Seek Justice and Love Mercy

CHAPTER & VERSE
SEEK JUSTICE AND LOVE MERCY
DR. JIM DIXON
MICAH 6:6-8
JUNE 19, 2011

This coming Wednesday, some of us from the church are going to be traveling down to Memphis, Tennessee, for the General Assembly for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church was established in St. Louis in 1980 and had its first General Assembly in Detroit in 1981. I was one of the founders of the denomination. I was there in Saint Louis in 1980. I was there in Detroit in 1981. I was younger and I can tell you that my role was very small but now I am the only founder who remains active in ministry. Wherever I go to denominational things, I am venerated in ways I don’t want to be as the oldest guy around. We are looking forward to a great General Assembly down in Memphis.

I remember one of the earliest General Assemblies we invited Francis Schaeffer to come and speak to us. Francis Schaeffer was the founder of L’Abri Christian Conference Center in Switzerland. He was also, perhaps, one of the most influential Christians in the second half of the twentieth century. He was a great thinker and a great theologian and the author of over 20 books. In 1975 he published his renowned book called How Shall We Then Live? The Rise and Fall of Western Thought and Culture. In light of the rise and fall of Western thought and culture, how should we then live? I think it is a question that all Christians should ask. How should we then live? Particularly, once you have become a Christian, you have asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior and you have accepted him as your Savior for sin and have embraced him as Lord of lords, how should you then live?

As a Christian by grace through faith, living in a fallen world, how should you live? There are many verses in the Bible that some have suggested as answers. Some of have suggested the Golden Rule from the Sermon on the Mount. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is how you should live. That is not a bad answer. Others have suggested the Shema and its corollary in Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19:18: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and might, and love your neighbor as yourself. That is not a bad answer either.

Another answer that could be given is our verse today, Micah 6:8. How should we then live? “The Lord has shown you, O men, what is good. For what does the Lord require of you but to seek justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with your God.” Understand this is not a salvific verse; it is not the means of salvation. We are saved by faith in Christ through grace. But this has to do with how we should live out our lives. We are going to look at these three ingredients.

First of all, seek justice. Some of you, if you have studied British and American history, have heard of William Kidd. William Kidd was born in 1645 in Scotland. As a young man he became a privateer. Privateers were people who captained their own ship, but they were given permission by the British government to bear arms, to have a war ship and to use their ship to defend the cause of Britain. So, for many years William Kidd was a privateer. In 1691, when he was 46 years old, he moved to New York to the British colonies. In New York he married. He was kind of a renowned sea captain in New York. He helped to establish and found the Trinity Church in New York City.

In 1695, William Kidd crossed the ocean and returned to London where he was commissioned by King William III to captain a British warship and to fight piracy in the seas and to fight the French who were the enemies of the British. This William Kidd did. He fought in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic Ocean. He seized the bounty of many pirate ships and the bounty was rightfully his. He sunk many French ships in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and off the coast of India in the Red Sea.

Along the coast of Africa, at Madagascar, he had a kind of fall out with his chief gunner, a man named William Moore. Half of the crew sided with William Moore and half of the crew sided with William Kidd. So, William Kidd was left with just half of a crew. He sailed to the West Indies. In the West Indies he received the stunning news that he was now declared a pirate by the British crown. They accused him of attacking not only pirate ships and the French ships that were enemies of England but ships that were friendly to England and seizing their bounty. William Kidd said, “It is not true. I didn’t do it.”

He fled to New York City where he and some friends buried some treasure that they felt was rightfully theirs. Then he went to Boston where he was arrested. From Boston he was taken back to London, he was put on trial, and he was not allowed to defend himself. The records show, and we have the record, he just said one phrase over and over again. “I am a just man. I am a just man. I am a just man.” They convicted him. They hanged him. His body was left to rot by the Thames in the city of London.

In the aftermath of his death, his life was embellished and his exploits embellished and legends developed that William Kidd had treasure buried all over the earth. Ultimately, Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote his famed book Treasure Island, basing it on William Kidd. Today, historians are divided as they examine the life of William Kidd. Was he guilty? Was he innocent? Was it somewhere in between? You can find historians everywhere on this subject. The reality is he thought himself a just man. What he meant by that was that he had kept the laws of England, that he had not violated the civil laws of the British crown.

Now some day, each and every one of us are going to appear before judgment seat of Christ, before the final judgment. What are you going to say? Are you going to say I am a just woman? I am a just man? What are you going to say? The Bible makes it clear that with regard to the laws of God that none of us is just. According to the laws of God, none of us are righteous. The whole thrust of the Sermon of the Mount is that God looks on the inside, he looks at our thoughts, our motives and in the inner person there is none righteous, no not one. We know that when we appear at the judgment seat that Christ is our hope and his righteousness imputed to us is what the Gospel promises. We have no righteousness of our own. The heart of the Christian should still long for righteousness. The heart of the Christian should long for holiness. The question this morning is: do you long for holiness? Is there any part of you as you sit here this morning that just longs to be holy? Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Do you ever hunger for righteousness? Do you ever thirst for holiness? Do you seek justice in that sense?

Certainly, that is part of the meaning here, but it is not the whole of the meaning. The Hebrew word for justice is the word “mispat.” It is a little bit different from the Greek work for justice, which is “dikaios.” The Greek word for justice normally refers to the holiness and righteousness that we refer to. But this Hebrew word occasionally refers to holiness and righteousness. Normally it refers to fairness. It refers to a just world; it refers to a just society. It might be what you call social justice. How you treat the poor, how you treat the oppressed, this is all a part of “mispat.”

So, what God is saying here is, “So, how then shall we live?” You must seek a just society. Seek justice means to seek a fair world. This is a little bit different; it is different from personal holiness. Do you ever wake up in the morning and think about, “How do I make my neighborhood, my place of work, my city, my country, a fairer place, a place that treats people more justly?” This is the concept that is before us.

Throughout history many have longed for a fairer world. I think it is in the heart of people to desire a more just world. Plato, the Greek philosopher, dreamed of Atlantis and thought of Atlantis and wrote about Atlantis. He had access to ancient Egyptian manuscripts, which most historians believe he misread, he misread the dimensions and the geography and he was off by a factor of ten, so he “mislocated” the people of Atlantis. Many historians believe that the Minoan civilization was what he was referring to. The Minoan civilization was destroyed by volcanic eruption when Santorini, or Thera, exploded. It was in the heart of Plato too long for a better world, a more just world, a world where there was beauty and equality.

Coleridge dreamed of Xanadu. Of course, Coleridge dreamed of Xanadu in a drug-induced stupor, but he had this in his heart. When Coleridge was asked, “What are your favorite words in the whole world of literature? What are your favorite words ever written?” He said, “The Sermon on the Mount, and specifically Matthew 5:1-16,” which includes the Beatitudes and the call of Christ to be salt and light to the world. So, even in Coleridge, this messed up man, this brilliant and messed up man there was this longing for a better world, a just world, a fair world. He wanted to see society purified by salt and light.

And of course, Hilton dreamed of Shangri-La. We can look back at American history and see many of our political leaders who dreamed of a better world and a better society and a better nation. You can look on the great seal of the United States. On the back side of the great seal, you see Novus Ordo Seclorum. Those are Latin words: Novus Ordo Seclorum, which means New Order of the Ages. It was the dream of our founders that we would create this new order and it would have justice and it would be fair and it would be a just society. Franklin Roosevelt offered the New Deal and Harry Truman the Fair Deal, where he mentioned equal rights and equal opportunity. John Kennedy dreamed of the New Frontier. George Herbert Walker Bush spoke of a New World Order, although many believe Woodrow Wilson was the first to mention that phrase. We have had many leaders who have dreamed of a just world.

The question is, do you dream of a just world? And if you do, what are you doing about it? Are you doing anything? What would you do? If you wanted the world to be a little fairer, if you really cared about the poor, if you really cared about the impoverished, if you really were concerned about oppression in our country and around the world, what would you do? I am just saying we give you opportunities right here at Cherry Hills Community Church. That is why we have 21 ministries in the inner city, because we want a fairer world. That is why we offer to train you and to send you into the inner city to mentor kids, teenagers, elementary school kids, Hispanic kids, African-American kids, poor kids that someday they might compete for the dignity of a job, that we might help them in their education, that we might show them the love of Jesus. It is an opportunity to seek justice.

That is why we have Manna Ministries here at the church that is why we do it every week, week after week without end. There is no limit to the poor, the people who need food, to the people who need medical care, the people who need clothing. Have you ever thought, “Hey, maybe I will be a part of that.”? How shall we then live? Seek justice. We long for the New Heavens and the New Earth. We long for the New Jerusalem. It is all down the road, but today what are we doing?

Love kindness. That is the second charge given to us that we would love kindness. This is an awesome word in the Hebrew. The word for kindness is the word “hesed.” It is, without doubt, the most beautiful word in the Hebrew language, not phonetically, not by its sound, but by its meaning. “Hesed” is the word in the early church, in the first century, when Jewish men and women accepted Jesus Christ as their Messiah. What Hebrew word summed up the gospel? It was “hesed.” It sums up the gospels and it is as close as the Hebrew can possibly get to the New Testament concept of grace. In fact, when you look at the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, you find four Greek words, different Greek words, used to render this one Hebrew word “hesed.” The four Greek words, the New Testament words are “agape,” which refers to love and divine love; “charis,” which is the New Testament word for grace; “eleos,” which is the New Testament word for mercy; and “chrestos,” which is the New Testament word for kindness. These four words are used to render the one Hebrew word, so deep, so beautiful is this word “hesed.” This is what God expects of us.

How shall we then live? He wants us to be people of compassion. There is no word in the Hebrew language more rooted and richer in the concept of compassion than this word “hesed.” Let’s do a brief review. You come to the New Testament and you see that there are levels of compassion and Christ calls us to the deepest level of compassion. At the lowest level, at the most shallow level is the Greek word “sumpathos.” We get what English word from the Greek word “sumpathos?” We get the word sympathy from the Greek word “sumpathos.” It literally means to suffer with, sum, meaning “with,” and pathos, meaning “to suffer.” To suffer with and to feel what someone else feels. We all have this kind of compassion. There is no one in this room that has a complete inability to feel what someone else feels. We all have some level of “sumpathos,” some level of compassion. That’s why when you go to a movie and you see someone lose a loved one or in the pain of divorce or some kind of deep hurt, you tear up. You tear up because we are all made in the image of God and we all have that ability to feel “sumpathos.” When a friend comes up to you and they start to cry, you cry, because you feel what they feel. It’s “sumpathos.”

Now, there’s a deeper word, though. There’s a second word we’re called to, and it’s a deeper word for compassion. It’s “eusplanchnos.” “Eusplanchnos” is literally the prefix “eu,” “good,” and “splanchnos,” which is translated heart but means “bowels.” You can understand, maybe, why it is not translated “good bowels.” That sounds like some high fiber diet deal or something: Understand that in our culture we think of the emotions as centered in the heart. We think of compassion as centered in the heart and we think of love as kind of a heart deal. In ancient cultures, they thought a little bit lower, a little further down. They thought of the emotions and compassion as centered in the stomach, intestines, or the bowels. So, tenderhearted is the meaning. It is not the literal meaning, but it is the meaning in our culture.

“Eusplanchnos” is used of not simply of feeling what someone else feels but doing something about it. That is what makes this form of compassion deeper. So, if you have “eusplanchnos,” you not only feel what somebody else feels, you are not only capable of tears, but you do something about it. It is love in action. “Eusplanchnos” is love in action; you are moved to action, the meaning of the word. If you care about people, what are you doing about it?

Some of you have seen the movie The Blindside. The story is about Michael Orr, who is the great NFL football player. We had Michael Orr right here in our church. We had him here in conjunction with a Valor Christian High School Event. The movie is about a Christian family that adopts Michael Orr and exhibits lovingkindness. It is also about a Christian high school and the ministry that the Christian high school has in Michael Orr’s life. It is about love in action. Basically, it is true that when you practice lovingkindness you also serve social justice or you also seek justice.

We have this truth that if we are going to make the world better, if we are going to make the world fairer, if this is going to be a more just world, we are all going to have to roll up our shirtsleeves and do some acts of lovingkindness. Most of the stuff that we invite you to do, even the stuff in the inner city or with World Vision that might be in other parts of the world, serve to make the world a more just world, a more fair world, but they also involve the need for lovingkindness. These go hand in hand and we are asking you to be a part of this. “Eusplanchnos” doesn’t simply mean to feel what someone else feels, but to do something about it. This Christian family decided to do something about it, and they did.

There is a deeper word in the New Testament for compassion and that is the word “eleos,” and “eleos” is the deepest form of compassion. It is often times translated in your New Testament simply as compassion, but sometimes it translated as mercy. It means to show loving kindness to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Jesus taught us this word “eleos;” he called us to this word “eleos.” It means to show lovingkindness to those who don’t deserve it, and even to show lovingkindness to our enemies, to show lovingkindness to those who don’t like us, and to show lovingkindness to people that maybe we don’t like. This is the deepest form.

Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. In the story you know that Samaritans and Jews hated each other, had no dealings with each other, and had different religions, different races, and a great hatred. Jesus told the story about what it means to love your neighbor. He is calling for lovingkindness, even to your enemy. In the midst of the story as Jesus talks about the Samaritan going down the Jericho road and finding the wounded Jew, Jesus uses the word “eusplanchnos.” It says, “The Samaritan, upon seeing the wounded man was moved with compassion, ‘eusplanchnos,’ and being moved with compassion, went to him, ministered to him, put on ointment, bandages, put him on his beast, took him to an inn, and cared for him.” Love in action. “Eusplanchnos.”

Then at the end of the parable, Jesus said to the lawyer, “Who is the one who showed love? Who is the one who proved a neighbor?” The lawyer uses the word “eleos” because he understood that this was loving your enemy. This was the deepest kind of lovingkindness. Jesus was calling upon him to love his enemy and that is what he is calling upon us to do. So, how then shall we live? We seek justice; we love kindness, even in the deepest sense.

Finally, we walk humbly with our God. The word for humble in this is “sana,” and it is the only place in the New testament that this word is found in this particular form. Its meaning is very similar to a common Hebrew word for humility, “anah,” which is found 70 times. Both “sana” and “anah” mean submission. The concept here is obedience. How then shall we live? We seek justice, we love kindness, and we learn obedience, walking humbly with God. Learning obedience and submission. Understand, again, Micah 6:8 is not about salvation. We are not saved by our obedience. We are saved by faith in Christ by his grace by the cross. We are called to obedience. We are not saved by obedience, but we are called to obedience. How shall we then live? We need to learn obedience.

The word “anah” literally means to bow down. Jesus is looking for his people to bow down. He doesn’t want us to just tip the hat; all kinds of people tip the hat. You can watch award ceremonies in Hollywood and a lot of people tip the hat to God. It doesn’t matter if you are watching Country Music Awards, Hip-Hop Awards, Rap Awards, or Rock Awards, many of them get up there and say, “First, I want to thank God,” and tip the hat. Not enough. He wants us to bow down. “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you to do. Not all who call me Lord in that day will receive eternal life. To many I will say, ‘Depart from me, I never knew you.’ It is those who do the will of my father who are blessed.” We are called to walk humbly and to learn submission and to learn obedience.

On September 11th of this year, this will be the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, and the tragic terrorist attack perpetrated on New York City and the Twin Towers. Our whole nation will remember. Here at the church, this September 11th, it is a Sunday and that Sunday evening we are going to have a special event. We are going to invite all of you. It is a special event that deals with Islam. It will be headed up by the Institute at Cherry Hills by Lee Strobel and Mark Mittelberg; it is going to be a special night. It is going to have to do with understanding Islam. It is amazing how many people, after all this time, have such little understanding of Islam. It is also going to seek to help us understand how to bring Jesus to the Islamic world and to those Muslims we will hopefully get to know. It is going to be a very important night.

I don’t’ know how you feel about Islam. My guess is many of you don’t like it. I understand that. Very personally, I believe that the Quran and the Hadith and the Islamic faith have and are deceiving hundreds of millions of people. Wonderful people, precious people, are being deceived by the Quran and the Hadith and the Islamic faith. This is indeed tragedy. There are 1,300,000,000 Muslims in this world, nominally. Some of them are Arabs. Most Muslims are not Arabs, but most Arabs are Muslims. Ninety percent of Arabs are Muslim, about 300,000,000. That means 1,000,000,000 are not Arabs.

I don’t know how you feel about Arab people. I don’t know how many Arab people you know or who you have ever met, but the Arab people are wonderful people. They have great passion, they have great hospitality, and they have great love. The truth of the matter is, Barb and I travelled to Jordan, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, east of the Jordan River, to the city of Amman. A lot of tourists go to Amman on their way to Petra or Jarash, but we had a couple of days just to hang out. If you walk around Amman, you see Arab hospitality. It was really amazing as people came out of their houses; they didn’t know us at all. We are just walking neighborhoods. Arabs would come out of their house and say, “Oh, please come in. Have a cup of tea with us. Come in and have a cookie and tea with us.” We did. The truth of the matter is there was such a sense of friendliness and it was really genuine and it was really wonderful. When we told them we were from America, they said, “We love Americans.” That is not true in every Arab nation, but it is somewhat true in Jordan. We received very warm welcome there.

The Arab people are very proud of their history, proud of their culture, proud of Arab architecture and the arts. They’re glassblowers, metal makers, and pottery makers. Particularly in the zenith of their culture, from 700 to 1700, there are incredible works of architecture and art. They are very proud of their literature. From the 200 Tales of the Arabian Nights with Ali Baba and Sinbad to the 114 Surahs of the Quran, they are very proud of their literature. They are very proud of their culture. They are very proud, even, of their horses. Arabian horses were bred in Arabia and they are saddle horses, a little bit smaller than quarter horses, but majestic and beautiful.

I have told you the legend that came out of Arab myth, the legend of how the Arabian horses were bred. It is not a true story. It is a legend. It is a cool story about how Muhammed (and Muhammed was Arab) searched the world over for 100 of the finest horses and he brought them back to Arabia. There he trained them to respond to his bugle, to submit and to obey. He would blow his bugle and the horses had to stop whatever they were doing and come to him. Then he decided to test them. Muhammed took the 100 horses and put them on top of the hill in an enclosure above a fresh water stream and he denied them water. When their thirst was great, he opened the corral. These 100 horses just raced down the bank towards the river. When they were almost to the water, he took out his bugle and he blew it. Ninety-seven of the horses continued on into the water and drank and three dug their hoofs into the earth and stopped.

As the legend goes, from those three he bred the great race of Arabian horses. It is not true, but it is a cool story. The truth is, Muhammed had nothing to do with the breeding of Arabian horses. It is true in the Arabian culture that submission is of supreme value. In the Arab culture submission is the key to everything. In the Islamic world, in the Muslim world, submission is the key to everything. Islam means submission. In Islam you find salvation by submission to God.

Liberal Muslims would view Christians and Jews as saved by their submission. If we are submissive to God, they would say it is all part of submission. Submission is the key to everything. Submission is the key to salvation and blessing and they key to all the blessings of life. As Christians, we know that is not right. We know the key to everything is grace. It is the grace of God. It is the cross of Christ. It is faith in Christ and salvation by his grace alone. Once we are saved, we are called to submission.

This call is clearly given in Scripture that we have been called to submit to him. How are you doing with that? Do you wake up each day and think, “How can I seek justice today? How can I seek to make it a fairer world? How can I love kindness? What compassion can I do today? How am I doing in terms of walking humbly with my God? How am I submitting to the authority of Christ?” Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” You can’t live life in this world without learning to say, “no.” There are certain things you can’t do and certain places you can’t go because you are followers of Jesus. You have to be different than the world. You have to live differently. How shall we then live? Differently. What does the Lord require of you but to seek justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.