Justice Control

How many of you watch action movies?

Here’s the general premis for these movies

Some person is just minding their own business

Someone else does something bad… kills the heroes family, destroys thier home planet, slaps their sister… you know something

The good guys spends the majority of the movie trying to find ways to pay the person back

Usually you see the good guy loosing till the very moment when he overcomes and John McClains the other person off a building or whatever

The hero defeats the bad guys and the whole time we route for the good guy!

We’re all like Yeah! Get Him!

These movies are cathartic for us

Someone say cathartic

That’s a $2 word that means something that helps you experience and express your emotions through someone else and feeling a sense of release because of it

Movies like this appeal to our desire for Justice

How many of you feel a strong desire for Justice?

I mean that you really hate with the little guy gets picked on, you don’t like people to be taken advantage of, You want there to be a balance to everything

it’s not a bad thing

As human beings we usually have a keen sense of justice. Unless you’re a sociopath or something along those lines… most people have a sense that there should be Justice in this world

Or at least that there should be justice for those who look like me and who I like! Right?

Is there justice in this world?

Somewhat? Right?

But not ultimately

Coorperations are corrupt, government systems take advantage of the poor, bullying happens…

Justice in this world is a fickle and fleeting thing

So what do we do when we feel like the justice that is deserved in a situation isn’t served?

What do we do as broken people when we feel like the week are being oppressed or the person who keeps being terrible to other people is living high on the hog

That’s an old country saying that just means that they are doing well… they’re not recieving the punishment for what they’ve done

It’s time for us to ride

You said what to my friend?

You did what to my brother or sister?

You did what to my kids or my parents?

LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!!!!

Why is that?

Because we seek to control Justice

Our understanding of the world… the things that have been told to us from birth… is that when you do bad you get bad and when you do good you get good

When we don’t see that play out in real life it causes a desire in our lives to control the outcome of the situation

We step in and we start to execute our control over a situation by manipulation.

Bad mouth someone

Slander someone

Give dirty looks

Fight

Scratch

We want our sense of Justice to be fulfilled

What does Jesus say about Justice?

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Jesus tells us that we are supposed to not only forgive… but to love those who have wronged us

He not only says that we are going to be wronged but that we have to completely relenquish our right to punish the person

Our Job is to love the other person

Some of you are thinking that’s totally unfair! That upsets my sense of justice!

You are right!

BUt here’s the thing… as much as we say we want justice we don’t

Justice says that when you transgress you get punished to the degree that you desereve

God our father and creator says that his demand for entry into his presence is perfection

Any transgression against him is deserved of Death

That means the second you sinned the first time you were imperfect… Justice demands that you pay for that crime with death

How many of you love that idea of justice?

No we don’t want that we want Grace

We want God to be gracious to us and to grant us salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross

We want to be able to enter in through Jesus

But we want justice for others but grace for ourselves

We want other people to have to pay for every little transgression in that instant but when we mess up we want to explain and be the exception… we want Grace

When we are fighting for control of justice we are fighting for the authority to punish others and that authority belongs to God and God alone

He didn’t say that vengeance is his the Lord!

Listen everything the Lord does is Good

He didn’t say that vengeance is his because he loves to see injustice

He said it because he knows that we are broken. Our wills and our desires are not to be trusted

If vengeance were for us to repay then we would not be able to do it perfectly

But God is the only one who can judge perfecty and therefore is the one who repays what needs to be repayd

Also God takes vengeance as his own because it actually does damage to us

In a study they proved that revenge makes you feel worse

We think that if we could just do to others some of the bad stuff they did to us we would feel better

Studies tell us that when people take revenge on another they end up feeling worse about the whole transaction

When you seek to control Justice you actually do damage

Ultimately you have to trust that Jesus cares about you and therefore he will rightly judge and rightly work in the lives of those who have wronged you

Jesus will bring about whatever situations are needed for his justice to be satisfied

The Lord will not be frustrated

Do you trust him

Have you trusted him in your life

“You don’t know all the bad that’s happened to me!” I can’t forgive

Jesus was being murdered and asked that his murderers be forgiven

It was our sin that held him there… .until it was accomplished

Every sin that you would ever commit is hanging on Christ on the cross… it is because of your sin nature that Christ chose to die

Are you saying that the sin that someone did agaisnt you is greater than what you have done that needs atonement through the blood of God’s only son

Are you saying that what someone did to you is greater than your sin?

You have to trust that you have been forgiven and then live loved

Live as though you have been given this gift of grace and then choose to share that

Not because others deserve your forgiveness… but because you didn’t deserve Christ’s and yet he gave that to you freely