"Covenantal Justice: Guarding the Gates " Part 4

Let's go to Lord in prayer. Father I thank you for the time you've given us and what

I thank you for I thank you for the hope that we have in Christ and for the instruction that we have that we've been following even this morning that we are to not look upon things here on earth but to fix our gaze upon Christ who even now is at the right hand of a father who was enthroned it was a name above every name and all authority and I thank you that the hope that we have is by fixing our attention on him all of the the challenges and the difficulties of this world are put into their proper light and you give us clarity on the direction we are to go and this is what we asked for this morning as we look at your word that you would clarify for us who

Christ is that in this that you would show us how now we will live we thank you for your grace that is so abundant and ask that you would just help us today to worship before we do not do this on our own but we are dependent upon you pray these things for Christ's sake amen well

I invite you to open your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Jeremiah Jeremiah chapter 22 and we're looking at verses 1 through 9 again at the theme of covenantal justice the temptation is that when we read a passage in the

Bible that says do justice and do righteousness and a passage in the Bible that says look at the look at the stranger and some of your translations will say refugee look at the alien the foreigner to look at the widow and the orphan to consider the blood of the innocent and to consider the right to the poor the temptation is in our time in our country right now is to immediately read into these verses what we hear on the news to read into these verses what we have maybe have discussed around the dinner table or what we have seen posted by our friends and that's that temptation we must resist because this is a this is a word this is the

Word of God the perfect true sufficient and fallible inerrant Word of God and this word is all about one person and his name is

Jesus Christ this is about Christ and by extension everything that matters in the whole history of the world including you and I so when we read this passage it's not about today's newspaper it's about who

Christ is and what he has to say about today's newspaper and you may think that semantics but it's everything it's absolutely everything and so as we read this passage again our challenge is to put our attention upon the true son of David who sits upon the throne and to hear what he has to say

I invite you to give reverence to Christ and stand with me as we read Jeremiah 22 verses 1 through 9 thus says the

Lord go down to the house of the King of Judah and there speak this word and say hear the word of the

Lord O King of Judah who sits on David's throne you and your servants and your people who enter these gates thus says the

Lord do justice and righteousness and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger the orphan or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place for if you men will indeed perform this thing then kings will enter the gates of this house sitting in David's place on his throne riding and chariots and on horses even the king himself and his servants and his people but if you will not obey these words

I swear by myself declares the Lord that this house will become a desolation for thus says the

Lord concerning the house of the King of Judah he were like Gilead to me like the summit of Lebanon yet most assuredly

I will make you like a wilderness like cities which are not inhabited for I will set apart destroyers against you each with his weapons and they will cut down your choices cedars and throw them on the fire many nations will pass by this city and they will say to one another why has the

Lord done thus to this great city then they will answer because they forsook the covenant of the

Lord their God and bowed down to other gods and served them and this is the word of the

Lord you may be seated about three months ago

I was at a traffic light I was about to cross I -40 on the bridge Western so the crossover and there's all these traffic lights everywhere and so you have to sit there quite a while to make it through it's a popular place for beggars if you take that route generally you'll learn to see the regulars and you know who's who you might come up with names for them but they all seem to have their own little spiel their own little way to get your attention and hope that you will give them something and it's kind of a sad thing to look at and you wonder about who they really are and what they really actually need but I have to confess

I have a really hard time telling who is actually in need and then if I actually find somebody in need what to actually do about it maybe you have the same experience actually assessing who is in need and then what action do you possibly take that will in truly help and nothing was so emphasized that to me as I was sitting at this traffic light and I was looking around and there was this one grizzled man layered in his possessions and he had the you know the the traditional cardboard sign and on one side of it it said anything helps

God bless and then the other side said saving up for a hooker well

I've got to tell you it's hard for me to assess who is really in need and then if I find out what what their needs are what actions do

I take that actually helps I'm beside myself why do

I care about this why do we care about this is because God says some things about that and I want us to know what he says

I have trouble having a balanced biblical response everything from guilt feelings and cynicism keep the pendulum swinging back and forth if I have guilt feelings on that particular day

I might try to solve that guilty feeling in my heart by by the measure of cheap grace

I'm just gonna fund their folly I'm gonna give something to them and I'll feel better about myself or if the pendulum's on the cynicism side

I'm just gonna leave them in my exhaust surely there's a better way sure there's a more biblical way to live a

Christian way to live following Christ would look different somehow and that's why it's so important that we pay attention to what is said here in Jeremiah 22 and in other places of Scripture I'm so thankful for my

Savior my Shepherd Jesus Christ he is our trailblazing captain through suffering to glory he is the author of our faith and the king who saves saves us for God and brings us to glory last week we confessed that only where Jesus reigns will justice rise only where Jesus reigns will justice rise it is absolutely impossible for there to be true good and true justice to is impossible for us to love others rightly unless Jesus reigns over us only the justified do justice well this morning as we continue our look at verse 3 of our text as we conclude our consideration of the task of Kings what is it that God tells the

King to do I think we find this that a righteous King a righteous

King sees the needy and saves the oppressed I guess what our passage says that a righteous

King saves the needy sees the needy and saves the oppressed and to be more specific

Christ our King sees the needy saves the oppressed verses 1 through 5 puts our attention upon the gates the gates are important because the gates are the places of justice the gates were where court decisions were made from the

Kings from the Kings gate which was the highest court in the land to all the other courts to all the other gates in Jerusalem and to the gates of the villages and the cities outside of Jerusalem it mattered what happened in those gates because that's where cases were heard and judgments were rendered and so our attention is placed there as the word comes from God's throne to David's throne from the gate of the temple to the gate of the

King's house and God says to the King you need to do justice and you need to do righteousness you and everybody with you because if you do not have justice in your gates then there will be judgment upon your house so the task of the

King then is to mediate the authority of God the King does not the King does not rule by his own authority the

King doesn't rule by his his own wisdom he must rule according to the authority of God and we see that in four ways he has to reign by the covenant as the

King of Judah on the throne of David his job is to ensure that he and the whole nation are in conformity to the covenant

God made with him Sinai also he is to represent the people because of his massive influence because of his role as an intercessor between the people and God he must represent them well and now we're to the third way in which

Kings are to mediate the authority of God and that is to rescue the oppressed so look at verse 3 with me verse 3 of Jeremiah 22 thus says the

Lord do justice and righteousness and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor do justice do righteousness not only is the king to stand in the place of his people but he is actually to stand up for his people when he sees that there is one who is under the power of an oppressor it is the

King's job to deliver them to do the right thing to do the just thing and actively deliver the one who is being oppressed this is the concern of a righteous

King Proverbs 29 7 says this the righteous is concerned for the needs or for the rights of the poor the righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor the wicked does not understand such concern why is the righteous concern for the rights of the poor not because they're poor but because of what is right and if you're if you love righteousness you love it thoroughly to the nth degree no matter where it is but the wicked do not understand such concern and we have wicked

Kings reigning on the throne of David in Jerusalem those who follow

Josiah Jehoahaz Jehoiakim Jehoiakim and Zedekiah were all wicked

Kings who didn't care about what was right so God's word to the house of Judah is that they would do justice and do righteousness to follow through on the instructions that God has given the

King in verse 3 requires that we understand two thefts there are two thefts as part of verse 3 the first theft is that of extortion you look in verse 3 look at the word oppressor and the word robbed perhaps you have a different translation but the

New American Standard says thus says the Lord do justice and righteousness and deliver the one who has been robbed he's been robbed deliver him from the power of his oppressor the one oppressing him the word robbed and the word oppressor both have this idea extortion extortion that's the theft the first theft we need to understand or that look like Jeremiah the prophet is bringing the word of the

Lord to the king and he's saying look Oh King look there's a man who is trapped bad situation he fell on hard times and he had to sell his plow to a neighbor now his neighbor oppresses him he lets him use the plow but then he takes most of the harvest they could have had a fairer arrangement but no and this man is desperate and so that's how it works look

Oh King there's a woman who's in the bonds of oppression her husband divorced her for another woman she has no income no way to support herself and her children and so she cooks and she gardens and she cleans for her neighbor who gives her hardly enough to even feed herself and her family and he just doesn't care what go

King they're the children who have no parents and they live in the hollows of the Valley of Ben -Hinnom they they live in Topheth and they wander into Jerusalem through the dung gate and they smell like it too and they beg and they scrounge for anything they can get but no one cares about them except those who might employ them to carry out their own dung and they don't give him anything hardly at all they just don't care look

Oh King there's a stranger who came from Edom and his donkey died on the trade route and he needed help to get back home to his family and so he worked as a vine dresser for one of your nobles

Oh King but he didn't pay him for a whole month and when the man pressed the issue well even now his blood cries out from the ground behind the vineyard those are the kinds of situations that the king is turning a blind eye to and doesn't care about and the

Prophet is saying hey God cares about this kind of thing well you need to pay attention so theft number two thus says the

Lord do justice and righteousness and deliver the word deliver deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor that word is in the

Hebrew it is the word for stripping the enemy of his armor his weapons his prisoners and his treasures the word for plunder when the

Amalekites raided Ziklag and took the wives and children possessions of David and all of his mighty men they gave chase to them and in the middle of the

Amalekite victory party David fell upon the oppressors with fierce wrath and skillful blade and he slaughtered them from one dusk to the next and verse 18 of 1st

Samuel 30 says this so David recovered same word he recovered all that the

Amalekites had taken and rescued same word his two wives he plundered them he stole back from the enemy those who had been taken and that's what the king is supposed to do the righteous king is to look at the one who is in the bonds of an extortioner of an oppressor and the righteous king is to go and steal from the oppressor what was not rightfully his and deliver the oppressed that's what the job of the king is and so that's what the

Prophet is saying look Oh King look Oh King of Judah who sits on David's throne see the man held by the throat the woman drugged by the hair the children kicked along the widow and orphans mourning there the man they knew as husband and father see their extortioners see their oppressors fall upon them as they eat drink and dance during their unjust gains and take away from them those they have taken do justice do righteousness so King of Judah on David's throne and so it's rather a shock that when the king who would sit eternally on David's throne the son of David it's just shocked that when he came he did not exactly fit this description the shouts rolled in a wave there he was the king of Zion David's heir the

Messiah he rode the royal prophetic donkey towards the royal prophetic city and so the people laid down their coats in front of him like a new conquering

Jehu they waved the palm branches in honor of him this new delivering

Judas Maccabeus a saying Psalm 118 verse 26 in praise to him that one they felt sure would give to them the kingdom this restoring new

David after all the Jesus who could repel demons could repel

Romans and the Jesus who could free beggars from diseases and deformities could liberate poor

Israel from her overlords and wasn't Israel greatly oppressed horribly oppressed by the

Romans and unjust self -serving racist governments but in all of their fervor they forgot what

Christ had consistently taught and they ignored what Christ had come to do Christ our

King sees the needy and he saves the oppressed but they had made the signs of the gospel the gospel itself when he delivered them from their diseases and their demons they clamored for more but then

Jesus said let us go somewhere else so that I may preach there also for that is what

I came to do when he gave them bread filling their hungry bellies they all planned to make him king by force but Jesus withdrew from them to be by himself alone

John 6 says see they had equated their felt need with their oppression and that's how they sought salvation from Jesus Christ on those terms they looked at Jesus Christ they said hey you're the king right you're the king of Judah you're

David's heir and what is a king to do a king is to do justice and righteousness a king is to deliver those oppressed from their oppressors so it's time but Jesus Christ did not come to live and die and be raised and ascended as the perfect God man to save us from our needs or to save us from our felt oppression or even to save us from our any actual socio political economic oppression he came to save us from our sins that's why he came she will bear a son and you shall call his name

Jesus Yeshua for he shall save his people from their sins their sins first Timothy 115 says it is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners came to liberate us from the clutches of Satan the oppression of the devil according to Luke 11

Christ bound the strong man meaning the enemy meeting Satan he bound the strong man and plundered from him those he had taken captive the likes of you and I he is a righteous

King he does see the needy and he does deliver us from our oppression and he does care that justice and righteousness would be done among those people he has created but let us remember why

Christ came the first time to save us from our sins and there will come a day when righteousness dwells only and there will be no more tears and no more sighing and no more pain and no more crime and no more extortion and no more oppression and Christ will bring that too but we need to define oppression biblically

I don't want us to make the same critical devastating doctrinal error as those Hosanna howlers because they turn into crucify criers just days later

I said Hosanna one day and they say crucify him the next because they conflated the signs of the gospel with the gospel itself let us not think that Christ came to save us from our needs let us not think that the presence of need means the presence of oppression just because a need exists in your life doesn't mean that someone is oppressing you let us not think that if we have less than someone else down the road that we are oppressed that is the exact lie

Satan told Eve in the garden that Satan convinced Eve that because she had less than God because she had less wisdom than God less knowledge than God and that God had one more tree than she did that somehow

God was in the wrong that he must not be good he must be the oppressor and she must have full liberation let us not think that the presence of needs means the absence of justice

God himself gives to all people life and breath and all things we need to define oppression biblically it is absolutely true that we live in a world full of sin and we live in a world that is cursed and we live in a world that is full of both spiritual and secular and personal oppression and there are all sorts of people being sinned against in awful ways this is the facts this is why

God sent his son to save us from our sins these are the facts but let's define the oppression biblically that it's a sin problem and Christ came to save us from our sins and thus we need to counter oppression biblically when we look at Christ as he goes about we find him to be a powerful and compassionate gospel preacher and that he is compassionate to the lame and to the blind and to the demon -possessed and the bereaved and he is compassionate over and over and over again and he never stops with a compassion but compassion for Jesus Christ as he looks at people those who are made in God's image the likes of whom he came to save and he shows them compassion he then says repent and believe in the gospel and he will not be detained on compassion centered missions if it means keeping him from preaching the gospel that's what he came to do he said and we need to have that priority in our lives so we're trying to clarify how it is that we're to be compassionate and we're to help those in need let's be clear that the needs of anyone we meet primarily are going to be the needs that come from sin the need for a

Savior the need for new life and that compassion is not the replacement for evangelism but the platform of evangelism if I see someone who was hungry or thirsty or naked and I give them food and water and clothing it is because I love

Christ and Christ loves me and I love this person by his grace but I if I really love them and if I really care about them and not just my guilty conscience then

I'm going to preach the scriptures to them preach the gospel to them because that's what they really need if I've been a woke if I've been awakened in Christ and I know oppression when

I see it I see spiritual oppression I see the devil oppressing I see sin oppressing and that's what people need deliverance from I should care about that above everything else why if we feed all the hungry and clothed all the naked house all the homeless hire every beggar if we mend every marriage train every parent save every addict and heal every city if we free every slave and love every bum and own every need and right every wrong we still go to hell and so do they so we have to be very careful about any

Christian mission that seeks the flourishing of man incessantly in the saving of people occasionally it's only where Jesus reigns that justice will rise and only those in Christ will love others rightly and we need to write in justices

Christ certainly aim to fulfill all righteousness and Christ is

King will certainly write every injustice as he will preside over the judgment of all mankind and he's the one we follow so we should we ought to care about injustices and if we actually care then we need to see the people before we solve the problem you see the people how can we love people rightly if we see people wrongly and very often we don't want to look at people who are in need let's just be honest

Jeremiah 22 3 takes us around the four -point compass of human need let's hear it again do not also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger the orphan or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place these people receive special attention in God's Word not just this verse but in many many other places in the

Old Testament and in the life of Christ as he ministers to this person and this person in the next these folks get special attention in God's Word precisely because these are the kinds of folks that instinctively we don't want to look at we just don't want to look at him our we would feel a lot better if we didn't have to see them at all consider the stranger the word means a sojourner an alien a foreigner an immigrant it sounds kind of strange but when my family moved to Tennessee and we lived just above the

Mississippi border that people were friendly enough as the South is known for but we were outsiders and treated as such in many occasions

I gotta tell you if Tennesseans just by instinct treat Oklahomans far different than their own kin it's not so much of a stretch for it to say that we've all we've all treated people from afar not as they deserve to be treated if they're made in the image of God let's just be honest there's great concern about refugees and about immigrants and I understand why but what happens when you individually see someone who is a sojourner a stranger an alien a foreigner do we see them as merely troublemakers in need of punishment if they're if they're here illegally and maybe they do need prosecution but maybe they don't and maybe if we would look at him as made in the image of God we would treat him a little bit differently not as an issue but as a person

I don't wanna be treated as an issue so when

Christ tells us to love others rightly we should not treat people like issues but as people we have that privilege we have that opportunity to love others to see them we have to see them first what about orphans now while we see strangers and aliens and foreigners foreigners and immigrants all over the place we often don't see orphans do we orphans are usually out of our sight and I think they're probably out of the sight of Kings in general cases orphans are generally gathered up in care facilities and funneled through a system designed for paperwork and not people

I don't know about you but it's hard to look at children who are suffering the effects of the abuse from their meth -addicted parents it's hard to be around kids like that it's hard to try to find a way to help them it's hard to be around orphans who have social problems and many have sacrificed and put their own marriages on the line to try to care for orphans what about the widow there is the younger widow who's left with her children or perhaps without maybe her husband served our country in the military and died in combat or maybe he died from suicide what about her maybe her husband left her for another woman and who dares to look upon her pain and show her compassion to love her though she's full of flashing anger and roiling bitterness what a difficult thing to do there's another widow whose husband has been with Christ a long time and she has remained and she needs companionship she needs a little help and a lot of comfort do we see that widow we look pastor what about the innocent the blood of the innocent the innocent are those who have done nothing to merit their death but in our cynicism often we will see all sufferers as guilty deserving what you get many millions of other times the innocent live and die their precious lives and spilt blood entirely covered by the treacherous womb and the sociopath's office called an abortion clinic and they are hidden from the sight of the righteous but we must care about them and do justice and all these things why would we be concerned about the about the sojourner the stranger the orphan the widow the innocent because God is because God is concerned about it does it help us does it convenience us is it about bringing a warm feeling to our hearts it's about worshiping the

God who made us and God sees these people so we should see them he cares about them so we should care about them and and treat them in the way that God would have us to treat them let's remember that Christ looked upon low

Luhama and low on me and he said I will have compassion and you are my people so we must see the people these needy outsiders and the hated helpless and then stop the problem he says to the king do not mistreat or do violence to the needy and the king could do both of those he could do both of those he can mistreat them the idea is that he could mistreat them with his nobles or subdue them with his power he could force them into doing something that would be wrong he could generally just exercise tyranny over them he could also do them violence he had exposed him to danger he just flat -out harm them and in this do not mistreat or do violence the first the first word has to do with the king's power of the whole nation his social power and the second his personal power should the king be unjust with his verdicts in the gate of his own house then then then he would be guilty of shedding innocent blood and he would side with the rich and the powerful and the noble the attractive the complimentary and condemned to death the scapegoat immigrant the thieving orphan and the questionable widow these are the sinful tendencies that we have but it's a sin problem

Christ came to save us from our sins and give us a new heart that we would love others rightly

Christ our king sees the needy and he saves the oppressed just how difficult would it be for a king to rule justly and to get it right what a tall task for one person and yet Christ has proverbs 29 14 says if a king judges the poor with truth his throne will be established forever now if a king manipulates the poor with lies be strong will not last but if a king judges the poor with truth his throne will be established forever helping people in need is exceptionally challenging it's hard to see who's really in need and then trying to figure out what action do you take it's very difficult but it comes down to us following Christ right if I'm following Jesus if if it's his character that's being formed in me when

I meet someone by the by what the Holy Spirit has has forged in my heart through the

Word of God by God's grace I can love that person rightly I I can see them

I can look them in the eye I can I can give them a warm and friendly face at the very least

I can hear who they are and I can be able to love them in a right way not in a way that because I'm trying to solve my guilt feelings and not ignore them because I think they're all scum but I would actually see people as made in the image of God and because I'm following Christ and filled with the love of Christ I can love that person rightly

I can love that person rightly and it comes down to those individual moments in your life remember they're not issues they're people they're persons that God and the sovereignty has come across our path from day to day loving others rightly there's a song psalm 72 that I'm going to conclude with because it's a song of praise unto

Christ and it reminds us who Jesus Christ is as our King and reminds us of what of who he is and what he does for the needy and I'm counting myself among the needy

I'm counting myself among the poor in spirit those who have great needs and in need of salvation those who have nothing to contribute and nothing to earn salvation by but this is

Christ our King beginning in verse 2 of Psalm 72 Christ our

King sees the needy and he saves the oppressed may he judge your people with righteousness and your afflicted with justice but the mountains bring peace to the people and the hills and righteousness may he vindicate the afflicted of the people save the children of the needy and crush the oppressor let them fear you while the

Sun endures and as long as the moon throughout all generations may he come down like rain upon the mown grass like showers that water the earth in his days may the righteous flourish and abundance of peace to the moon is no more may he also rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth of the nomads of the desert bow before him and his enemies lick the dust of the kings of Tarshish and of the islands bring presents the kings of Sheba and Saba offer gifts and that all the kings bow down before him all nations serve him for he will deliver the needy when he cries for help the afflicted also and him who has no helper he will have compassion on the poor and needy and the lives of the needy he will save he will rescue their life from oppression and violence and their blood will be precious in his sight so may he live and may the gold of Sheba be given to him and let them pray for him continually let them bless him all day long may there be abundance of grain in the earth from the top of the mountains its fruit will wave like the cedars of Lebanon and may those from the city flourish like vegetation of the earth may his name endure forever may his name increase as long as the sun shines and that men bless themselves by him that all nations call him blessed blessed be the

Lord God the God of Israel who alone works wonders and blessed be his glorious name forever and may the whole earth be filled with his glory amen and amen father we come before you this morning confess that our hope in the righteous king is our hope in Jesus Christ he cares about the needy and he cares about the afflicted and we know what he has done in our behalf to save us from our sins and I pray