Joy For The Righteous

So on Friday afternoon, I changed my sermon text. I was going to preach to you about the ox and the manger. And late morning on Friday, I read that the Supreme Court had issued their judgment, their opinion, overturning what's been almost 50 years of the shedding of innocent blood in our land. And I thought of our church, and I thought, I can count on one hand and not even fill it up. how many people were alive before Roe was passed down. And what that means is that all of us have grown up our whole lives with this being the state of things. And so what we're experiencing, whether we recognize it or not right now, is an historic event. Something that has not happened in our lifetimes. The last time that we as a nation were this aware.

something was probably 9-11, where everyone was paying attention and trying to figure out, though there wasn't the division that there is these days regarding access to abortion. And so there's been lots of talking and lots of celebrating, and there is yet still a lot of work to do. And so over the next two weeks, this Sunday and next, I want to take time to talk about two things, two halves of the same thing. One, celebration, and two, the work yet to be done. And so today we're going to divide that all up into two halves. Today is going to be a day where we celebrate. Not because the work is done, but because God has moved in a way that none of us have seen him move in our lifetime. And I don't know that we even recognize that. Through the repentance of our Supreme Court, the decisions regarding access to and the legality of abortion in our land, and our country has been returned to each of the 50 states. The work to abolish abortion, to eradicate it from our land, is not over, but only beginning. And so while that work remains, today is a day to thank God for his mercy in removing one of the biggest impediments that we've faced in our desire and in our efforts to end this shedding of the blood of innocents. And so my prayer as we begin is that God would help us in the months and years to come to continue to build on the kindness that he's shown us today.

and that he would grant us, his church, his children, faithfulness as we seek to evangelize our neighbors and to speak to them about the truth. Our text this morning is from Proverbs and it teaches us about the different responses to justice that we see going on around us right now. My hope is that God will help us to rejoice with the righteous and that he'll use our joy to prepare us for greater faithfulness in the future. Our text is Proverbs chapter 21. Verse 15, would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. The exercise of justice is joy for the righteous, but is terror to the workers of iniquity. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I think many of us have had waves of joy, relief, fear, confusion washing over us.

The last 48 hours. And we're not quite sure what to do with it, with it all. We would prefer to be joyful, and my hope this morning is to show you that we ought to be joyful, actually. And yet, I think the reason that we're confused or maybe hesitant to be joyful is we go, well, not everybody's joyful. Some people, in fact, are very, very angry. And so is it appropriate for me to be joyful when others are not? And the answer is yes, and I hope that this morning I'm able to explain to you why that is. And so our verse starts out with the exercise of justice. And I want to start by talking to you about justice. Justice is something that is properly ceded to and under the authority of the civil government. It is their job to execute justice. That's why God has given us people to rule over us and to govern us. Their work is to reward good and to punish evil.

We could go on, whether either side of the political divide could go on and enumerate their frustrations and their grievances about how the government has failed to execute justice. And they would fight with each other and the liberals would say, they're failing with regard to race. They're failing with regard to poverty. They're failing with regard to minorities, sexual and otherwise. They're not doing justice. And the conservatives would say, oh, and they're failing with regard to taxes. And they're failing with regard to immigration. And they're failing with regard to the economy. And the thing that's left out of what I've just said is the failure to protect innocent life. And that is the job of the government. First and foremost, they are to protect life, to punish those who take innocent life.

Now we could go on and continue to talk about our particular grievances regarding the abdication of our government these last 50 years regarding their complacency as they've stood by and allowed babies to be torn limb from limb in their mother's wombs. Some have gone so far as to say that their government is now illegitimate because of their gross negligence and failure to protect the weakest among us. But I'd have us bear in mind, that there is no perfect authority, which is not to dismiss or minimize the failure in any way, but to say there is no perfect authority. And by saying there's no perfect authority, I don't mean to say there's almost perfect authorities. None of us in our realms, wherever we have responsibility for things, have failed terribly as authorities. As husbands, as fathers, as mothers, we failed. And not small failures, but big failures.

Some of us failing in the same way that our governments fail. Failing to protect the life of those most vulnerable among us, whether they're young or whether they're old. And so it's common for those who are under authority, imperfect and wicked, to chafe at the wickedness and the failing and to use their authority's inadequacy and their abdication as an excuse for rebellion. But when we rebel against those that God's placed over us, We rebel against God. When we take justice into our own hands, we wrestle it away from those that God's given it to. And so we find difficult situations that we have to sort through as a Christian. An example of this would be when George Tiller, who was a late-term abortionist, 10, 15 years ago? I don't remember when it was. Do you remember what year? 95? Was it that long ago? I thought it was more recently than that.

Anyway, if you don't know who George Tiller was, he's a late-term abortionist that lived in Colorado, if I remember correctly. And someone took it upon themselves to go into a house of worship where George Tiller was attending, and they killed him. Because he had killed numerous, numerous babies, late-term abortions, delivering them feet first so that he could kill them before their head was delivered and they could be born. And so someone took it upon themselves to execute justice. And then Christians were left trying to figure out, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Am I glad that he's gone? Is the way that he was killed just? And these are hard things for us to sort out as Christians. It's very, very uncomfortable because on the one hand, you feel like I can't say that I'm glad he's dead because that doesn't seem like a Christian thing to say. On the other hand, he was a very, very wicked man and was a murderer by trade.

And so I remember when I've had conversations about this, I said, you know, the way in which justice was executed was wrong. The man who went and killed him should not have done what he did. But I'm glad that George Tiller is not killing babies anymore. So why would I be frustrated with this at all? Some Christians were like, this is great and exactly how it should be. And I'd say, no, no, no. It was not done properly. And what happens is, even when you do good things improperly, you breed rebellion in the future. And that's the cost that nobody counts before they take action. And so justice is properly seated with our civil government. They do fail and have failed. And for all of our lifetimes, save a few, they have failed in this regard. I want you to know that sitting under the sword of oppression or injustice that you've endured your whole life with regard to abortion in America is something that's common to Christians. Christians often endure oppression. In Psalm 94, we read,

They pour forth words. They speak arrogantly. All who do wickedness vaunt themselves. They crush your people, O Lord. They crush them and afflict your heritage. They slay the widow and the stranger and they murder the orphans. The scripture tells us that Lot's righteous soul was vexed daily by the oppression of Sodom. Daniel was sentenced to death because of his refusal to bow and to pray. Jesus and his disciples endured the same sort of injustice. As Jesus was accused, they gathered together a bunch of men to lie and to get their lies straight so that they could curse him and sign him to death. This is not a new thing that we have to face. And one of the dangers that we face as Christians is the desire to just bury our heads away from the conflict and the tension and say, that's not for me. That is unfaithful. That is an unfaithful response.

We should not be surprised when we see injustice. We should not be surprised when we have to endure it. We shouldn't be indifferent either. This is the tension that we live in, that we constantly feel, and the reason why we find it so difficult to honor those in authority when we see their sins and their failures up close and personal. And so when we suffer, when we are oppressed, when justice is cast aside in favor of injustice, we ought to do as the psalmist did and cry out to God to rise up and to execute justice. And this has been the prayer for decades now of many Christians that God would rise up and that he would execute justice. The Supreme Court's ruling this last week is an answer to that prayer that's been offered up for longer than most of us have been alive. Many who've prayed for this day, aren't alive to see it because it's been so long in coming. But you and I, we have seen it. Against what we ever would have thought could have happened, if you'd asked us a year ago or two years ago, five years ago, do you ever think Roe will be overturned? I don't know that any of us would say, I think it will be in my lifetime. Maybe Tim is the most optimistic person we know. He thought so. But this soon, you hoped with Trump appointing these conservative justices.

Right? We have seen it. And this is the kindness of God to us. God has moved in such a way as to see justice exercised throughout our land, through the faithfulness of our Supreme Court justices. Now, am I saying that they're all Christians and they're all faithful and they're all perfect and that their repentance is a deep, robust Christian repentance? No, I'm not. But I do hope that it produces that in us. So you have the exercise of justice causing two things. Joy in the righteous and terror in the wicked. It causes joy in the righteous because those who love God love justice. They see sin. They see depravity. They see murder. And they say, that's wrong. And something should be done about it.

And God, would you do something about it? This is a particularly Christian response. Or maybe a better way to say it is Christians are the ones who feel it most thoroughly and most deeply, who have the most conviction about it. It's something that an unbeliever should be able to recognize. But justice is something that brings joy to the righteous. We look on ourselves and we say, it's not good for me to do what's right in my own eyes, which is another way of saying doing things that are unjust. In this particular instance, our joy stems from the protection of innocent life. The Bible tells us that God has a special interest in the weak, in the helpless, the fatherless, and the defenseless, the orphan. It's these people who are most in need of protection because they are the ones who are least able to protect themselves. And so while this ruling is not the end of the battle, it is a huge step in the right direction. And it is a cause for rejoicing.

You remember in the Bible where Israel is coming out of Egypt and they get driven up to the Red Sea and they're all just, we're going to die here. And Moses cries out for deliverance. And the Lord parts the Red Sea. And the Israelites all go through with all the wealth of Egypt. They go through on dry land. And then the Egyptians follow them and Pharaoh follows them. And once the Israelites are through, God judges them and he rushes the water back on and he kills all of the Egyptians. Do you remember what the Israelites' response was at the judgment of God, the justice of God in that occasion? They sang a song of deliverance. They rejoiced as the water around them was littered with the bodies of their enemies. And I'm afraid that too often in our day we've become quite soft.

In such a way that when we see something like that, we think, well, I certainly shouldn't be happy. And yet you should be. How can I be happy in the middle of conflict? Because God is at work. And if you feel as though your joy is not something that you can express, what we really have to do is look in the mirror and say, what do I care more about? What's really got a hold of my heart? God? Or this man? Or this woman? Or this crowd of people? Who will I submit to? Who has my heart? Who am I afraid of? Joy is our response to the oppression that we've grown up under. Having a burden removed is an occasion for great joy. And the fact that there's still work yet to be done is no reason not to rejoice. Many times in our lives, we don't know the weight of our sorrows and our grief until the Lord lifts them. And then we go, oh wow, oh wow. Justice goes along with repentance.

And that's one of the things that should cause us great joy. If you were to think of yourself, and you think how hard it is for you to repent, to acknowledge your failures, to say, I sinned against you. What I said, what I did was wicked and wrong. How difficult is it to actually acknowledge that in the moment? How about a day later? A week later? How about when your kids are all grown up? And you realize that you failed them. You realize the longer your failures sit there, the harder it is they are to repent of. The more pressure there is to just not to stir up the muck. One of the things that ought to cause us joy is that God's given us a Supreme Court who is willing to do the work of repenting of something that was done 50 years ago. That is incredible.

That is God's kindness. You and I don't do that on a daily basis over things that are much smaller, with much lower cost personally. We say, no, I'm not going to stir it up. And so our joy comes along with repentance. Their repentance in turning away from the injustice and saying no more in our land as a whole will we provide cover. We were wrong. I think the way that many of us negotiate that sort of tension, if we are willing to repent, is we won't say the simple words, I was wrong. We'll say, well, I've grown. I've come to realize. Circumstances have changed. All in an effort to distance ourselves from saying, what I did was wrong. We could split hairs about how they could have done better in their statements. But by and large, they said the Supreme Court was wrong. We were wrong.

And we're changing our error. We're correcting it. And so there's a good lesson for you and for me in what they've done. Even though they're not believers, Balaam's ass spoke to him and told him what he was like. And so we can take instruction from God that comes to us through people that we don't know. And we say, they saw an error and they did something about it. And I should do the same. It's my joy to do the same. I'd go so far as to say it's wasted if we don't do the same. And a shame to us if unbelievers are willing to acknowledge their failures and turn away from them in greater quantities and with more clarity than Christians are. That would be a shame. And so my hope is that we'll follow their lead. My hope is that our state legislatures will follow their lead and that we'll do it with joy. On the other hand, you have terror for the workers of iniquity.

Sometimes that word terror could also be translated as destruction, a tearing down. You could think of the joy of the righteous as being the sort of joy that builds something, and that the terror of the wicked is the sort of thing that destroys things, or is destroyed. The reason that they're afraid is because it means what the wicked have become accustomed to, their sins and their access to them, is now being opposed at some level. And it's being exposed for what it is. If you've been reading this last two days, I hope that you've read some of what pro-abortion people have to say as justifications. And the sorts of things that you'll hear, there are many things you could hear, and there's varying degrees of the people who are saying it. There's varying degrees of ignorance. Some people believe the lie, and it's sad that they've been fed a lie, and some people promote the lie, and they know it's a lie.

Myself, I've read about, well, I sure hope that your children don't end up with getting raped by a family member because we need abortion for that. I sure hope that you never have an ectopic pregnancy. I sure hope that you never have a severely disabled child. And it's said as though that abortion, which is murder, is the compassionate response to those circumstances. That the child, the innocent child who had nothing to do with any of what I just described is the one who ought to pay the penalty of the circumstances they were conceived in. You'll hear arguments about poverty and foster care. Do you know how overburdened the foster care system is already? Do you know how many kids have parents that don't love them? Do you know how many kids grow up without three meals a day? And the implicit argument is, and it would be better for them to have just been killed. That would be the compassionate thing to do.

My hope is that those who are angry will either be silenced, but only silenced if they can't be brought to repentance. My hope is that they'll be brought to repentance. And then you're left saying, how? How will they come to repentance? How will they come to know the truth? How will they come to love the truth? Or maybe here's another question. Do you expect that they will love the truth the minute they hear it? For those of you that were at the Stand for Life rally yesterday, Did they love the truth that they heard? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Was there rejoicing going on yesterday? Yes. Hundreds of people gathered to rejoice at the work of God. And hundreds of people gathered in protest of the work of God. I think too often we look at the frustration of other people and we simply are afraid of them. We're afraid of danger. We're just afraid of it.

We've become accustomed to life being very comfortable, very peaceful, very stable, very predictable. And so when we're faced with conflict, unless we've been trained to deal with it, our natural response is to be afraid and to run away, to hide ourselves from it. And so we need training, not just conflict in this area, but conflict in our lives. We need to know, how do you deal with it? Whether that conflict is in your marriage between your husband and wife or that's between you and your siblings at the dinner table or wherever it is, our natural inclination is to run away from the conflict. And what happens is then, if we run away, what happens is the people who are loud and who are aggressive, even if they're fewer in number, they win because they're pushy and they're loud and you're afraid of them. And they need someone to tell them no, to stand up and say no. That's not how it's going to be. We're not going to do it like that. The anger and vitriol.

that you saw yesterday, that you'll continue to see in the weeks and months to come, is not over a political issue. It's really not. This is a spiritual issue. It really is. You have those who are enemies of God, who are opposed to him, and therefore are opposed to his justice and his law. And their work is always to put it away, to hide it, to minimize it. cast it on the ash heap of history in favor of their own desires. And what the Supreme Court's given us now can be described in a couple of ways. A great opportunity to demonstrate that you love God. There isn't one of you that's going to go to work next week and not hear somebody talking about this. Or be on your social media or on your family group chats or in your neighborhood, whatever. It is going to be spoken about. Will you speak?

It would be appropriate for us to respond with joy to the work of the Supreme Court. It would also be appropriate for us to speak as Christians. Unashamedly. Well, that will cause conflict. It's true. It probably will. Have you identified the place in your life where the conflict's going to happen? For me, it won't happen here, most likely. Maybe one of you will get mad at me and come talk to me or yell at me. But I would be surprised. But I can look out in the week ahead, my week ahead, and I can say, if I had to guess where the conflict will happen, I can point to it. This is the places I'm around unbelievers. This is a time where people feel free to speak their mind about political things because they have in the past. That's where it's going to happen. What will I say? Will I say anything? Will I say something as simple as, it's such a relief to me now that it's harder for people to kill their babies?

As Christians, you live in the middle of a conflict. And too much of what we've gotten used to in America is we've been sold a bill of goods that says that's not true. It's not true that you live in the middle of a conflict. It's as though we've been told, where Jesus said, love your enemies, we've been told you shouldn't have any enemies. That actually being a faithful Christian is not having anybody hate you or disagree with you. And Tim's not amening because he's like, that's right. That's how it should be. He's amening because that's what we've all been fed our whole lives. You should never have anybody mad at you. Your job is to bite your lip and hold your tongue whenever someone says something that's opposed to God. Yes, it's winsome. And yet what I say is that the kingdom of God suffers violence. And violent men take it by force. It advances through the conflict.

You can't escape the conflict. I can't escape the conflict. And remain faithful. Yeah? Paul warned us, beware when all men speak well of you. And so we have work ahead of us, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Next week we'll talk about the work. Today is a day of rejoicing. And my exhortation to you is that you should rejoice. You really should rejoice. You should be glad because God's done something very kind to us that we don't deserve. And those who want to complain at this as being Trump, reaching out from the past and causing problems for us, you should praise God for him. Not because he's a Christian and not because he's perfect and not because you think everything he did was just because it wasn't. But God uses wicked men, not just like Donald Trump, but like you and me.

To accomplish his will. And we ought to be thankful when God does. We should be sitting here going, why has God been so merciful? To a land that's exported this wickedness to the whole world, why has he been merciful to us? And what will we do with it? To whom much has been given, much will be required. We would do well to study what's required of us. There's been years of fighting amongst those who truly want to end abortion about how it should be done. And Roe, for decades, has been used as an excuse and a cover, politically. And I, for one, am thankful that our state legislatures no longer have the excuse of, Supreme Court man, and my hope and my prayer is that you won't vote for people who don't make it their goal to end the worst thing that's ever happened in our society. Worse, exponentially, than slavery. Far worse.

Far greater loss of life during slavery and the Civil War. One year of abortion. More deaths. And we've had 49. I understand being scared. I understand the temptation to want to just go about your business and lead peaceful, quiet lives. But what I'll tell you is, you will not have a peaceful, quiet life unless God gives it to you. That's why Paul tells you to ask God for it. In Philippians, you will not have peace by surrender. You will have slavery. By surrender. And so ask God to give you a peaceful, quiet life. And when he gives you one, you'll realize that he gave it to you at the end of the life of faithfulness and of conflict. The path forward in terms of what does Daniel ask me this last week, he called me three times on Friday. I got a question. I got to talk. I'm wondering. And I'm supposed to have all the answers because it's been two hours now. But Daniel's saying, okay.

So we want our state legislature to do away with abortion. Physical abortion. If all the Planned Parenthoods and women's clinics that do this are all shut down, the scourge of abortion is not gone from our land. What do we do now? Like Daniel's asking the questions. I don't know all the answers to those questions yet. But there will be work to do. And so today's a day of rejoicing because tomorrow's a day of work. And next week's a week of work. I think the only people in our society that understand having joy when other people have sorrow may well be, aside from politically, to step out of that and give another example that's not so difficult to understand is probably sports. When the team wins the World Cup or when they win the NBA Finals or whatever it is, and they win, what you see right at the same time is you see great rejoicing and terrible grief.

And the thing is, the people with great rejoicing worked really hard for it, and they don't go, oh, I shouldn't rejoice because he lost. The goal of the victor was to make him lose. And we would do well as Christians to realize that we live in the midst of a conflict that we will win, actually. In the end, God will be vindicated, and he will execute justice for every wrong. And we shouldn't be ashamed of that or timid about it. As we were singing Psalm 2 at the beginning of the service, I thought this is a great song that acknowledges this tension. John knew what I was preaching on, so he chose it. And there's a line in there that says that they ought to best come bow their knee. That our message to them is, the judge is coming, our Lord is returning, and when he comes, if you're not up on this hill with us, you're going to be gone. You're going to die. So come on up on this hill with us.

You best come bow your knee before it's too late. I find in my own life that it takes so much to get me to do something faithful. So much pressure. How many kids did it take before I was like, I should be home more regularly? If she's honest, she'd probably say, at least 10. Because you're still not home. But I would say when we had four kids, I finally realized, there was enough pressure mounted that I was like, I've got to stop being gone all the time. And we've been working at it. It takes so much pressure to get me to do things that are right. I'm thankful for Ro being overturned because now there's greater pressure on me to be faithful. There's greater pressure on you to be faithful. And you ought to thank God for the pressure because many times he applies that pressure because there's no other way to get you to do what you should do. There's no other way. We would like for there to be another way. And in his kindness,

We are faithful. I'm thinking of Daniel. I'm thinking, Daniel is a far more tender-conscious man than I am and more inclined to do things that should be done before the bridge is burning behind him. And so I commend him to you. But if you're like me and you need a bridge burning behind you, you have one now. And God's able to use Daniel or me or you to bring himself glory and to build his kingdom. And so that's our work. Rejoice, even in the face of opposition. Don't allow the anger of the wicked to turn you out of their way. You remember in Psalm 23, David says, You prepared a table for me. Where? In the presence of my enemies. You've anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows. Lord, you've given me a feast, a celebration that my enemies can watch. You didn't wait until they were all gone to give me joy. And what a shame it would be for us to excuse ourselves from that table out of fear.

And so the Lord has indeed prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies, in the presence of his enemies. May we love justice and rejoice at it, not just privately, but publicly, with no shame, because we serve a great God and a merciful God who's done wonderful things for us. Let's pray.