In Righteousness You Shall Judge

And turn with me in your copies of God's word now to Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus chapter 19 is found on page... 107 in the Pew Bible, but I'll be reading out of the English Standard Version, that's the translation I've used to prepare this sermon. And so Leviticus chapter 19, I'll be reading the section here that is, really there's a number of laws that we find here. And this is a passage that, I find time and again the Lord has just drawn me back to see here in God's law how God spoke to every culture, and particularly there are things that God has said here a long time ago that speak very directly to our culture today. And so I'd like to read to you Leviticus chapter 19, and I'll begin in verse nine and I'll read through verse 18, but our focus will be in verse 15. But just to give the context, I'll be reading the whole section there. And so here now as I read God's holy and inerrant word.

When you reap the harvest of your land, You shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest, and you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal. You shall not deal falsely. You shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God.

I am the Lord. You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. You shall do no injustice in court.

You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance. or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Prayer for Illumination

I am the Lord. So ends the reading of God's word. Let's pray to him. Lord, we thank you for this passage, and Lord, we thank you that in it you tell us exactly what you are like. You are a righteous God. You are a God who loves justice. Lord, make us like yourself. Lord, speak to us.

Sermon

Lord, by this, your word that you have inspired even down to jot and tittle. Lord, the smallest stroke of this shall never pass away, even though heaven and earth pass away. And so, Lord, we pray that you would apply this, your word, to our hearts. And Lord, show us that word incarnate, even Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name. Amen.

Well, today, justice is a concern for our nation. In the past month, I'm sure you were aware of a trial that got national and international attention when Derek Chauvin, a police officer, was put on trial for the death of George Floyd. And leading up to the time when the verdict was given, there was a lot of news media presenting this case. There were even senators of our nation speaking about this trial, even saying if the verdict wasn't given that they were advocating that people should get to the streets, there should be some outcry against injustice. And so we see that there's a lot of concern for justice, at least a lot of speaking about justice.

But we as Christians need to know not just what the culture thinks about justice, we need to know what is true justice. We need to know what God has said in his word because God is just. God is righteous. And he can balance our imbalances. He can set us right. He can give, he can speak truth into a culture that is muddled and mired with misunderstanding and corruption. And so I urge you this morning, as we hear this Word of God, that this is not just something to inform us about righteousness. This is something to encourage all of us to practice righteousness. In righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. That's what I trust the Spirit will lead us to this morning. In righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.

First Point

Now first, let's see here in verse 15, it says, you shall do no injustice in court. And as Bible-believing Christians, we should be concerned about justice and injustice. That is that injustice is not a mountain made of molehills. Injustice is abhorrent to God, and it should be abhorrent to us. We are commanded to do no injustice in court.

And that clarification in this verse in court does place this in a courtroom scenario. It reminds us of how important official judgments are to be, because unjust courts should be an oxymoron to us. It'd be like saying dry water or loving murder. A court is to be a place of justice. Even though all sorts of wrongs may happen in the world, we have an expectation that there is a place where all the evidence will be heard, where the innocent will be vindicated and the guilty will be condemned.

This is something that God himself has always had as part of his people. Courts in the Old Testament were not, as they are today, often out of public view, where, at least for federal courts, cameras are not even permitted. No, God placed the courts of judgment at the gates of every city. There, the elders were to make judgments. Every time you went past the city gate, every time you went out or came in, you were to be reminded of justice.

It was to be part of your everyday awareness that you live in a world where just judgment will most certainly come. And why did God do that? Why did God post the judgment at every gate? It is because we do live in a world where just judgment will come. It is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment. We will go to a place of perfect justice when you and I stand before our maker, our God, our judge. And for that reason, God wants us to see judgments in the world.

Proverbs 21.15 says, When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but a terror to evildoers.

Micah 6.8, He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to first, he says, do justice. and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. And Jesus seemed to give that first place also to justice when he said in Matthew 23, 23, speaking to the scribes and Pharisees, he says, woe to you, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, but you have neglected the, what does he call it? The weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. It is thus a very grievous thing when you find, in the place of justice, bloodshed. Consider the ninth commandment. We often speak about that commandment as, you shall not lie. But God gave it as, you shall not bear false witness. That's another courtroom scenario, as God gave that law to us. It's specifically speaking of the danger of falsehood, not just anywhere where you might tell a lie, even though God is definitely against falsehoods in any place, but it's specifically in the place of justice.

Consider how wrong, just to play this out, consider how wrong it is to put your neighbor to death, you know, murder. That's a horrible sin. And yet, if that same neighbor is put to death because they've been found guilty of a crime, that's no longer murder, but that's capital punishment.

God himself had instituted that. God is giving them the just sentence of their evil. But suppose that that courtroom where they were found guilty of that crime was actually a place where you were bearing testimony against them. And you said things that weren't true just in order to get them to be found guilty, just in order to bring the sword of the state down upon an innocent man. God calls that murder as well.

It's a violation of that commandment, you shall not bear false witness. And so these commands of God remind us that in the place of justice, in the courtrooms, in the places where we are to expect a righteous judgment that we do not want to find bloodshed. And this is why we read in the next passage before us, verse 16, you shall not go around as a slanderer among your people. You shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor.

I am the Lord. That's that very scenario that I was just speaking to you about. God wants justice in our courts. God does not want us seeking our neighbor's life and using the courts as a place of evil. And so to keep the courts just, God commands that those who judge are not to be partial. And he does this in two ways. He says there are two ways of showing partiality that are to be avoided at all costs. And the first is you shall not be partial to the poor.

Now I expect, as I read those words earlier, or maybe just as I've repeated them now, that there are many who, especially in our culture, but maybe even some here this morning, that might be shocked to hear God say that. You see, in fact, there is a line of thinking that has become very prevalent in our culture that divides the worlds into the haves and the have-nots, and they cut it variously. You know, the owners versus the laborers, or the rich versus the poor, or some cut it along racial lines, or others. along lines of gender, but having first made that distinction, they're dividing all of the population into some distinctions, that they would say then that is the reason why, or sorry, they would say the reason why you have such distinctions is because the rich or the strong or the powerful have tilted the tables. And they'd say that those distinctions exist because the system is unjust, and therefore they argue the only just thing to do is to be partial to the poor.

They'd object very strongly to hearing this from a pulpit this morning. They'd object very strongly when they might come across this clause in our Bible. And so they would say, when there's a court case, you must take account of wealth or poverty. If you're not partial to the poor in their assessment, then you're part of the problem.

Well, this is where we need to pay attention to what God has said all the more. God is the just judge. His judgments will stand where we are imbalanced and imperfect. He is holy and righteous altogether. And he tells us here, you shall not be partial to the poor.

And yet, let me tell you, it's not only that God says it here. God actually had to repeat himself on this point in case we dismissed it and said, oh, you know, that's just Leviticus. There's a lot of other things that are just kind of cultural, and there's other things that, that was for Old Testament Israel. Well, God repeated it also in Exodus 23, verse two.

You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit siding with the many so as to pervert justice. Verse three, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. Or Deuteronomy 117, you shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. Biblically, this is the issue of partiality.

That is, instead of judging on the basis of right and wrong, instead of judging on the basis of character, faithfulness, righteousness, one makes judgments on the basis of what is superficial. And this reminds us that poverty, you know, you shall not be partial to the poor, poverty is not a moral category. Poor is not righteous anymore than rich is necessarily sinful, or vice versa. If someone is poor, that does not mean they should not be held to the same standard of morality that everyone else is held to. And to say otherwise, to say that you need a different standard for the rich and the poor, that actually insults the poor. Everyone is called to the same standard of righteousness. And I need to point this out because there is a movement in our culture to villainize the wealthy, even as there are the others who would think the worst of the poor. We need to be reminded Jesus was poor. Solomon was rich. Job was rich. And then he was poor. And then he was rich again.

Friends, this reminds us wealthy and poor are not moral categories on which we may judge a person, but instead it should be by their character. Their actions. And that much should be obvious, shouldn't it? Imagine with me a courtroom and the prosecution has given their case, the defense has made their case. Then the judge says to both sides, there's only one thing that I need in order to render my judgment. Show me your 1040s.

You know, I need to know how much you've made last year before I can judge which of you is right or wrong. Now, unless this is a case, you know, the actual case that's being judged is one on tax evasion, how much they made last year doesn't have anything to do with whether they were right or wrong.

And so if a judge simply has as a rule that he's always going to side with a poorer party in a civil case, that judge should be removed. He is no servant of justice, but a creator of more injustice. He's being partial to the poor. The very thing God says not to do here. Proverbs 24, 23 says partiality in judging is not good. But friends, partiality is wrong no matter what the superficial distinction may be.

I've been told that divorce courts used to, and maybe this is Kansas where I'm from, I'm from Wichita, that divorce courts in Kansas used to, as a rule, always grant custody to the mother. And that would be even if she was an adulteress, even if that was the cause of the divorce.

And we should ask in response to that, well, what does gender have to do with fitness to provide for and care for a child? This is why we as Christians are against just judging people on the basis of their gender. We're also against just judging people on the basis of race, what is true in the classic definition of racism. What does a person's skin color have to do with their character or whether they have done right or wrong? We are not to be partial.

But this can be on the basis of other things too. And this is something not just for the courtroom, but this is for the home as well. When I was young in my parenting, I had a predisposition to agree with whichever child was crying. And so in our household, something's gone wrong. And so the kids start, there's some disagreement. And so they come to daddy. They're coming for justice. Daddy, daddy, he, she did this.

And so my poor practice to begin with was whoever was crying, I would give a hug to. And whoever wasn't crying got disciplined. And so everybody was crying. But God says, We're not to be partial. We're not to be partial. Here's what was happening was when I would constantly defend whoever cried, guess what my clever children learned? Be the first to cry. Be the first to be a victim. Even if you're the aggressor, just cry and daddy will bulldoze your brother. The truth was that I had a lesson I needed to learn.

I needed to love justice more than what I was loving was my own peace and quiet, which I would not get until I learned to love what God loves, justice. And so fathers, God puts us in our families as the first place where our children are to learn justice. When your children come to you, is that what they will receive? Are you settling for less, maybe your coveted personal privacy, your peace and quiet? Or is your house a house where justice is shown?

Proverbs 21, 15 says, when justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous. There should be joy in our homes because we want to make the right judgments. And the truth is superficial judgments, partial judgments are easy. But they are lazy. And so in my own household, I know from my past, my laziness and justice became weaponized for injustice. Righteous judgments, on the other hand, are hard.

They're hard because you have to look past superficial distinctions like poverty and riches, beauty and ugliness. They're hard because we actually have to look past our own prejudices. They're hard because we have to diligently search the matter out. And they're hard because we have to know what God's standards are for right and wrong. And righteous judgments are harder all the more today because there are people that will only look at the surface and they'll judge us because we don't agree with their superficial judgments.

In fact, simply judging justly without partiality to the poor will likely lead to us being accused as hating the poor. So that raises another question. Maybe it's a question that's on your mind after you've heard this call to not be partial to the poor. You might say, well, what about mercy? Pastor in the pulpit, if we're not to be partial to the poor, are we to show them any mercy at all? Are you telling us to be a heartless, stingy Scrooge?

Well, no, no, recall that in Micah and when Jesus is talking about the weightier matters of the law, immediately after saying, do justly, it says, love mercy. The weightier matters of the law include to do mercy. And so we see that God would have us show mercy. And even in this passage, there are ways that God commanded his people to show mercy.

Verse 10, you shall not strip your vineyard bare. Neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor, the sojourner. I am the Lord, your God." I trust there are some specific ways that in a community that has more farming, I can see the fields all around us, that there's some very specific ways that you're putting that into practice in this community. Verse 13, you shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. And so this passage speaks of loving your neighbor as yourself and how God's people should act because of his character, because he is the Lord.

We are to protect ways for the poor to work, to provide for themselves. We are to protect their right to gain from their own labors. We are to protect the most vulnerable, the blind and the deaf. But we are not to tilt the tables of justice in order to accomplish this. You can't get to mercy if you start with injustice. We are to show both mercy and justice.

And why? Because, as we see time and again in this passage, it's because God is the Lord. It's because this is His character. Because God, who is perfectly just and will judge the world with perfect justice, is a God of mercy. Psalm 12.5, because the poor are plundered. There we hear God's, it's one of those voices in the Psalms, we hear God's voice thundering forth, Psalm 12. Because the poor are plundered, because the needy grown, I will now arise, says the Lord.

I will place him in the safety he desires. Or Psalm 113, verse 7, he raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. Verse 8, to make them sit with princes, with princes of the people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord. And friends, what is the greatest show of God's mercy? Well, it is that he not only lifted materially needy people, but he has provided for the greatest need of mankind.

You see, even though some babies might be born to poverty and squalor and other babies might be born heirs of mansions and wealth, all babies, even all of us who have ever been born, are born in sin, except for one, Jesus. So greater than the trillions of dollars of government debt that our government is assessing, there's a greater debt. It's an infinite debt. It's the debt of sin that we owe not to some man, but to God.

We are unrighteous in His sight, and He is the just judge. And yet, what has He done? God, for those whom he has set his love upon, has canceled their debt. We deserved a judgment of guilty. We deserved a sentence of eternity under God's wrath and hell, but what did he give us? He has given us heaven. Now, how could God do that?

How could God, God who says he's not partial here, how could God who tells us not to tilt the tables of justice even for the poor, how could God be merciful to us and yet remain perfectly, absolutely just? How could his mercy not come at the expense of his justice? That's how a lot of the world thinks is that you gotta show mercy is by tilting the tables of justice. How could God be just and merciful? Well, the answer is the cross, isn't it? That's the glorious answer of how God can be both of these at the same time and perfectly so. How is He perfectly just?

Well, you deserve to die on a cross for your sins. You deserve a horrible death because the wages of sin is death. You deserve that great break of relationship with God to be eternal and to be forever under His judgment. And what did Jesus do? He took that not only on His body but in His infinite person. He took that judgment, that just judgment for you. And what was God doing in doing that?

He was showing mercy upon mercy to us. Friends, this passage should show us God who is both perfectly just and it should make us long to be more like Him in His justice. but should all the more remind us that we should love mercy as well. We should walk in his mercy. You see, it's on the basis of that mercy that God has shown us that we are to show mercy.

That's so what John tells us, 1 John 3, 16, by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. If we see anyone in need, we should give to them. Because we are not to love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. Jesus even said, Luke 12, 33, sell your possessions, give to the needy. Or in the passage that was read earlier from Matthew, that Jesus will take those merciful deeds that we do to others as deeds done to him. We are to be those that are full of mercy.

And that is not because we we care less about justice or we think that mercy is actually tilting the tables of justice, but it's because we see all the more how justice and mercy fit together in the cross. We are to be shaped by this same cross as we seek to do justice and love mercy.

But you might wonder, well, pastor, maybe you're being a bit imbalanced. Are you suddenly against the poor? Are you saying we're not to be impartial to the poor, and that's all you're saying? Well, no. If I stopped the sermon here, I would be maybe giving you half the truth.

And this is where God gives us the full truth. He speaks to an error we can fall into on both sides when he says, you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great. So let's look at that. We shall not defer to the great. You see, while our culture today may have some who are tempted to the former of being partial to the poor, there are many cultures that have been tempted to the latter. And there are sometimes, that's a temptation for us. When we see the error on one side, we can so quickly as a pendulum be swinging far away on the other side. But this is where we see the wisdom of God. He knows where we can stray. He knows where we can fall into trouble on either side. He knows where cultures can be imbalanced on one half or on the other. And he's able to speak to every culture. And so he speaks to us.

He says that there's also the temptation sometimes to judge character on the basis of what's outward, what's superficial. If someone's well-dressed, of high birth, wealthy, influential, we might think that they're, well, they're obviously in the right. And there's even a natural theology that lends it to that way of thinking. This is what Job's friends thought, that if you presume that material blessings are evidence of God's favor, and suffering is showing a lack of God's favor, then you might think that anyone who is materially blessed, that is, who's great here, is morally upright.

This person wouldn't get the wealth they have unless God was honoring their behavior. And we so easily forget stories like the rich man and Lazarus. We so easily forget that this life is a handbreadth long in contrast to eternity. God is often kind to the wicked and the undeserving in this life, and he not only makes his reign to fall on the just, but also on the unjust. He's patient with them. He's giving the rich people in this life who may not care a lick about God, he's giving them every reason to say, I don't deserve any of the kindness you've shown me, God. to fall on their faces and cast themselves on His mercy.

Friends, we must not judge on the basis of superficial things like material blessings, for these give no certainty that God has shown favor or has judged a person righteous. You see, that's not the only thing that tempts us to defer to the great, though. Time and again, God warns us of how bribes blind the clear-sighted and subvert the cause of those who are in the right.

I recall how when I was an engineer at Garmin, that was in Kansas City, there was a company that had rules on when you had to declare that you'd received a gift from another company. And they knew that if there was a company that wanted to do business with us and they wanted to make a lot of money selling their products to our company, that maybe if they just schmoozed the engineers that that would get them an in and that they would be able to make a lot of money. Well, the company was wise to have that policy. Although they kind of overlooked that they didn't prohibit companies from bringing in donuts or taking young engineers like myself out to lunch. Maybe that was something they should have watched out to because the way to a young engineer's heart is often through his stomach.

But it shows us that there is a wiseness, a discerningness that we need to have. That someone might have a lot to offer us. And we might be tempted to maybe favor them if there's a disagreement because they're so kind to us. What is that? That's bribery. We need to guard our hearts against such things. Fathers, in our households, we need to not play favorites among our kids.

There's one kid that has something to offer you. Well, no. When it's time for justice, don't judge on, don't be partial on the basis of even ways that people might, or your own children might be great to you or even, not just in households, not just in the courtroom, but I think lastly, there's a warning here for how this injustice might happen in the church. You probably remember the passage of James 2 where James tells us to watch out for partiality. James 2 tells of the scenario where two men come into a church and one is richly dressed and the other is poorly dressed. And they both come into the assembly and both have come to worship God.

And how do you seat them? Is there one that you show honor to because he's well-dressed? Is there one that you say, oh, you sit over there because maybe he smells bad? Well, friends, we shouldn't be making such superficial judgments. especially not in the church where we are to be shaped by that cross, where we need to be shaped by the fact that God is just and he doesn't judge on the basis of superficial things, but he cares about righteousness, he cares about character, he cares about what's in our hearts and what we do. And so, what about you?

What if in that back room, I know the door's open, what if right at that doorway stood Harry Stein? I hear he's the richest man in Iowa. He's worth four billion. Do we have any deacons here this morning? Would you maybe be tempted, oh, Mr. Stein, let me show you to your seat. And you're thinking, boy, I got all these church building projects. Oh, we're gonna figure it all out. We're gonna get a new audio video system. Elders.

Would you be tempted if there's a disagreement in the congregation, or Matthew 18's being followed, one has a sin against another, it comes before you, are you ever tempted to factor in, well, this person's a consistent giver, and this person's not? Well, friends, if that's not part of the issue at hand, that shouldn't be part of your judgment. Why? Because we need to see in the church that if a billionaire is standing right there, he has the same need that we all have. We are a sinner before God. We have the same root problem as a billionaire.

Closing Prayer

At the foot of the cross, the ground is level. And boy, in the church, we need to treat it that way. And whoever comes through that door, they need to come as we all come, as sinners, needing grace and forgiveness from Jesus Christ that he freely gives. to all who come to Him, rich and poor, white and black, male and female, all the distinctions of this world, they don't matter. But Christ matters. The cross matters. Because this is the glorious center of all that we are as a church, of where justice is found, and true mercy as well. May we be a people who are shaped by this. And may we, in righteousness, judge our neighbor. Let's pray.

Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are just. And Lord, no matter what the injustices are that happen in this world, that you will set all things right. Lord, increasingly, would that justice be shown in the church, or that we would not be blinded by bribes, that we would not see superficial needs and presume that these are moral needs, But Lord, when we see people with spiritual eyes knowing what is our greatest need, we are sinners and we stand before you, a righteous God. Lord, thank you for Jesus Christ. Thank you for the cross. How could it be? Lord, we still marvel at this glorious truth that you are just, perfectly just, righteous altogether. And yet you have shown mercy upon mercy to sinners such as us.

Lord, shape us by this. Shape your church by the cross. Shape our households by the cross. And Lord, we pray for our nation. Lord, that you would shape this nation by the cross, as they would see what you are doing in your people. Lord, would you transform them as well. Lord, that your just judgment upon our nation, Lord, that you would withhold that and show mercy to us, we pray. We pray this in Jesus' name.