Justice and Mercy

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday morning the 28th of June, 2020 at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  This was an abbreviated service, also streamed live, due to constraints put in place from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Our YouTube streaming channel is:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg.  Look for the video of our recorded services on our Vimeo channel:  http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

So often these days we see people crying out for justice, demanding justice for what they see as a wrongful act.  When we witness or experience a criminal act, we want to see justice done, we want lawfulness to prevail.  But what is justice?  Well, it’s root word is “just”, and one good definition for “just” is guided by truth, reason, and fairness.  So we can say that justice is the quality of being guided by truth, reason, and fairness.

Justice also refers to moral rightness and lawfulness.  Our legal justice system is charged with maintaining the law, administering punishment, or reward, as deserved and determined.  But we know there is a higher law than man’s law, one which we believers should strive mightily to obey.  In God’s view, justice is righteousness – being right with God.  When we seek justice, we should be asking for what is right in God’s eyes.  We should look to what God would want of us.

The prophet Micah addresses this very subject.  Please listen and follow along to the words of great wisdom Micah brings us in chapter 6, verses 6 through 8 of the book of prophecy bearing his name, and I’ll be reading this from the Contemporary English Version of our Holy Bible…

6 What offering should I bring
when I bow down to worship
the Lord God Most High?
Should I try to please Him
by sacrificing
calves a year old?
7 Will thousands of sheep
or rivers of olive oil
make God satisfied with me?
Should I sacrifice to the Lord
my first-born child
as payment
for my terrible sins?
8 The Lord God has told us
what is right
and what He demands:
“See that justice is done,
let mercy be your first concern,
and humbly obey your God.”

--Micah 6:6-8 (CEV)

Let us pray…  Father God, again we thank You for the instructions You give us in our Bible.  Through these words, You show us what matters most to You.  We can see that giving up things or offering sacrifices does not mean as much to You as how we live and how we treat others.  Please help us to be more worthy of the great love You show us.  Help us to be more merciful in our interactions.  Help us to seek after justice and righteousness.  And Father, please protect this family from all the effects of the coronavirus and what is going on in the world today.  Please keep us strong in our faith, unified in our love and worship, and healthy and safe through the days ahead.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit and better understand the message You have for us for this day and for every day.  Speak to us of what You want, what You demand of us.  Help us take guidance and strength from the words of those who spoke for You in our Bible and from Your Holy Spirit within us. This we pray under the blood and in the name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.


Sometimes, justice just seems to happen, as if by divine intervention.  A burglar in Antwerp, Belgium, was surprised in the act by the homeowners' return.  The thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, and dropped down to the other side ... only to find himself in the city prison.

Sometimes, human justice is avoided.  Horace Gray, before becoming a US Supreme Court Justice, once address a man in a lower court who had escaped conviction on a technicality.  Judge Gray told the man, "I know that you are guilty, and you know it.  But I wish you to remember that one day you will stand before a better and wiser Judge, and that there you will be dealt with according to justice and not according to law."


That first little incident would be my luck, to end up jumping right into the jail compound while trying to flee arrest.  And it is comforting those times when we can see God’s hand at work in justice being administered when man seemed incapable of doing so.

And that is evident in the second incident, with the man being let off on a technicality.  We see or hear about that quite often, with someone being pretty obviously guilty of a crime being set free because of some technical detail that was overlooked.

Well, when it comes time for God to administer the final justice, there will be no technicalities to consider.  In God’s courtroom, there is right and wrong; nothing more, nothing less.


Micah speaks of justice and mercy, and of humbly obeying God.  The prophet doesn’t offer these as suggestions for a long and good life.  No, these are what God demands, what God has told us is right and just.

Micah and Isaiah were contemporaries, with Isaiah speaking for God in the high courts of Jerusalem while Micah spent more time with the common people.  But they both shared this theme of doing what God says is good.  In the 1st chapter, verse 17 of his book of prophecy, Isaiah tells us…

17 Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Rebuke the oppressor;
Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow.

--Isaiah 1:17 (NKJV)

Rebuking the oppressor, calling them out for their misdeeds, defending the fatherless rather than ignoring or belittling them, pleading for the widowed, the vulnerable…  These are all ways of seeking justice, of doing right, of striving for righteousness.


Now, we know something is important to God when He repeats Himself in our Bible.  Well, there was another prophet, another speaker for God, who addressed this subject of justice and mercy.  Zechariah began his ministry some 200 years after Isaiah and Micah, yet God spoke to him the same message He gave the others.  Listen to what Zechariah recorded for us in his book of prophecy, chapter 7, verses 8 through 10…

8 Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts:

‘Execute true justice,
Show mercy and compassion
Everyone to his brother.
10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless,
The alien or the poor.
Let none of you plan evil in his heart
Against his brother.’"

--Zechariah 7:8-10 (NKJV)

Execute true justice – not necessarily man’s justice but God’s justice, righteousness.  Execute righteousness and show compassion and mercy to everyone.  Don’t even think about being an oppressor of others, and don’t harbor any ill will in our hearts.  Like we said a few weeks back: do no harm to anyone.


Now there are words from one more prophet I’d like to share, one more who spoke for God.  Our Lord Jesus always spoke for God, and He also addresses the importance of justice and mercy.  We touched on this two weeks ago.  In the Apostle Matthew’s Gospel account, chapter 23 verse 23, Jesus says…

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone."

--Matthew 23:23 (NKJV)

Jesus said that we must be more righteous, more just, than the scribes and Pharisees or we will not be granted access to heaven.  Of course, if we believe in Jesus as Lord, as the Son of God, we are already more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees who refused Jesus.  But here Jesus tells us to be more righteous than them by doing what they neglected.  Sure, they went through all the rituals and made the correct sacrifices.  But as Micah tells us, that isn’t what matters most to God.  God wants us to focus more on justice and mercy and faith.  This is what God wants of us, demands of us, expects of us.


As I mentioned, more and more, people today are demanding justice.  Yet mercy and kindness seem to be in short supply.  Do you think God is happy about all this?  What sacrifice can we offer Him to atone for our sin of apathy, of uncaring, of hostility?  How do we please God?  How can we love others as Jesus tells us to?

Let’s remember the prayer St. Francis lifted to God so long ago, that is so needed today.  O Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.  Father, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; not to be understood, but to understand; not to be loved, but to love.

Seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before God.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, our Master, our Savior.  Amen.


Let us pray…  Father God, again we thank You for Your word preserved for us in our Bible.  Through this book You tell us what is right, and what You expect of us.  Thank You, Father, for extending so much love and compassion and mercy on us so that we might be saved from eternal condemnation and given everlasting life with You in paradise.  Please help us as we strive to meet Your expectations, Your demands.  Help us to seek justice, to do right, to show compassion in all we do.  And help us be more faithful, more trusting, more loving, more merciful, and more kindhearted in our daily dealings with our brothers and sisters in Christ and with all those around us.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You straight from our hearts, promising to repent of our sinful ways, seeking Your forgiveness and Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, You admonished the religious leaders of the Jewish people for their failure to do what is right in God’s eyes.  They didn’t listen to their own prophets, especially Micah who told them what God demands of us.  They neglected what truly matters: to seek justice, to show mercy, to have true faith.  Jesus, help us, please, to be more righteous than those men.  Help us to see others through Your eyes and to act out of love just as You would.  And please, Lord, stand by our side as we struggle through these very trying times.  Help us remain faithful, just, merciful, and humble through it all.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.