Our ability to serve the Lord in unity is dependent upon our status before God. As we have been those justified by God’s grace, we become those who can advance His work of reconciliation together.
Preliminaries:
- Definition: Justification is the condition of being declared righteous
- The “righteousness of God” is experienced through Biblical Justice
- This declaration makes you categorically new in your relationship with God
Observations: Concerning Justification…
- The work is monergisticly God’s
- The cross is redemptively central
- The effect is relationally transformative
- The result is continually missional
Conclusions:
- Before we advance Biblical Justice as missionaries we need justification by faith
A. Biblical Justice restores and transforms sinners at the cross of Jesus Christ
B. Biblical Justice requires the life of Jesus to be present for salvation - Justification by faith is the precondition that makes Biblical Justice by reconciliation possible
Application:
- Trust in Jesus’ death by faith for your justification
- Display your justification through the missional work of reconciliation as restorative justice
Psalm 103:2-5, 10
“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”
Acts 17:31
“For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
Hebrews 11:33
“Who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions…”
Revelation 19:11
“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war.”
Matthew 5:6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Matthew 5:10
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 6:31-33
“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Romans 3:23-26
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
Romans 3:21-24
“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Colossians 2:13-15
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Colossians 1:21-22
“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”
Galatians 2:20
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Romans 4:25
“He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
Colossians 1:19-20
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Galatians 2:16
“[We] know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”
Romans 3:28
“For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”
Romans 4:4-5
“Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.”