hello everyone so far we have discussed what justice is and why we should do justice the next question that comes to mind then is how we should justice how we should respond to a call to justice as christians and students so here we are primarily interested in answering the questions of what mindset we should have to the justice and in what ways we go about doing justice speaking of the second question there are many ways to go about doing justice and it's up to each of us to choose whom to serve as we listen carefully
to what god is saying to each of us here i want to help you find the right way and right place to practice justice every day with the guidance of tim keller who discusses this subject in chapters 6 and 7 of general's justice first let's think about what mindset we need to have when we go about justice in practice two mindsets i want to highlight today the first mindset is related to how we think about the relationship between evangelism and social justice this relationship is so fundamental to the christian faith that we should have a
clear grasp of this relationship at the outset by evangelism i mean proclaiming the truth of salvation through jesus christ and inviting people to accept jesus as their savior by social justice i mean any activity that brings justice to the world people tend to think of this relationship as something that's an ass with each other as there of a jerusalem game the more evangelism the less social justice and vice versa many christians especially those who belong to theologically conservative churches tend to believe that evangelism is more important than social justice for them social justice is a
destruction for evangelism they will say that you'd rather spend time to share the gospel instead of feeding the hungry they will say things like the mission of the church is not to do justice at all but to speak truth and bring people to christ if you hold this belief we miss the important lesson that the bible teaches about the relationship between evangelism and social justice as keller points out as soon as you get to know the people you want to share the gospel with you will begin to see their practical needs you can separate evangelism
from social justice in theory but practically it's impossible to separate them you cannot truly share the love of jesus without showing the love of jesus it's impossible to separate world and deed from each other because you cannot separate soul and body from each other as james 2 26 says as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without these is dead first john chapter 3 verses 16 through 17 also says this is how we know what love is jesus christ lay down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for
our brothers and sisters if anyone has material positions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them how can the love of god be in that person then some christians might say that okay we do both evangelism and social justice only if doing justice helps us bring people to faith in christ here the idea is that doing justice is legitimate only if it fulfills the mission of evangelism this idea seems more balanced and the the one that we discussed earlier but it's still false short because meaning practical needs in and
of itself is an act of love the good samaritan parable illustrate that we don't show mercy in order to get things in return in the story we know that the summary time took care of a man who was roughed by thieves out of pure love not for the sake of anything in return so we need to do justice not because it helps us win the soul because it's good in and of itself on the other hand many christians especially those who belong to theologically liberal churches tend to believe that social justice is evangelism the message
we are here is clear social justice is more important than evangelism here they conceptualize evangelism in a very broad sense and somehow neglects the mission of evangelism according to this logic feeding the poor is evangelism providing free medical care for the poorest evangelism attending a protest for racial justice is evangelism here they assume that when people they serve know that they are christians the gospel will be automatically spread out so basically they say you don't necessarily have to tell people about jesus one this mindset misses out our fundamental prestige as the children of god non-believers
can help the poor and do all the justice work but they cannot share the gospel only christians have the gospel of jesus and are able to share the love of jesus the book of luke says jesus came to seek to save the lost as well as proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind and set the oppressed free social justice is as equally important as evangelism and go hand-in-hand but in team careless words evangelism is the most basic and radical ministry possible to a human being this is true not because the
spiritual is more important than the physical but because the e-tunnel is more important than the temporal if there is a god and if life with him for eternity is based upon having a saving relationship with him then the most loving thing anyone can do for one's neighbor is help him or her to a saving faith in that god so the bottom line is this the mission of the church is both sharing the love of christ in word and showing the love of christ indeed there's no need to choose between [Music] we do both just like
you just did now the second mindset we want to consider when doing justice is what kind of course humble cooperation and respect for provocation let's take a look at the first one humble cooperation here he proposes a model of partnership where christians and non-christians work together towards a just society which i truly agree with as christians we must acknowledge that we are not the only ones who do mercy and justice we shouldn't assume that only christians carry a care about justice non-christians do and many many of them are really committed to social justice in this
context i think the concept of common grace is relevant common grace is the idea that god gives gifts not only to those who love him but also to those who don't i like the special grace god gives christians common grace is universal it encompasses all humanity universally as james 1 17 says every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of heavenly light in romans chapter 2 verses 14 and 15 paul says that god's law is written on the heart of every human being this means that in our context all people
have an in-world sense of justice love and morality all good things in the world beautiful gardens fine art great food effective government and scientific advances a god's gift to humankind in our context then it's by common grace that christians and non-christians alike work together learning from each other for the benefit of our community and when it comes to with whom we choose to work for justice canada suggests that we walk together with members of other religions or no religion instead of those who share our religious faith that's interesting why is that let me explain this
with another concept originally from the reformed tradition that is the concept of superior sovereignty keller mentions that this concept on page 144 when he discusses whether christians should do justice through their local churches or through non-churchy organizations the concept of spheres sovereignty was first articulated by the new calvinist theologian and dutch prime minister abraham kuiper who said that god is the ultimate authority in the universe and every sphere of society whether it be state church family art is a sovereign in its own sphere if this is true the job of the church is to preach
the gospel and make disciples rather than do a social justice work although the church will have their members to leave out their faith in every sphere of their lives including their civic lives according to this logic then churches should teach about social justice but should not specialize in doing social justice work because social justice work is best done by organizations specialized in doing justice when christians are walking through non-church organizations they will be given an opportunity to be a witness of god's mercy and justice in action which would have an uh otherwise been impossible had
they worked for justice only with their church members method chapter 5 verses 14 through 16 back backs of this idea you are the light of the world a town built on a hill cannot be hidden [Music] neither do people land a lamp and put it under the bowl instead they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house in the same way letting light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven while working together with non-christians we can not only share the gospel
but also have a genuine conversation about why we do justice and how our motivation is based upon the gospel this is why keller calls a respect for provocation what that means is that we openly speak with non-christians about how we should think about justice and in doing so we provoke them to think differently about their moral convictions in a gentle and respectful manner so with this mindset in place we can move on to choose where to serve and with whom to partner here are some of the ideas tim keller lays out in chapter 6. this
is by no means an exhaustive list of things you can do to practice justice rather it is a general guideline of what we can do for a just society like like i said earlier in the introduction there are many ways to do just justice so i'm going to lay out some of the ways we can practice justice in our everyday lives there are largely three areas in which you can work for justice community development racial reconciliation and advocacy to be sure these categories are not mutually exclusive but can go hand in hand first advocacy is
the act of supporting a specific cause or issue it could be abusive child labor sex trafficking or any other issues when it comes to community development there are three different levels of student justice relief development and social reform relief is a direct aid to meet immediate physical material and economic news for example you can think of things like temporary shelters for the homeless and refugees aid for housing food pantry free medical services free legal aid caring for foster children the elderly and handicapped development moves beyond dependency on relief into a condition of self-sufficiency social reform
is the most large-scale institutional reform that addresses the root causes of dependency keller introduces a good example of a ministry that put all these together it is the work of new song church in the sand town area of baltimore maryland sandtown is known as baltimore's harlem a very poor african american inner city community in 1987 the pastor mark gornick and his friends all white people moved into sandtown and began ministries in order to literally rebuild the community they not only provided immediate help but also built houses created problems in housing education health care and did
a work of job development at the school program scratch program and so on this is a truly amazing effort for christians to the justice he demonstrates how the church makes a huge difference in the impoverished neighborhood of sand town here evangelism and social justice so well matched together to show what the well-balanced christian life should look like pastor mark gronik shared the history in a book called to live in peace and in the book lavronian stokes a lifelong resident wrote a preface i'm going to read some passages in it the pastor served the church for
over 10 years and left for new york to plant a church and here is what she said when pastor mark moved with his wife litter literally knew in 1998 i was brokenhearted to see them leave yet excited to see another new song established in new york but this will always be his home and he will always be my neighbor he truly laid down his life on behalf of my community reconciliation between blacks and white in america remains a challenge but it is possible because of the power of the gospel pastor marx moving into san town
and our struggle for more than 10 years show what is possible when white dependent and black are willing to forgive mark gronik is my friend and brother in christ he is able to bring justice and peace to my community he loves the city and he exemplifies the commandment of loving my neighbor as my serve as she said becoming involved in racial reconciliation is part of obeying the great commandment the subject of race is very important when it comes to justice so we are going to talk more about it next time you
