Transforming Society Through Righteousness and Justice

The Bible is clear, and Psalm 89 verse 14, it says from God's throne comes righteousness and justice, and this is not a seesaw where sometimes you go for righteousness and sometimes you go for justice. These are the Twin Towers; these are twins. They're always to be balanced side-by-side. Righteousness is the moral standard of right and wrong to which God holds men accountable based on his divine standard. Justice is the equitable and impartial application of God's moral law in society. [00:01:36]

God wants both. Yes, he wants to protect the life of the unborn in the womb, but he wants to see justice of the life once born to the tomb. In other words, God wants a whole life agenda, not a term agenda. But unfortunately, all lives aren't valued the same way, and they ought to be because every person is created in the image of Almighty God. [00:02:20]

It starts with an individual. It starts with you. Don't try to change the nation if God can't even change your heart. In other words, we have to develop a heart that cares for our fellow man because they're created in the image of God, not because they look like us or have what we have, but because they have the stamp of divine creation on them. [00:03:19]

We must be transferring values to our children. Don't expect them to think differently and act differently if they aren't hearing differently from their parents. If they're not getting a righteous value system of judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, it means you connect with other families who may be different than you. [00:04:11]

The biggest problem in the culture today is the church because the church has failed. We wouldn't even have a racial crisis in America if the church had not failed to deal with this sin like God calls it in his word. But because it passed it off, ignored it, and even promoted it, we still have this division in our culture. [00:05:10]

Churches don't just get together for joint worship services. That's great; that has its benefits. But it also addresses the issue of inequity, whether it's racial inequity or economic inequity or healthcare inequity or opportunity inequity. It recognizes the systems that are at work that work against the fair treatment of people, creating the opportunity for them to take advantage of all that God has blessed us with in this nation. [00:05:41]

We should protest evil in a righteous way. We should let our voices be heard, but then we must act because if we don't act, all we did was have a speech. We must implement righteous principles, modeling it through the church so we can see what it looks like in the broader society. [00:06:51]

We must challenge our civil leaders on all levels of government to be agents of healing in that division, to speak in such a way where unity is reinforced and not divisiveness. The words that come out of their mouths and the way they say the words that come out of their mouths must be words of strength and kindness, not vitriol and meanness. [00:07:17]

This starts off with prayer, and I don't just mean say, "God help us." No, I'm talking about where we repent of where we fail to do what he says do the way he says do it, where we realign ourselves under his authority while pursuing a relationship with him where his word can overrule our ideas, perspectives, and agendas. [00:08:08]

You should, and I encourage you to righteously protest unrighteousness wherever you find it, to do so with truth, to do so with love, but to do so with clarity. But then act, be part of the solution, not just part of the complaint. Build a bridge with somebody different than you, and then the two of you together go help somebody worse off than the two of you. [00:08:51]

The best way to reconcile is through service, not just through having discussions and seminars. And then as churches, I'm a pastor, a lot of this falls because the church has failed. We have been bifurcated legitimately. We have let race overrule God's rule in our lives and in our decision-making. [00:10:16]

If churches would come together in communities all over the country as one church with different expressions, with unity of purpose and not uniformity of persons, where you adopt all the public schools in your community and minister to the at-risk schools, or where every church adopts a homeless family so that homelessness is eradicated, which it could be overnight if every church did it. [00:11:20]