bigger and bigger and bigger to the point of absurdity. They say, shall I bring burnt offerings? Thousands of rams? 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for the sin of my soul? No, says God. I don't want you to try to buy me off with offerings. I want you to repent. [00:30:35] (38 seconds)  #RepentDontBuyOffGod

But, and this is critically important to understand the heart of God in this passage, and the way he wants us to live and bear his image in the world, but connected to do justice is also to love kindness or to love mercy, many translations say. It's so important to see this. These two in the bible go together. It's not just one or the other. [00:33:25] (24 seconds)  #JusticeLovesMercy

To see ourselves as humble sinners who are just saved by grace, and to begin to see other people that way too. That's what enables us to really to learn to forgive others, to learn to bear with others and their sins, and their screw ups, and their imperfections, to learn to see others the way God sees others, and to overcome the blinders of this world. It it takes that humility to throw ourselves on his mercy, and then we'll see differently. [00:37:48] (30 seconds)  #HumbleSinnersSeeOthers

It's God who makes all things new. It's God who gives you a new heart. It's God that you humbly come before and ask for newness of life, and he's the one who gives it. God is the source. Psalm 37, is a great meditation on what it is to walk humbly with God. Encourage you this afternoon or sometime this week, go back and look at Psalm 37 as as a kind of a what does it look like to walk humbly with God. Because one of the things that tells us is is we need to try to see things, even evil doers, even the way the wicked prosper, we need to try to see things with an eternal perspective. Try to see things from God's point of view where where the the wickedness is gonna be so brief, and and and God's eternal victory is gonna be forever. [00:41:18] (45 seconds)  #GodMakesAllThingsNew

And verse eight gives us a new code to live by. The prophet speaking to the people. He has told you, o man. This is not new. Do you remember it? He says, he has told you what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. [00:31:20] (24 seconds)  #DoJusticeLoveKindnessWalkHumbly

And it's not simply that God is giving his people more rules that they need to try hard to keep or something like that. He's telling them the kind of person that he wants them to be. The kind of heart he wants them to have beating within them. The kind of heart that loves the things that God loves. That will follow in his ways because it's it's focused on the right things. That's the goal. That's the vision of Micah six and of the beatitudes as well. [00:31:43] (33 seconds)  #GodlyHeartNotRules

I think so often when people are in sharp disagreement in in our culture, I think it's because they're grabbing hold of one and running this way, or grabbing hold of the other and running that way, but in the bible these two go together. So important to see that because justice without kindness, without mercy leaves no possibility for redemption, for forgiveness, for reconciliation when someone sins and we all sin. And mercy without justice shrugs at evil. It allows law breaking to go unchecked, and even though it's well meaning, the end of that way is chaos and more evil. [00:33:49] (40 seconds)  #JusticeNeedsMercy