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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Pastoral Ponderings ~ A Famine of Justice and Righteousness

          There are some issues that, when a church looks out at the world, or those “other” denominations, and sees the injustice and unrighteousness that is tolerated, the people feel what appears to be a righteous indignation. At the same time, the injustice and unrighteousness that is in their own church is tolerated after the pattern of the plank-in-ones-eye that judges and condemns the sawdust-in-the-other’s-eye.[1]

          This past week, my exploration of the context of God’s throne as revealed in Revelation 4 led me to see the distinctive qualities of “righteousness and justice” as the foundation of his throne. [2] Today, as I continued looking at these things, I realized that the God who rules on a throne of righteousness and justice also expects his people to live by these same two characteristics.

          From the beginning of forming a nation of people for himself, God spoke of Abraham this way: For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”[3] Through all of Scripture we see that God’s will for his people includes “doing righteousness and justice”. As Solomon wrote: “To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.”[4]

          The opposite of this is stated clearly as well: “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.”[5] And, “It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the righteous of justice.”[6]

          Once again, church groups seem quite clear-minded when listing the ways that the world, or other churches, justify the wicked among them, and condemn the righteous around them. However, it seems like quite a different story when someone confronts them with their partiality to the wicked in their own congregation, or the way they deprive justice to the righteous who have committed no other crime than standing outside their church or family.

          I will go so far as to say that it has taken considerable prayer this morning for me to resist the urge to tell stories. I told them all to God, and his response seemed to be: “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.”[7]

          However, I do feel the freedom to generalize for the sake of teaching, reproving, correcting, and training in righteousness.[8] For teaching, we would have to all agree that we are to pursue the righteousness and justice that are the foundation of God’s throne. That means hungering and thirsting after righteousness in everything, and in relation to everyone,[9] and showing justice to everyone without any favoritism or partiality.[10]

          At the same time, we need to be prepared to teach our churches or families about God’s just and righteous throne if we see that they are allowing gossip, slander, lying and back-biting because it is done by their favorite people. We would also need to address what God’s word says about judging and condemning others without any testing by the church[11] just because the people closest to them hold some negative opinion about those others.

          For reproving, we would have to examine our hearts and deal with any ways that we do not actually care about righteousness and justice ourselves. And, we would have to repent of any ways we have justified the wickedness of someone close to us because we don’t want to lose them as friend or family member, or have condemned some righteous person because it seemed relationally beneficial to do so.

          For correction, we would have to pray about how to turn around any discrepancies in our own lives, or in our churches. In whatever ways we have tolerated unrighteousness, let us seek out the righteous counterpart that ought to replace it. Where we have allowed people close to us to act wickedly towards others, let us take the steps of confronting their sin instead of believing their stories. If we know that righteous people outside our cliques, or churches, or families, or maybe even the pastors of our churches, have been judged, slandered, and condemned by gossiping tongues, let us turn away from the groups that support people in condemning the righteous, and see if there is anything we can do to reconcile with the people of God who are mistreated in these ways.

          For training in righteousness, let us do all we can to influence our friends, families, and church groups, to examine our hearts,[12] test everything, get rid of whatever is evil, and hold on only to what is good.[13] This may mean trying to carry out church discipline against people we now realize are justifying the wicked and condemning the righteous.

          Since church discipline often fails because of church-politics, we must be willing to let go of groups that promote justifying the wicked and condemning the innocent, and fellowship with the smaller groupings of people who are so judged. If we hunger and thirst after the righteousness that is by faith in Jesus Christ, Jesus himself will satisfy our hunger and lead us into the training in righteousness we long for.

          The aim of earnest teaching, reproving, correcting, and training in righteousness is so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.[14] This was the way Paul worded it in relation to Timothy and other pastors. It obviously applies to all believers as well, that if we allow Scripture to do its work, it will equip us for whatever good works God has prepared in advance for us to do.[15] In the case of our present subject, that would include the good work of aligning ourselves with the justice and righteousness of God, and encouraging others around us to do the same, always without favoritism or partiality.

          Once we have cleared up these things for ourselves, and drawn our churches to adjust to God’s word in these areas, we must live with the fact that our living by the righteousness of faith will still result in people from churches treating us as if we are wicked. We will continue to see wicked people in churches getting away with gossip, slander, lying, back-biting, and other sins, because relationships are more important to them than righteousness. In that case, “do not fret because of evildoers”, and don’t let anyone hinder you in seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness[16] no matter how many times you are misunderstood for doing so.

          Just as I was working on this post, someone shared a quote from Charles Spurgeon that is right in line with what I am sharing.

“The more prominent you are in Christ’s service, the more certain are you to be the butt of calumny [slander]. I have long ago said farewell to my character. I lost it in the earlier days of my ministry by being a little more zealous than suited a slumbering age. And I have never been able to regain it except in the sight of him who judges all the earth, and in the hearts of those who love me for my work’s sake.”[17]

          I found it encouraging hearing such words from a respected brother from our past. The world, the worldly church, and worldly church-goers, have no real love for God’s justice and righteousness. They are driven by deeper things of the flesh, and often have such close ties to one another that they do not even see what they are doing wrong, let alone have any desire to make it right.

          God’s will is that we do not fret, or worry, or adjust our earnest hunger for his righteousness, just because others are promoting injustice and unrighteousness. The reason we do not fret because of evil doers is that the foundation of God’s throne is righteousness and justice. He will never justify the wicked, or condemn the righteous. Let us make sure the same is true of us.

          From my heart,

          Monte

 

© 2013 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)



[1] Matthew 7:1-5
[2] “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.” (Psalm 89:14)
[3] Genesis 18:19
[4] Proverbs 21:3
[5] Proverbs 17:15
[6] Proverbs 18:5
[7] Psalm 37:1-2
[8] II Timothy 3:16-17
[9] Matthew 5:6
[10] You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. (Leviticus 19:15); “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. (I Timothy 5:21)
[11] The New Testament has so many clear instructions for how the church is to deal with accusations of sin that, if all the gossips and slanderers in our churches were held to account to these Scriptures, there would not be such an extensive problem to deal with.
[12] “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (II Corinthians 13:5)
[13] “For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.” (II Corinthians 2:9); 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil. (I Thessalonians 5)
[14] II Timothy 3:17
[15] Ephesians 2:10
[16] Matthew 6:33
[17] Charles Spurgeon as quoted on Mark Driscoll’s status, May 21, 2013

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