A Just Society

Our scripture reading for today will be found in Isaiah 11. Please stand for the reading of God's Word.

Going to read Isaiah 11, verses 1 through 10. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the

Lord, and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear.

But with the righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall kill the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fatted calf together, and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze, the young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the

Lord as the waters cover the sea. And that day the root of Jesse who shall stand as a signal for the peoples, of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that as we come here to your word that you would bless its reading, that you would bless its hearing, that as we gather today to worship you that we would be filled with all for you and for your

Son, and I pray that we would recognize the truths that this passage has and that our hearts would be transformed by them.

In Jesus' name, amen. So just a little recap, you know, we're in between series here, one dealing with unity in 1

Corinthians, and then in the new year, either next week or the week after, we'll begin looking at 1 and 2

Thessalonians, talking about what those books have to say about awaiting Christ, waiting for him in between Advents, in between his first coming and his second coming.

But here today we're going to a book that we haven't been to in a while, Isaiah, and we're picking up where we left off in I at the end of Isaiah 10, and here we are in Isaiah 11.

Now I'd like to begin by asking you what your biggest takeaway from this year has been.

As you've ended the year, what are you left with a greater appreciation of or a greater concern for?

You know, I think for a lot of people, because of the pandemic, they might have a greater appreciation for health or a greater appreciation for advances in medical technology or maybe communications technology, because they're able to talk to each other from far away, even though meetings have been inhibited.

Perhaps these are the kinds of things that you come away with a greater appreciation for. For me, the thing that is most on my mind throughout this year is the importance of justice.

This year has really led me to—this was a topic I had a growing interest in already—but this year has really led me to read books on justice, to look at what the

Bible says about God's justice and man's administration of it. Justice has been just a serious thing that this year has raised to the fore, whether it be the issues regarding the lockdown restrictions,

Supreme Court cases and the Supreme Court appointment, whether it be the newly opened questions of police brutality or questions of racial equity.

There are many things that have happened this year. Another one that comes to mind is questions around the justice of election administration.

A lot of things bring to mind this question of justice, and I think people of all different political positions recognize that justice is at stake in our country.

They recognize that something is wrong. Now, they may disagree about what the problems of justice are or how they ought to be corrected, but everyone recognizes that justice is at stake and, moreover, that unjust societies suffer destruction, that just societies generally prosper, unjust societies generally decline, and people recognize that there's this principle that happens where that is the case.

They don't all acknowledge the agent of that principle, but that agent of that principle is God. It is by God's hand that just societies prosper and flourish and unjust societies decline.

Justice is something that flows from God's very nature, and so to go against justice is to go against God and to incur his curse.

And so as we look at this passage, we see Judah, who has become an increasingly unjust society, and because of that injustice,

God has cursed Judah, and they are losing their standing as a nation. They are becoming more and more on the decline.

They are coming closer and closer to destruction, and the only thing that can save them, the only one who can save them, is

God through his Savior, Jesus Christ. So as we look at this, we're going to see that the problem of injustice lies within us and that the solution, the answer to that problem, lies in Jesus Christ.

Let's begin here in verse 1. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

It speaks of the stump of Jesse. Jesse is the father of David. You can read about him in 1

Samuel 16. So what this is speaking of is this is a metonym or a replacement word for Judah, this stump of Jesse.

And more particularly, the kings that came from David, this whole kingly line, this whole kingly line is on a decline.

That's why it's called a stump. The kings have gotten worse and worse since Solomon, and now they're at Ahaz, a particularly bad king who has allowed injustice to rise.

And the scripture does not give us many specifics about what kinds of injustice existed, but it does tell us that people were accepting bribes, that that all kinds of injustice were happening under this man's rule.

And that phrase stump points particularly to the previous verse, verse 34 of chapter 10.

He will cut down the thicket of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the majestic one. God is chopping down Judah like a forest until they are nothing but a stump because of their acts of injustice.

In this axe that it speaks of, it explained back in verse 15, so chapter 10, verse 15, shall the axe boast over him who hews with it?

And then if you look back at verse 12, it talks about the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria.

This axe that God is chopping down Judah with is Assyria. Because of Judah's sin,

God has sent Assyria to chop them down and humble them.

Ahaz is an especially wicked king, not only because of the typical civil injustice that has spread in his society, but also because he has committed particular acts of injustice against God.

God has this people. God has determined that he should not make any alliances, and yet he has made an alliance that God has not allowed.

God's house, his temple. Ahaz brought a pagan altar into the temple and stripped the gold off the doors of the temple.

You know, we often think of injustice as something that happens from the high and mighty to the lowly, and that's often how it happens.

However, injustice happens anytime someone's rights are violated, and even God has rights.

As this creation is his, and as he determines what things ought to be used for, what things are right and what things are wrong, to go against him and to especially violate his house by stripping the gold off the doors, by putting a pagan altar in it, is to commit an act of injustice against God.

And for these acts of injustice, Ahaz has incurred a curse upon Judah so that they are in decline and near to being completely destroyed.

Now this problem of injustice is not just something that happens in particular societies.

It's a problem for humanity as a whole. If you think back to the Garden of Eden, when Adam ate the fruit, that was not much different than what

Ahaz did to the temple. In eating the fruit of the

Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam, who had been given stewardship of this garden but with particular restrictions, violated those restrictions and violated the law of God and took this tree that ultimately belongs to God and committed an act of injustice against God and his property.

And as Adam ate that fruit, he incurred the curse of God so that by his injustice, all of humanity suffers death.

Death comes from Adam eating the fruit, and it's not just Adam. It is all of our sin individually.

We have each sinned before God. We have each committed acts of injustice toward him in violating his law.

You know, if you think about, for example, a car, right? And if you were to go and rent a car and you would rent it with particular restrictions, maybe you aren't allowed to drive it over 90 miles an hour, maybe you aren't allowed to take it across state boundaries.

I know that if you rent a car down closer to the border, they get very nervous to make sure you have a plane ticket back to where you came from so that you don't drive it away across into Mexico.

God has put us in this world with stewardship and ability to do different things but within restrictions.

And when we take his property and go beyond that, we are committing an act of injustice against God, and every single one of us has violated his law.

He has said that we should not lie because he is a truthful God, and yet we have lied. He has said we should not steal, and yet we steal.

He said we should honor our father and mother, and yet we do not honor our father and mother. He has said we should love him above all else, and yet we do not.

And so we have incurred God's curse. This is not just a problem with humanity.

It's not just a problem with societies, but it is an individual problem. You cannot just point out there and say the problem of injustice is out there or up there.

The problem of injustice is within yourself. The problem of injustice is in your own sinful heart, and you should not take that and compare yourself to others and say, oh, well,

I'm not as bad as the next guy who sins more than me. Consider Judah. What greater nation was there than Judah and following God?

All the different other nations, they all worshiped idols. They were all pagans.

Judah was the only nation that truly worshiped God. They had God's temple. They had

God's temple, the temple being his house, his presence. They were the only ones who had

God's presence and were even allowed to worship him in the ways that he would require.

And before Judah was called Judah, when they were part of the nation of Israel as a whole, before the nations split into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom of Judah, because of that split, even the larger half of the nation was not as righteous as Judah.

So they were not only the most righteous nation, but they were the most righteous half of the most righteous nation.

As the other nation decided they were not going to serve the king that God had chosen, they were going to have different houses of worship than the one that God had chosen.

And God did not find them even living up to his standard. If the most righteous half of the most righteous nation was not good enough, why would it be sufficient for you to compare yourself to others and see that you're doing better than average?

That is not the standard. God's standard is perfection. If you're in a line of speeding cars, have you ever seen this before?

A whole line of speeding cars, and they kind of collect so that they're spared.

You know, if a cop catches one of them, it only catches one of them. And so if a police officer pulls over one of these speeding cars, and the driver says, oh, but officer, the other cars were all going as fast as me, will that officer have any mercy on the man?

Unlikely. Unlikely. And God is infinitely more just than a police officer.

If that police officer wouldn't let someone off just by comparing him to others, why would

God? God will not. The problem of injustice is not just not just in society.

It's not just those in high positions. The problem of injustice is here. It's in all of us. But God has an answer to that injustice for Judah.

He says in this verse, there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

So from that stump of Jesse, remember, specifically talking about this kingly line from David, there will come another.

And indeed, Ahaz, the king, the Davidic king of Judah, he has a son. His name is

Hezekiah. And Hezekiah is a more righteous king. And Hezekiah does lead the people towards justice.

He undoes the wrongs of his father. He rights those wrongs. He puts gold back on the doors of the temple.

He fixes the temple. And that temple being representing God's presence with the people.

This is a big deal. He's restored God's presence with the people in a more significant way.

He's more honoring God with the people. And through his intercessory prayer,

Hezekiah saves the people of Judah from imminent destruction. Assyria was right at the door.

They were resting just outside the city gates, preparing for an attack.

And by Hezekiah's prayer, the army is all defeated by the hand of the

Lord, 800 ,000 of them dead overnight. This is something amazing that God did through Hezekiah.

And yet, what this passage says is too high to merely apply to Hezekiah.

I believe it does, in some sense, apply to Hezekiah, that he, in a way, foreshadows what would later come.

But ultimately, this passage is too high for just Hezekiah. Hezekiah, after delivering the people from Assyria, then goes on to violate

God's law, boast before God, and bring the judgment of Babylon. So because of Hezekiah, the people are spared from Assyria, but then sent off into Babylon.

So another king is talked about here. This refers to an ultimate salvation. You read this passage.

This is not talking about some temporary salvation. It's talking about an ultimate one. And that final king of Judah, coming down the

Davidic line, from David, to Solomon, onward to Ahaz, and Hezekiah, onward, all the way to Jesus Christ, this refers to Jesus Christ.

He is the perfectly just king of Judah. And above his cross, it said, king of the

Jews. Why? Because he is the king that comes from David. He is perfectly righteous.

He not only fixed the problems—you see Hezekiah righting the wrongs of his father and restoring the temple.

Jesus does that in a vastly more profound way. Instead of merely restoring a physical building, he comes to earth as a man, becoming incarnate, the second person of the

Trinity, God the Son, came to earth as a man. His body, the Bible refers to as a temple, because that temple, that body, is where God dwells with man.

And then, as he explains in John 2, that on the cross when he died and was resurrected, that is him restoring that temple in new glory.

Jesus Christ brought God's presence to earth in a way that Hezekiah never did, in a way that David or Solomon never did.

He brought God's presence to earth in a vastly more profound and real way.

And it is through Jesus Christ that we can have true righteousness.

It is only through him. It speaks in verse 2 of the

Spirit of the Lord resting upon him. This is important because the

Spirit of God is what enables men, humans who are inherently finite, to have the mind of Christ, as we talked about several weeks ago, to have the mind of God.

You don't want someone judging by his own spirit. You want someone judging things by the Spirit of the Lord for real justice.

You have the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the

Lord. Now, these three pairings of words are not altogether distinct.

I'm not sure I could distinguish too much between wisdom and counsel or knowledge and understanding.

But in repeating these associated concepts, Isaiah is emphasizing just how anointed this person will be, how full of wisdom and power he will be because of the work of the

Spirit. The other kings of Judah were all anointed with oil. It was by oil that God set them apart.

But the Holy Spirit is vastly more powerful than oil. And so with wisdom and understanding, he judges with counsel and might.

You know the phrase from the New Testament, zeal without knowledge. There are a lot of kings and rulers who operate with strength, and people love that, that they treat their enemies with strength.

But then they end up being foolish rulers who other people despise because of how foolish they are.

And there are some who are very wise but then are weak and don't confront their enemies. Jesus Christ is a perfectly wise, a perfectly strong ruler who confronts his enemies, who faces them down and destroys them.

It says he's full of the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. In what sense does

Jesus Christ fear the Lord? So the fear of God is recognizing

God's position where he is in the heavens, doing whatever he pleases, hating all things that are evil, being not only able but willing to punish the wicked and ungodly.

There are many people in this world who claim to have a fear of God, but simply don't. They do not believe these things about God.

Psalm 14, one says, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. In other words, the foolish person does not recognize that God either exists or is powerful enough to confront evil or is willing enough to confront evil.

But Jesus understands this perfectly. He knows God, his own Father, perfectly.

And so he operates out of a fear of the Lord. This is not a fear of one who has gone against God or might go against God and so then is trembling in anticipation of what might happen to them.

This is someone who recognizes simply the gravity of the situation and the hypothetical situation of one who might go against God.

And to show also that this is not a crippling preoccupation that he's under when it says fear. It says his delight shall be in the fear of the

Lord. He delights in the fear of the Lord. This is not, we think of fear as something negative. This is something positive.

He delights in the of God. He delights not only having that fear and operating out of that fear, but in sharing that fear with others as he does through his

Holy Spirit, giving his spirit to others so that others might share in that fear of God and begin to have that wisdom.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And he not only shares that fear with his people through his spirit and his word, but he also shares that fear with his enemies, where one day every last one of them will be destroyed by him.

And he will, as the saying goes, put the fear of God in them.

Many men do not fear God, but on that last day when they recognize that God is powerful to destroy the ungodly, he is willing to destroy the ungodly, he will do so.

And he will do so at the hand of Jesus Christ. And through him they will fear the

Lord, not in the way that he does, but in the way of recognizing the gravity of the situation and of trembling at the coming judgment.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear.

Isn't this an excellent thing? So much of human judgment is flawed because we decide things by appearances.

You know, Jesus said this in his ministry. He said that we should not judge by appearances, but by what is right. And yet, so often we judge things by appearances.

And not only do we lack the either moral fortitude or the moral clarity to judge things rightly, but in addition, we simply do not know because we do not commune with God as we ought.

But he does perfectly. He has perfect knowledge. And so he does not just judge by appearances, but he judges perfectly in righteousness.

In righteousness, he judges the poor, decides equity for the meek of the earth.

And let me throw out a note here that—and hopefully this isn't too confusing.

You know, I've been conflating a little concepts of justice and righteousness because they really aren't so terribly distinct.

In fact, in both Greek and Hebrew, the languages of the Old and New Testaments, they are the same word.

Justice is righteousness, and righteousness is justice. We tend to think of justice as just being a civil justice at that level.

But, you know, as I was explaining earlier, justice happens anytime we violate—injustice happens anytime we violate

God's law. It is a matter of righteousness overall. And so it says in verse 4, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

In Matthew 5, in the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, Jesus said, blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. That is

Jesus fulfilling this prophecy, judging rightly for the meek and for the poor.

Now, the poor and the meek are spoken here of as those who are lowly and oppressed, but this is not primarily about being financially destitute.

This is about recognizing the poverty that is human riches, that the only true riches are had in God, and the only— and meekness is recognizing how low we are compared to God.

If you want to be the meek, the answer is not in selling all your things, although that may be what

God calls you to. You know, in 1 Timothy 6, it even gives provisions for rich Christians how they are to act.

So, you know, the Bible acknowledges this concept of a rich Christian. Christians aren't all called to poverty.

However, if you want to be the meek or the poor that it's talking about here, you must recognize that you have nothing except for what you have in God.

You must recognize that you have no standing before him apart from his special mercy. These are the only ways that you can be one of the meek and one of the poor.

Now, this is him sharing his fear of the Lord with the friends of God by giving justice to the poor and the meek.

But he also, like I said, shares the fear of the Lord with the enemies of God. It says,

Psalm 2 describes Jesus judging the nations with a rod. In Revelation 19, it talks about him destroying the nations with a sword that comes from his mouth.

Jesus, by his very word, destroys the nations. You know, we see in the

Gospels that while there is a coming judgment, there is a way in which Christ is already judged, pronouncing who it is that is part of God's kingdom, who it is that is out of God's kingdom, because they have not worshipped the

Son. They have not kissed the Son, as Psalm 2 says. Faithfulness, the belt of his loins, verse 5.

The clothing of a person represents the reality of that person. You know, a doctor wears doctor clothes to show that they're a doctor.

A king wears kingly clothes to show that he's a king. And as it describes his belt of righteousness and faithfulness, it's describing the thing that ties his clothing together being righteousness.

It represents the reality of that person, his righteousness. And he is one who leads his people in righteousness.

This is the answer to this problem of injustice, is a greater king who leads his people into righteousness, clothing his people with righteousness as he is clothed with righteousness.

You know, Ephesians 6, where it talks about the armor of God and talks about the helmet of salvation and the belt and the breastplate, etc.

A lot of people don't realize that, but that comes from the various images in Isaiah of the clothing that the

Messiah himself wears. Not just this verse. It's other verses in Isaiah too. The helmet and other aspects of his armor.

The idea is that the way that we have righteousness is not—it does not come from ourselves.

It comes from putting on something external, putting on something that is provided by Christ. He is that righteousness.

Now, I'd like us to consider this passage in whole by asking a question, a particular question, is when does this happen?

When does this happen? A lot of people look at this passage and say that this only will happen at the very end when

Christ returns. And there's a lot of ways in which this will be more fully fulfilled when

Christ returns. But I would like to suggest to you that this has already been fulfilled in many ways through Christ's work that he has already done.

He is already king. He is not just going to be a king one day, but he is already a king.

And as this talks about the arrival of a king, we should recognize that this passage has already been fulfilled in the king that we now have, not the king that we will have in the future, although that will be an additional aspect of this prophecy's fulfillment.

Jesus Christ has dealt with this problem of injustice. First of all, I'd like to point out that he suffered injustice.

He suffered incredible injustice like no one else has suffered. No one else has ever been perfectly innocent.

They may be innocent of a crime that they were accused of, but no one is perfectly innocent overall.

Jesus was perfectly innocent, and he was accused of great crime, crime worthy of death.

Even from a human court, he is much higher than all people, and yet he was judged by lowly sinners.

Jesus has suffered incredible injustice. And so with that, he is sympathetic towards the poor and the meek.

As he is sympathetic with those of us who have weakness. So that provides kind of a starting place to think about how he is able to correct this problem of injustice.

First of all, he is very sympathetic with those who have suffered injustice. But more importantly, he has dealt with the penalty for injustice.

Because as I said, our problem with injustice, if we think of it as us being the victims of injustice only, we've missed the larger half of the picture.

The larger half of the picture is that we are perpetrators of injustice every time we violate God's law.

It is our reason that society is at risk, because we are sinners.

And Jesus has dealt with this problem by paying the penalty for injustice on the cross.

When he died, he was suffering the penalty owed. That penalty is death.

I come from Virginia, and Virginia's motto is, sic simper tyrannis.

Have you ever seen this? I believe it's liberty standing on a tyrant.

The tyrant dies. This is what is owed to a tyrant. As we have committed acts of injustice, we deserve death.

And God has paid for this by sending his Son to die in place of those who trust in him, who have themselves committed acts of injustice.

We are spared. We can be forgiven through him if we are trusting in him. And then not only that, but in being a righteous king that is leading his people in righteousness, he creates a just society by growing his people in righteousness, not just forgiving them for their lack of righteousness, for their lack of justice, but also growing them in justice and growing them in righteousness by granting them this very same spirit that we see described here.

No matter how is it that people can live up to the calling that God has called them to, this very same spirit that anointed

Jesus, this very same spirit that came and rested on him at his baptism, coming down as a dove, that same spirit that he has given to us, that we might follow him in righteousness.

And so what does this look like? What does this look like for us today? Let me consider several ways.

First of all, in the civil sphere, I believe this does give us considerations for how we approach our participation in government and what the government ought to do.

And if any of us were to ever take up the office of a ruler, then God's word and the instruction of Jesus Christ should govern the way that we govern.

It says a lot about what is both right and wrong, and Jesus Christ also tells us what rights are.

You know, there are a lot of people who are confused about what rights are. Is life a right? Is health care a right?

A lot of questions about rights. And Christ, judging by the word of his mouth, has given us much instruction.

Another way that this manifests is also in the church.

The church is the just society that is attempting to grow in righteousness and does grow in righteousness by the power of the

Spirit and enforces that righteousness through the means God has given—membership and discipline, identifying those who are part of Christ's kingdom, growing in justice.

Another way that this happens in the church is that God has given us even the wisdom to judge secular matters.

In 1 Corinthians 6, it says, or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?

You know, so there are even matters between believers that can be settled within the church, and God has given us the means to do that, that we can be a just society here within this church.

But perhaps most importantly, this justice is manifested in ourselves personally as the

Holy Spirit works in us and operates in us so that we may be justified before God. Us ourselves, not perfectly righteous because we have committed acts of injustice, but by putting on the clothing of Christ, by being wrapped up in Him who has died on behalf of those who trust in Him, those who have committed acts of injustice, we can be perfectly just in God's eyes and we can grow in justice, grow in righteousness in our own lives.

And then one day when He returns and we all gather together, we can be a perfectly just society, having grown perfectly together, no danger of decline, perfectly led by Christ.

And so I'd like to caution you against two different extremes. One extreme says this is only fulfilled in the future.

And by the way, if you're interested about things in the future, let me give a quick plug for our home groups that will be starting up in two weeks in another series.

And we're going to be looking at eschatology, the study of last things. This is the way that, you know, if you're struck by this passage and you really want to understand more what the

Word of God says about what is coming, this is a great way that you can learn a lot about that. So the person who might say that, you know, this is only happening then and, you know, there's no hope for now.

You know, I even once had a Bible study leader who said that, you know, you shouldn't even vote because Christ's kingdom is not of this world.

And so, you know, there's no point, there's no hope for justice. That's misguided because there is hope for justice as His Spirit is operating in people who are in this world.

And the other extreme is to say because of that, because of that principle, because Christ is on a mission, because He is ruler over all things, we can have a perfectly just society now, and we should put our hope in human institutions that are reforming to be in line with Christ's principles.

That is misguided as well, because while we can hope for small or temporary wins, that is not ultimately where we must put our trust.

Our trust is not in the reformation of earthly societies, but in the heavenly kingdom that is coming to earth.

Let me repeat that again so that that sticks with you. Do not put your hope in an earthly kingdom that is reforming.

Put your hope in a heavenly kingdom that is coming to earth. This is where our hope must be.

You know, as you look at the world and you see the problems of injustice and you worry about where your children will be, what they will have to grow up with, do not put your hope in an earthly society and earthly kings and earthly rulers who are who are trying to reform things.

Lord willing, you know, they will have successes. Lord willing, Christ will answer our prayers and rulers will come to the knowledge of salvation and will act wisely and justly.

But this cannot be where our ultimate hope is. Our hope must not be in princes. It must be in Jesus Christ alone, the only one who grants true justice, the only one who makes us just by his cross, the only one that has promised a perfect heavenly kingdom that will come fully in its fullness when he returns.

You don't want to be the kind of person that sits in front of the TV screen looking at the news, anxious about what's going to happen, anxious about whether or not

God is going to turn things around and putting all of your hope and trust in that.

You know, there's a reason for mourning things that you see in society. There's a reason for being concerned.

But you do not want to be so wrapped up in that that you do not bear the fruit of the

Spirit, one aspect of that fruit being joy. We are to have joy, and you will not have joy if you put your hope in something that has no guarantee it's going to satisfy you, that very well may fail you.

The only way you can have real joy is by trusting in real justice and trusting in the most righteous king, not the lesser earthly kings, but in trusting in the only king that can give true righteousness, the shoot that comes from the stump of Jesse, Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we as humans have a tendency to point at the sins of others, especially those in high places, and fail to examine the faults in ourselves as we have committed acts of injustice.

If we have sinned against you, I pray that you would forgive us by your

Son and by the power of His Spirit that we would be led towards greater and greater righteousness, and I ask that you would hasten the day that Jesus Christ returns and comes quickly.

I pray that we would anticipate this with longing and hope and joy, and that it will be a joyful day when we're all gathered together in a perfectly just society with no danger of decline.