Good morning. Good to have you in worship this morning. Isn't the church a wonderful thing. You look around this room, you got every age group represented. You got a zillion little kids over here. And it's just it's neat to see God bringing so many demographics and groups together under one body to worship the Lord Jesus. So we're glad you're here. Glad you're here to worship with us. And we have a couple of things in common, right? We have a great need. I hope that's why you're here. And number two, we have a great Savior. So I hope that's why you're here also. So we share that in common together this morning. A couple of announcements just to draw your attention to. There is in this Wednesday night at 5.45 in the fellowship hall. The Tinsley family will be sharing their mission report with us about their trip to Kenya to see videos, pictures, et cetera of what the Lord is doing over there. So I know you want to be a part of that. Come and have great food and then fellowship together and then hear Tim and Laura and Micah and the rest of their family present what they did over in Kenya. It will be encouraging. And then also the last thing is just to point out to you that this coming weekend, the 19th and 20th, I guess this is two weekends from now. We are having a parents retreat at Camp Vesper Point. And this is for parents of all ages. We have a member when Rebecca and I were young and newly married. We went to a Bible study led by one of our elders on Shepherding a Child's Heart, one of Trips books. And we didn't have kids yet. We just knew they were on the horizon. And it was greatly helpful for us. So whether you're at that end, you don't have kids and you're thinking this has no relevance in my life yet. Or you're a grandparent and you're thinking they're out of the house. I don't really need to know anymore. I ask that you consider coming to be in a part of the weekend. Joey Stewart is going to be speaking really focused on gospel centered parenting. And he's going to kind of lay the foundation of that of a gospel centered marriage that affects gospel centered parenting. So I encourage you to be there at time or prayer with one another for your children, for your spouse. So I encourage you to be a part of it. And the deadline for that is next Sunday and you can come to the office. You can call in to register for that. I encourage you to be a part of it. No more announcements this morning. So I ask that you take a few moments out of probably the hectic busy lives that you have. And I have to pause for a few moments just to be quiet for the Lord to prepare your hearts to worship him because we are a needy people in need of his grace.
Would you please stand for our call to worship. This song was taken from our daily reading as we were reading through the Bible together as a congregation. So I hope it rings familiar. For the Lord loves justice. He will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever. The mouth of the righteous brothers wisdom and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart. He is the best in our state.
Years you have prepared us with your grace. You've brought us to this place. All the days, all the years of our lives, all of our family members and friends, the experiences of our lives, we gather all these together and we submit them to your sovereign will knowing that you have prepared us for such a time as this, that we would come and that we would worship you. That when we leave here we would do deeds of love and mercy in our community for your glory and for our good. We make our morning prayer of prayer of adoration in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Has the saints of old lined the way, retelling triumphs, the triumphs of Christ. And here we stand saints together before the Lord. Calling out to him, calling out to one another. Encouragement. Be strong. Don't stop. We're with you. So we stand together to affirm our faith as believers in Christ. Our affirmation of faith is the apostles' creed. We come to this creed because it's a common confession for us. It unifies us for community. We need something or someone to rally around. And we rally around our triumphant God, the center of our life. Our church at this moment is an expression of the reality of the kingdom of God. May your heart reflect his glory. And so Christian, I ask you, what do you believe? Thank God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and siteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick in the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life ever lasting. Amen. You may be seated. We come to our confession of sin quite often, kind of backing into it, the thought that, oh, this is that horrible time during the service where we recognize, we recognize our sin. It's actually a glorious moment. It's a moment of reunion. Imagine if you've been estranged from a friend, your spouse, and you run to them, and you would like to make restitution, but you know you have nothing to offer other than your honest confession. O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger nor discipline me in your wrath for your errors have sunk into me and your hand has come down on me. There's no soundness in my flesh because of our indignation. There's no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head like a heavy burden. They're too heavy for me.
You know, for many of us we confess our sin on a daily basis for some like me who are especially sinful, confess my sin all day long. Maybe for you, this is the first time you've ever thought about confessing your sin to the Lord. A green with him and I am a sinner, Lord, I have fallen short of your righteous standard for me. So I would invite you to turn your heart to the Lord and humbly confess your sin. Recognize before him your great need and receive his forgiveness.
For many of us, Lord, it's the first time that we've sat quietly in a long time. And Lord, as we reflect upon our hearts or try to slow our brains down long enough to reflect upon our sin or there are many here that may find guilt and shame to overwhelming
to think about their condition. Lord, we are indeed a rebellious and sinful people in desperate need of your grace and your mercy in our lives. So we are thankful for the assurance that is given to us through Jesus Christ. In your word, when you say, therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And through him, we have access into this grace in which we stand. Lord Jesus, it's because of your work, it's because we who are sinners who are at wrath with you, at war with you. And we long for peace in our lives and Lord Jesus oftentimes we want the peace of God but we forget that ultimately we need peace with God and Lord Jesus, you are the only one who is able to provide peace with God. And we are comforted by the fact that because Jesus you have accomplished that for us, we have access to your grace. There is no other reason, Lord Jesus, that you should blot us off the face of this planet if it were not for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are fully dependent on it. And we rest upon it this morning and find great confidence and assurance for what Jesus Christ has won for us. Lord Jesus, I thank you that in those quiet moments of reflection we often really just don't know what to pray. And so you I think you knew that, I think you knew our hearts. And therefore you gave your disciples a prayer to pray when they didn't know what else to pray. And so Lord, hear us now as we pray that prayer together saying our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Before you fellowship, I want to remind you that we just sang the glory of potra and a lot of times it becomes routine in our hearts. But we just sang as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. What was in the beginning? Who was in the beginning? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. If you're here this morning and you trust in Jesus Christ, you have fellowship with the triune God. These next one minute is a snapshot picture of your fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Enjoy fellowshiping together.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer this morning. And as I pray, I ask that you pray in your hearts for those things on your heart and mind as people that need prayer and for our church and for Christ's kingdom. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, I confess to you this morning I come to pray for your people, or that is an intimidating and daunting task. There's often times Lord, as I am praying up here, I am so reminded of my own frailty, my own weakness, my own failures, my own sins, and do not feel worthy to even bring your people before the throne. And yet, Lord, you have given us access because of what Jesus has done. And Lord, there are times when we pray for our nation, there's times when we pray for our missionaries, for our widows,
for our prison ministry, for orchard knob, for all the different things. Lord, our church is involved in a discipleship. But Lord, this morning, I just simply pray for you to strike a blow to our hearts, to revive us of the gospel. I'm so tired of being prone and to forget what Christ is one, are so prone to achieve it on our own efforts. And Lord Jesus, I confess to you that sometimes I feel our church does the same. We have a history here that is unparalleled in this city, but that history is not our righteousness. We have a history where we have proclaimed the righteousness of Jesus Christ to go into the kingdom of this world and to make it the kingdom of heaven. So Lord, we appeal to you this morning and pray that you awaken our cold hearts to the gospel once again. Awaken our cold hearts that everyone within the Son of my voice has the greatest need in history to be filled with the love and the mercy of Jesus Christ alone. We are fully dependent upon you, Lord Jesus, to do any ministry in this city, to do any ministry in this church, to do any ministry in our home. We cannot depend on our own strength. We cannot depend upon our own history. We can only depend on the work of grace and the hearts of individuals with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, you are holy and your holiness demands justice and you carried out your justice upon Jesus Christ and not upon us and therefore we experience the love of the eternal fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, those three main attributes of who you are may they characterize us in our lives and our ministry may they may they be reminded in our hearts over and over again remind us Lord Jesus that you are holy, you are just and you are loving and neither one is to be separated out from the other. So Lord, we call upon you this morning. I call upon you on behalf of your people that you revive our hearts and show us our great need once again of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the seed that was promised in Genesis 315 that would come and crush the head of Satan and is in your matchless and powerful name that we pray. And all God's people said, amen. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word.
Our scripture lesson today is found in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 16 verses 18 through 20. You shall appoint judges and officers in all the towns that the Lord your God has given you according to your tribes and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality and you shall not accept a bribe for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice and only justice you shall follow that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. The district attorney in Arapaho County, Colorado has reached a conclusion as to how he would like to proceed in a case against James Egan Holmes. James Holmes is the man who is accused of murdering 12 people and wounding 70 at a Batman movie last summer in Colorado. The district attorney says after speaking with more than 800 victims and family members, it's my determination and my intention that in this case for James Egan Holmes justice is death.
What is justice? We as the people of God are to be pursuing justice. What is justice? Justice is to be fair. It's to be reasonable. There must be a plausibility to the case. Many of you in your mind's eye can already see Lady Justice. She depicts justice and she's equipped with three symbols. She has a sword symbolizing the court's coercive power. She has a human scale weighing competing claims in each hand and then she wears a blindfold which signifies impartiality. Every culture must have a sense of justice in order to succeed. Joel Kotkin in his book The City, a global history says, cities have held together and that have held together and have impacted the world have three common things. They have a sacred place in other words a spirituality to them, a guidance from God above. Secondly, there's a security, a sense of safety like a walled-in area in our situation, a sense of safety. People don't move to Chattanooga if they don't believe they can live here. They can go to school here. There's a sense of security and safety and then lastly the third mark of successful cities throughout history is this sense of commerce. There's a market square. There's a way to make money while you live here. The Lord God gave the people of God judges. Judges were to guide the people as they entered into the Promised Land. As they are going to enter into the Promised Land, there's a sense that these judges must come and they must bring justice. God has given His people the Ten Commandments and now the people of God are going to go and live in a new culture and they have to discern how do we live according to this righteous standard of the Ten Commandments in the reality of the Promised Land? And so God gave them judges. There's an amazing relationship in the text between justice and righteousness. The two words go together. In fact, Tim Keller speaks about this concept of justice as really representing the Shalom for the people of God. What's Shalom? Shalom is God's blessing, God's prosperity, God's goodness upon His people and surely in the text you see in verse 20 it says justice and only justice you shall follow or pursue justice. That you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God has given you. This sense of being blessed by God under His providential care. Tim goes on to explain the idea of Shalom in a couple different arenas. He uses an example of a human body. When a human body is functioning well, all the organs are working together. The person is healthy. The person has a sense of Shalom. There's an alignment of function. There's a sense of if you will, justice. Everything's working the way it should work. He also uses the relationship within a family. A family is aligned when the husband and wife are getting along well. There's a connection. The two have become one, not simply physically but also in their thinking. In the way they live, there's an alignment. A single person who lives has this sense of alignment when they have a sense that I'm walking with the Lord. He's called me to this place at this time. My life is aligned underneath his blessing. I have a sense of Shalom. The idea behind justice is one that has to make sense to us. It has to be fair. As Tim Keller brings us this understanding of Shalom, the idea that things are in alignment with each other. There has to be a right and a wrong. There has to be a way for us to function in culture knowing that I'm in line. I'm in the right place. I'm doing the right thing. So within our culture, God has appointed those who are judges. Judges who are to bring the righteousness of God or this right standing, this alignment, this Shalom to our relationship with God and our relationship with one another. Justice. In researching this, I did some work with a man named RC Sproul. RC Sproul makes the differentiation between equality and equity. He says, equality is making sure that everyone gets the same thing. Equity is giving people what's their due. He uses an illustration from the classroom. RC has been a teacher for a long time. RC spoke of this idea of equity and equality and he said, imagine that the students are all coming in to take a test and some of the students have prepared and they are ready to go and they do well on the test and make an A. A number of the students were out party in all night and they ended up making an F. But for the sake of equality, RC's decided that he's going to give everyone an A. And so pretty much everyone's happy about that. Everyone got an A. But what if he decided to give everyone a D. And of course the people who were going to make an F would be thrilled, right? They mean a D. What about everyone else? What about everyone else? And so the idea of justice isn't that there's the sense of equality that everyone gets what everyone else gets. It's a sense of equity. Justice is that you get what you deserve. RC says it this way. Justice is rendering what is their due under the law. Now in the history of our country we have had struggle with civil rights issues. We've had this struggle with equality and surely each and every person created is created in the image of God. We have dignity not based on what we've done, not based on our accomplishments, not based on our wealth or lack of wealth. We have dignity because we're created in God's image. And so when we stop to help somebody who's less fortunate than we are, it's not because we're a better person. It's not because we're a different type of human being. It's simply that under God's grace we glorify God by serving people who were created in his image. And so as we walk in community, we come with the sense of equality in that we were all created in God's image. But there's also a sense of justice in our hearts which recognizes every person is going to get what they deserve. And so in order to implement this, God gave qualifications and instructions to the judges. If you return here either the text there in Deuteronomy, you'll find that there's this idea that they're going to come from their own tribe, so they're going to understand their people, they're going to understand their history, there's going to be this sense of continuity, they're going to know their trends, the sin patterns, they completely grasp the culture. But then they go on and say that the judges to judge with a righteous judgment. In other words, he is to judge in the culture with the idea that we're to be in alignment with God's standards. He's just given them the Ten Commandments. Now let's line your life up around that. It's not based on popular opinion, it's based on God's word, God's law, God's opinion expressed in his word carries the day for justice. Secondly, they're not to pervert justice. The Hebrew phrase actually means you're not supposed to turn it or to bend it. So you don't want to bend justice. You know, justice can be bent a couple different ways. Sometimes justice is bent toward the rich. And that's not justice. Sometimes justice is bent toward the poor. That's not justice. People are to get what is their due. James, Jesus's brother warns us and says, we don't play favorites, no favoritism here. We have to be careful. Sometimes the laws of a particular country can favor either the rich or the poor. That's inappropriate. Sometimes there's a sense of we want to give the poor some things that the rich people aren't allowed to have. The idea, well, if you're going to steal a car, make sure you steal a car from a rich person because they can afford another one. That's wrong thinking. That's not justice. There needs to be an equity. There must be a fairness. And so God has set forward these people who are to judge with the righteous judgment according to his word. They're not to pervert judgment. In other words, to bend it one way or the other. And they're not to show partiality. The literal Hebrew in this means don't regard people's faces. And when you think of justice, she's got this blindfold on, right? And so there's the idea of rather than looking and seeing, oh, oh, I know Billy so well. And I don't know James so well. But let's see how this court case turns out, right? No, you're to be blind in a sense that you're not to show partiality toward people. You're to be blind to their faces. And then you're not supposed to accept a bribe. Bribes are not to be part of the system. Some people struggle with this when they think of the concept of different folks who have lobbying groups. And they're able to lobby and try to bring influence upon someone. That's not what the Bible allows for. It's not to, you're not to take a bribe. You're not to be influenced by outside forces. You're to have this sense of, I'm here to honor the Lord. I'm here to pursue justice and only justice. In fact, the Deuteronomy 19, it lays forward the idea that you must have more than one witness. In fact, our courts still use this in our land in Deuteronomy 19 versus 15 and following. It says, a single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he's committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priest and the judges who are in office in those days. The judge shall inquire diligently. If the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he meant to do to his brother. In other words, if you make a false accusation, then that accusation comes back on you and you're judged based on the way you are trying to judge the other person. Here are the judges. They're weighing these cases. They're not to have partialities. They're seeking to align the people of God under the commandments of God. Why? So that they will have the shalom of God. They'll have the blessing of God. Now we have examples of this even in our own courts. We have our district attorney general here in Hamilton County and I went ahead and pulled this off the website. It says, the goal of the office of the district attorney general is to vigorously, competently, as well as fairly. They want to be just. Fairly prosecute individuals who choose to violate the criminal law in Hamilton County. We have a large and well-equipped police force. They're here to serve us, to serve our city, to provide security. One of the marks of an outstanding city throughout history is this idea of security. There has to be a sense of justice. There has to be a sense of you have done wrong against me and there must be recourse for this. There has to be equity that's administered through the legal system through the judges. Now we know that in the history of the people of God, God gave them these judges and they're about to enter the promised land and then what happens. They enter the promised land and if you follow the path of the the people of God, you find that they ended up they ended up in a way where they were not equitable. They didn't follow the Lord. They didn't align their life with him and so they didn't experience his shalom. In fact, he could have done a few things. He could have sent them back to Egypt. Right? He could have mixed them in with all the other nations or he could have abandoned them to the world and sure enough what happened to the people of God. They were sent into exile. I know I'm fast-forwarding about 600 years for those of you who are understanding Old Testament history but this idea is found in the book of Amos and I wanted to touch on it for us this morning. This idea of justice and what happens when we don't keep justice. Amos is on page 767 in your Pube Bible, 767. Now you may remember where it's found in the Bible. If you go to Psalms and then continue toward the New Testament, you'll bump into Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, and there he is right there. Amos. Amos chapter five and if you look at Amos chapter five, you'll notice in verses four through seven. For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, so he's speaking to his people, seek me and live, but do not seek Bethel and do not enter into Gilgau across over into Bershiva. For Gilgau shall surely go into exile and Bethel shall come to nothing. Seek the Lord and live, let's he break out like fire in the house of Joseph and devour with none to quench it for Bethel. O you who turn justice to Wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth. You see that relationship between justice and righteousness, this idea of justice and righteousness, righteousness being in right standing with the Lord, and justice being giving people what they deserve, but you know what they don't give people what they deserve in the book of Amos. We find the judges of the people of God are evil. They're taking bribes. Court took place at the gate in the Old Testament, the gate of the city, and in the gate of the city they were taking bribes, they were showing partiality, they were not honoring the Lord in the way that he should be honored, and so this sense of judgment came over the people. The overall idea within Deuteronomy we find is this movement from hearing the word of God to believing the word of God to living the word of God. There's this normal transition in the Christian life where you hear or you gain exposure to the word of God. The Holy Spirit works in you so that you believe it and then you move to action. You're moved by the grace of God. You know after one of my men's studies last week, a man who works for the Hamilton County Benefits Department happened to be attending the men's study, and during the study I was talking about how a Christian is someone who should be a benefactor, they should be somebody who provides for themselves, if they're single, they should provide for their family, if they're married, they should provide for their church, should be gainfully employed, and give their tithe that's part of healthy Christian citizenship. But also in terms of citizenship within your city is you're to be a benefactor for your city. And in the process of this, this man came up to me afterward and we had a wonderful conversation and I just out of curiosity I said you know I know I'm putting you on a spot here, but off the top of your head how many people in Hamilton County receive benefits from the government and he said about one third, one third of the adults in Hamilton County receive benefits, some form of welfare, of that one third about half of those people work. And so what we're finding in not only America but around the globe is that even people who work are having trouble making it, they can't pay their bills, a phrase that's used is the working poor. There are people in our city who have one, two jobs and they still can't make ends meet and so they receive some benefits. And I said what do you think is an amount that someone receives in Hamilton County for benefits? He said about $80,000 a year and I said that seems high to me and he goes well you have a lot of different options and he walked through the different programs that our city provides with our tax dollars, our country provides. And he said you know the real struggle is is it's hard to move a person off a living from on $80,000 and move them to a job where they may be making $25,000. You know that's a pretty big cut and pay. How do we do this? And so we know that the scripture teaches us that the Apostle Paul says well if you don't work you shouldn't eat and so I asked him I said what how does that affect the family? And he goes well sadly what's happening is a lot of the children are they can't wait until they're able to get benefits like their mother or their grandmother. And so there's this legacy of dependence and you know you've just heard that story pretty much real time. I mean I just heard this last Monday and I've been processing it and for some of you you might be thinking that's horrible. I mean I can't believe so many people receive benefits. Others of you might be thinking you know what that's great. America's a great country. You can come here and you can be in trouble and we're going to help you but that's a beautiful legacy to think about America helping the poor. You know God tells us in Deuteronomy very clearly he says the poor you will have with you always open your hand generously to the poor. Open your hand generously to the poor. Now some of you know this story about me and some of you don't but I was on welfare. My family was on welfare when I was in the 5th grade. My father was very very sick and we moved from Phoenix back to St. Louis for a short period and we live with my aunt. We lived in the inner city of St. Louis. I was a token white minority in my school and we were on welfare for about six months and they gave us cans of peanut butter and they gave us cans of butter and they gave us powdered eggs and we got potatoes. Sometimes my mother would find enough money to buy some beans and that's what I ate for six months and I'll tell you what I was extremely thankful for that. I mean I was just 12 so I hadn't put all the pieces together but now that I'm an adult and I look back on it I'm very thankful that that welfare was provided for me and I'm also very thankful that my father was able to get well and he was able to get a job and he was able to return to being a benefactor for our family. These are difficult issues I'm addressing and they're coming right out of the scriptures. This idea of justice is tied in the Bible quite, quite directly to how do you deal with the poor? How do you deal with people who don't have what you have? The Bible doesn't teach us to become unhealthy but it does teach us to be generous and so if we're going to make an error in the side of helping others I think there's a wisdom in making the error on the side of generosity. Now we're having a seminar and our church is coming Saturday and the seminar is going to address some of our dear friends up from coming to college are coming down and they're going to help us understand how to help without hurting right because you can help and you could hurt. You could show up at somebody's home with a bag full of Christmas presents while the unemployed father sits in the corner and we show up as the hero and he's sitting there thinking I sure would love to provide for my family. Maybe he's been out of work, maybe he was sick like my dad, maybe he's recently been paroled from prison and you know what is pretty hard to get a job when you're filling out that form and one of the first questions is have you ever been convicted? It's pretty tough and so I want us as a church to be quite sensitive to the poor and I want us to be quite sensitive to our own sin patterns of greed, of hoarding, of judging others unjustly. Surely we don't want to help somebody in a way that hurts them, surely we don't. But we do want to help. In fact God calls us to help. God tells us that as the church lives among the people they see the reality of the gospel, they see the reality of the kingdom in us. We're God's calling card so to speak. We're the ones who step forward. Jesus in Isaiah 61 says some powerful things I should say through the prophet Isaiah. I've already shot a head to Luke chapter 4 but in Isaiah 61 the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who were bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn. There's this beautiful manifestation of the kingdom of God that is to accompany our lives in Christ and surely Isaiah 61 is quoted by no one else than Jesus Christ in Luke 4 verses 16 to 21. He stands in front of a synagogue in Nazareth. He opens the scroll. He finds it actually. If you look carefully at the text you'll notice he found that particular passage in the scroll of Isaiah and then he read it and then he closed it and he said today the scripture is fulfilled in your presence. He's going to come and minister to the poor. He's going to come and set captives free and so we know that the Lord God cares about the poor. He not only cares about the poor and spirit he cares about the poor
and we find our great hope. We find our great hope in Christ because one of the greatest fears I have in my life is that I will receive justice that I will be treated in a plausible rational way and as a part of the reality of my life is that I'm a sinner before God and if he visits his justice on me I will stand condemned I will be guilty I am guilty and so part of me doesn't really plead for God's justice. Part of me pleads for God's mercy and we know that God's justice is visited on Jesus Christ who lived a perfect life and he took our sin upon him and he gave us his righteousness and so I don't want God's justice. I want his mercy and so we this group right here we're an expression of God's kingdom we're an expression at this very moment as we've come here to worship him there are medical professionals throughout our congregation who are an expression of God's kingdom they want to make people well they want to make people whole we have lawyers who are in our congregation who are seeking to bring justice who are looking to bring equity. Yesterday was a phenomenal day in our ministry here at the church we had an opportunity to go over to orchard knob and pick up trash and make our city more beautiful why because we want to be an expression of God's kingdom here in Chattanooga that's why he's placed us here we had an event at 10 in the morning just in our Douglas parking lot with a cancer awareness cancer awareness because Randy ship's wife Darlene died of cancer about a year ago and we had an event to make cancer more more aware more meaningful part of our lives how can we do to help what can we do to help how can we serve on Friday we had the Salvation Army ministry that started Friday morning. Friday night we had the first friends ministry and after the service these flowers are going to be rearranged and delivered to people throughout our congregation throughout our city as an expression of God's goodness last week Easter cakes were delivered over a hundred Easter cakes were delivered throughout our city why is this because God has called us called us to be an expression of the reality of the kingdom of God we have teachers we have police officers we have fire department we have single people who are giving their lives to our city we have people who go and tutor children throughout our city we have people who write checks in order to help feed the poor and the hungry this all together with many many more things as an expression of God's kingdom it's an expression of his Shalom we are to bring the Shalom of God to our city for his glory and for our good to restore health spiritual health physical health putting our ultimate hope in Christ and so I thank you people of God I thank you for the encouragement that you provide for me as a pastor when so many of you are so quick to volunteer you are so ready to give money you're so willing to do the hard things that people don't see when you're down there at that school tutoring or trying to get people to tutor because there's more students than you have tutors God bless you God bless you as you bless our city with the presence of Christ himself may God keep you may he carry you even today even today and how you serve him for his glory justice is making things right may God do that in our hearts in our church and throughout our city let's pray together father we come to you this morning from an Old Testament text that actually provides a very rich piece of fabric for culture a piece of fabric that speaks of justice a piece of fabric that when applied properly brings warmth protection goodness healing but Lord when there is injustice there's anger and frustration there's greed manifest through bribes through partiality and Lord God please help us as your people help the men and women who serve in our congregation help the men and women who serve our city Lord they serve give them integrity father thank you for their faithfulness help us to be a faithful manifestation of the kingdom of God Lord I pray that first Presbyterian Church would continue to and would expand our ministries to the poor to those who need jobs to those who are getting out of prison and need help Lord to those who are going through a difficult time in their life and they need someone to come alongside them may we be humble deliver us from being judgmental Lord help us to be humble people and follow after you and the best we know how in the power of your spirit and lastly thank you Jesus thank you you took the wrath of God you took the justice that I surely deserved and each and every person here deserves and you and your mercy and kindness dear God have given us grace thank you we praise you Lord and we ask you to help us please help us to live our lives in such a way that people say why are you doing this and we would tell them the gospel we would tell them about you and your saving power we pray this in Jesus name and all God's people said together amen would you please stand for the benediction this benediction is a good word from the Lord and I pray that you would carry it with you not simply out the doors of this building but into our city for his glory and now may the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you be gracious to you may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace both now and in the life everlasting amen