God's Justice System by Apostle Femi Lazarus: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Knowing God as a Just God

We know God as a good God. We know him as a powerful God, a loving Father. But many have never paid attention to knowing God as a just God.

Justice — the system of God's justice — refers to a system of fairness and equity. To be just is to be fair.

Look at what God said to Abraham when promising the land to his children: the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Genesis 15:16. God was saying: I love you, but that does not mean I will rob Peter to pay Paul. Even the system of favour is rooted in fairness. God has reasons for what he does. That you do not know the reason does not mean the reason does not exist.

An older believer once said: if God says to a baby Christian, I love you — that believer rejoices, because love comes with gifts and blessings. If he says to a mature Christian, I love you — the mature Christian sobers, because he knows the child whom the father loves is also chastened. And if he says it to a bone-breaker, the man weeps — because the one God loves, he also sacrifices.

Same love. Different expression. Depending on where you are.

The Justice of God in the Greatest Story of Love

Look at John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. There are two entities: the world and the son. What the world receives for that love is a gift. What the son will do because of that love is sacrifice.

When you look at the image of Jesus on the cross, it is not only the love of God that is displayed. It is the justice of God. It shows the extent to which God will go to judge sin. If man sinned, a blood price had to be paid. The law demonstrated for thousands of years that man could not pay it by himself — every sacrifice was just a promissory note pointing forward to Christ.

Hebrews 10:10 — by the will of God we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. One sacrifice. Done. He took away the first covenant that he might establish the second.

Righteousness That Is Put on You

Look at Romans 3:21-22: But now the righteousness of God without law is manifested... even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ.

You become righteous by believing in what Jesus did. You do not earn that righteousness by being sanctimonious. Before God, sin is sin. Hatred is as powerful as murder in his sight. If righteousness could be earned by works, Jesus would not have needed to die.

Jacob came before his father Isaac wearing the skin of an animal. Isaac smelled what he was wearing and said: the smell of my son is as the smell of a field the Lord has blessed — and released the blessing. In the same way, because we are clothed in Christ, we can come boldly before the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace in times of need. Not because we deserve it — because of what we are wearing.

• The nature of Christ in you does not die when you make a mistake. There is no such thing as God erasing your name from the book of life when you sin and then writing it back when you repent correctly.
• From the moment you believed in the finished works of Christ, you were translated from death to life. That is the truth of the Bible.
• However — grace is not a license. The man in Christ who deliberately persists in sin after knowing the truth has no additional sacrifice available. The spirit of grace can be insulted. Hebrews 10:26-29.

There Is No Sin That God Cannot Forgive

The one who hung on the right side of Jesus at Calvary — when they came to check who was dead, they found Jesus already gone but had to break the legs of the other two to speed their deaths. Meaning that Jesus had to die first in order for the promise to the thief to be honoured: today you will be with me in paradise. He died so the thief could obtain.

How was the thief saved? He believed. Through faith, confession is made unto righteousness.

When people say in comment sections about a criminal: he should burn in hell — the one who died on the cross is saying: I died for this one too. That does not mean there are no consequences in the earth. Salvation guarantees forgiveness of sin, not pardon of crime. Society still does its duty. The government still does its duty. But God — God forgives.

What God frowns at is not having a broken and contrite heart. Not repentance. Not acknowledgement. A broken spirit and a contrite heart — that is the sacrifice of God. That he will not despise. Psalm 51:17.