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Ben Taylor teaches from Psalm 89 on the justice of God as a communicable attribute emphasizing four key points: God is righteous, God executes justice, humans need God's mercy, and believers can possess the righteousness of God through Christ. He explains how God's justice is foundational to His throne, the necessity of mercy through Jesus, and calls listeners to evaluate their relationship with Christ.
Bellevue Baptist Church | Young Adults | Memphis, TN
All right, so we're going to be in Psalm 89, and I'm going to take a few minutes just of introductory, because I want us to kind of really understand what we're doing. So when I talk to you about the attributes of God, attributes, characteristics, traits, I want you to know what we're trying to accomplish. So what is an attribute? I think we understand what it is, but I want to give you a definition. Look at this definition that's on the screen. It says, an attribute, when we're talking about the attributes of God, reduced to its simplest definition, an attribute of God is whatever God has in any way revealed as being true of himself. It is an attribute of God, a characteristic, a trait of God that he has in any way revealed as being true of himself. Now, when we talk about attributes, they are classified into two different categories. And if you've, I've talked about this before, you may have heard me, it's worth repeating. First, we have what we call communicable attributes. Communicable attributes are those attributes that God shares with humanity. So that means this is an attribute that flows out of God's being, and yet we get to be a part of it or experience it. So somebody give me maybe your best guess at an attribute that is a communicable attribute. God is good and that he is omnibenevolence is the theological word. If we want to be impressive, right? Omnibenevolence, he is all good because God is good. That is a communicable attribute. Therefore we can experience God's goodness and we can exhibit God's goodness. Anybody else? God is love. Exactly right. We love, or we know how to love because God is love and it flows out of him and into us as his children and his creation. So think about it. So y'all, y'all are smart. Y'all are all theologians. Everybody say, I am a theologian. You are. Whether you're a good one or a bad one, that's up to you, but you're all a theologian. You need to know what it means to study the God that you say you worship. And the more you know about the God that you worship, the better you're going to be able to talk about him when you're in your circles of friends, the better you're going to be able to defend him and defend the faith through apologetics. We have to know who we serve. And so you are a theologian. The question is, is whether or not you're a good one or a bad one. The second attribute type of attribute is what we call incommunicable attributes. So these are those attributes that God does not share with humanity. For example, God is infinity. Infinitude is what A.W. Tozer would call it. It means that he is limitless. He has no limits. He is just eternal in that he is always existed. You will live forever. You have eternal life. You will spend eternity somewhere, but you had a beginning. God has no beginning or end. So think about some of the omnis, omniscient. All right. That means that God is all knowing. All right. You have omnipresence. God is everywhere all the time. These are some of the incommunicable attributes of God. So we have two types of attributes. When we're talking about justice, the justice of God, we are talking about a communicable attribute. And it is something that we can share with God. Now, when we dive into this, this idea of these attributes, there are lists all over the place on the attributes of God. It's the way that we describe God as he has revealed himself. And I just want to read a list of about 30, because I think it's important for you to understand who God is. God is spirit. God is a person. God is one. God is a triune being. God is self-existent. God is self-sufficient. He is eternal. He is infinite. He is perfect, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, wise, immutable, which means that he is unchangeable. He is sovereign, incomprehensible, inscrutable, holy, righteous, and just. I just lost my notes. They're there. God is true, faithful, light, good, patient, and long-suffering, merciful, gracious, love, glorious, unique, and a hater of sin. And all of these, God is. Those are the attributes of the God that we serve. And understand each one of those are in perfection because God is perfect. Those are never changing in him because he's immutable. So we have to begin to recognize when we step into this subject of God's attributes, we are trying to put into words who God is. We know what we know about God because he has revealed himself to us. God primarily reveals himself in three ways. He reveals himself through creation. He reveals himself through his son, Jesus Christ. And he reveals himself through his word. Creation, his son, and his word. Now, I would love to kind of talk to and dive into how God reveals himself, but we just don't have time. But with this foundation, I want us to start to think about the justice of God. So let's look at this word, justice. When you see this word, when you hear this word, what comes to your mind? And this is where y'all are free to talk. I know it's got, like, we got a small crowd and we're like, I don't know if I should say something. You can say something. So what comes to your mind when you hear the word justice? Judgment? Being made right? Fair. I like that. Righteous wrath. All right. We're going there real quick. I like it. Yeah. What else? Courtroom. Yes. Judge. Oh, we're getting them. This is good. All right. So now we have all of these ideas. Let me give you a definition. This is just a secular definition of what justice is. And you're going to see a lot of what we just said. Justice is the moral, ethical, and legal principle of treating individuals impartially, fairly, and reasonable according to established laws and moral standards. So this is the definition of justice. Now, my wife is one of these people, but I want to see if we have any of these people in the room. Is there anybody in here that has a strong sense of justice? That when you see it wrong, you want to write it. I've got one. Anybody else? All right. So we got somebody. Yeah. This idea, these people that have strong sense. My wife is this person. If she had her own police car, she would arrest just about everybody. Was it like, why are you speeding? Why are you doing this? I'm going to pull you over. I'm going to give you a ticket. That's the type of person she is. And when she sees somebody being done wrong, her heart so hurts for them that she wants to jump into the situation and fix it because she sees somebody that's being treated unfairly or impartially. The idea that somebody is not getting what they need or deserve breaks her heart and she wants to step into that situation. So we have this strong sense of justice. Now, whether you have a strong sense and you act out on that sense in a good way, or whether you're just one of those people that's kind of behind the scenes, the reality is you need to know that you have this strong sense of justice that is already born into. Look at this definition with a couple of bolded words, all of that. And then I want you to zero in on established laws and moral standards. See, that part right there is what makes this a secular definition because who establishes the laws and those moral standards according to this definition? Do we know? We do, right? We do. And so when we think about this, we start to recognize who is responsible for setting the laws in the United States? The judicial branch. Legislative branch. Congress. Yep. Legislative is Congress. So Congress. We're going to fix it, PJ. I'm going to help you out here. So the legislative branch makes the laws. The judicial branch makes sure the laws are carried out. It's okay, PJ. You got it. You got it. But this is, it's our culture because not every culture has a legislative branch or a judicial branch, but there are expected morals and expected laws that must be followed. But you need to recognize before you ever knew that it was wrong to murder or wrong to hit your
brother or sister, before anybody ever told you that, you knew that it was wrong. You're born with the reality of knowing right from wrong. Now, some people are born with more of an understanding between right and wrong than others. I think we can all admit that. There's some people that are just drawn towards getting into trouble, right? But you need to recognize that you were able to somewhat distinguish between right and wrong before you even knew about these established laws and moral standards. In mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis uses this reality to argue for the existence of God. The fact that you have a conscience reveals this, he says, a moral law whose source cannot be found in the natural world, thus pointing to a supernatural law giver. So, C.S. Lewis, in mere Christianity, at this point, he is just trying to bring about the reality that God actually exists. And he says, if there is a moral compass in you as you were born, it is innate in you, then there is an ultimate supernatural law giver, and that has to be somebody. And for the Christian, it is God. That law giver is God, the God of the Bible, the God who actively reveals himself to his creation. And we see this in Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one, 18 through 20 says this, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Now listen to verse 19. Because that which is known about God is evident within them. Now, these are people that don't know God, but what they know about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them. How did he make it evident to them? For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. And we can leave that verse up there because I want to kind of help you understand what Paul is saying here. Remember verse 16 in Romans chapter one says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And then he's starting to recognize and help us to understand that everybody is condemned by God because everybody is a sinner because God has revealed himself to everyone through creation. His invisible attributes are enough to condemn us. Y'all tracking with me? This is a big deal. So in missions, the question always comes up, but what about those people that have never heard about Jesus? In parts of the world, like Central Asia, there are whole people groups who have never heard the name of Jesus, but what about them? Surely they won't be condemned and experience the wrath of God because they've never heard about who Jesus is. This verse of scripture right here tells us that they are condemned because God has revealed himself through nature, through creation. That's why it is so critical for us to have our heart on the nations. In countries like Turkey, 99% of the population don't know Christ, 99%. Let that sink in. So when a massive earthquake hits Central Asia and a million people die, 99% of them are separated from the love of God and experiencing the fullness of his wrath in a place called hell. That's the reality of this truth. You know right from wrong because you are created in the image of God. So think about this reality, this justice of God. Now, with all of that as the foundation, as we're jumping into the attributes of God, who he is, and this specific attribute of the justice of God, now let's turn to Psalm 89. Psalm 89. Look at your Bibles and find Psalm 89 and we're gonna start at the very beginning and before verse one, and we're going to look at the title. Hopefully your Bible says this. If not, let's look at that Bible and see if we need to get you a new one. But it says, before verse one ever starts, a masculine of Ethan the Ezraite. Everybody got that in your Bibles? Praise God, hopefully. This is just an introduction. A masculine, that idea, that is an instructive psalm or a contemplative psalm. It's a specific psalm that is used to teach you, to make you think about who God is. Then we go into this guy who has a weird name. His name is Ethan the Ezraite. Now, who is this guy? And it's so amazing that we see in scripture, I think we have a good idea of who he is. Ezra the, Ethan the Ezraite was mentioned in 1 Kings chapter four, starting in verse 30. It says, Solomon's wisdom, talking about King Solomon, Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all men. Then Ethan the Ezraite, he man, which is pretty cool. That's where he comes from. Y'all don't get it. It's okay, it's fine. All right, somebody at least laugh, it's fine. Even if it's a fake laugh. Kalkal, don't know if I said that right, or Darda, the sons of Mohal, and his fame was known in all the surrounding nations. So we are talking about Solomon and his wisdom, because remember, Solomon prayed and asked God for wisdom to rule the nation, and God gave him more than anybody had ever had before. And Ethan the Ezraite makes the short list of all the wise people in the world at that time that Solomon was being compared to. Now, it is believed that Ethan perhaps lived during the reigns of three kings, King David, King Solomon, and King Rehoboam. He experienced the highs and the lows of those reigns, and now is most likely towards the end of his life, and he is reflecting on a whole lot. We see him that he is reflecting on the nature of God. Now, when you look at Psalm 89, it is 52 verses. Be encouraged, we are not gonna talk about all 52 verses. We're gonna talk about one, all right? But I'm gonna give you a great kind of understanding of the overall Psalm, and then we're gonna focus on one verse. I wanna give you a brief outline of this Psalm, and I got this from a great preacher, so it's not original with me, but it just did it so perfectly. If you've ever heard of Charles Spurgeon, this came from him. I summarized his outline. So, verses one through four, they start with an affirmation of God's faithfulness to his covenant. Psalm 89, one says, I will sing of the love and kindness of the Lord forever. To all generations, I will make known your faithfulness with my mouth. Secondly, from verses five to 14, the psalmist praises the name of the Lord for his power, his justice, and his mercy. Look at verse eight. It says, oh, Lord God of hosts, who is like you, oh, mighty Lord, your faithfulness also surrounds you. Verses 15 through 18 talk about the joy of the people whose God is their glory and their defense. And think about the rejoicing that comes into the psalmist's life when he starts to recognize, God, you're my glory. You're my defense. You are there fighting for me and fighting for us as a people. In verse 16, he says, in your name, they rejoice all the day. And by your righteousness, they are exalted. And then 19 through 37, we see the terms of the covenant. The psalmist is starting to remind God of the covenant that he made with David. Look at verse 28 and 29. He says, my loving kindness, I will keep for him forever. And my covenant shall be confirmed to him. So I will establish his descendants forever and his throne as the days of heaven. So the psalmist is rejoicing and talking to God and reminding God of the covenant that he made with King David, that covenant where one of his children will always sit on the throne of Israel that is ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Then we see a mournful complaint and prayer for the current situation. This goes from verses 38 through 51.
Listen to the psalmist, what he says to God. He says, but you have cast off and rejected. You have been full of wrath against your anointed. We are walking through that season in the life of the psalmist, where he is seeing the punishment that God is putting out on his people, because they have turned their back on him underneath the reign of Rehoboam, where they went straight to idolatry. And he is complaining because he sees that he has rejected the anointed and he is allowing him to feel his wrath. And then finally, he ends with this benediction after complaining and praying for the current situation, he ends with these words in verse 52. Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and amen. That even in the midst of our struggles and even in the midst of time where we are complaining to God, we can give God blessing and we can praise him because of who he is. That's just a quick understanding of who, of the outline of this psalms. Now, out of this beautiful psalm, we're gonna settle on verse 14, as we're talking about the righteousness, the justice of God. Look at verse 14, it says this, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before you. Righteousness and justice are inseparable. You really cannot have one without the other. In the Hebrew word for righteousness, at times it is translated as just or justice. And the same is true for the Hebrew word. There are two different Hebrew words, but the one translated as justice here, sometimes you see it translated as righteous in other places. It's almost like they're two sides of the same coin. They are inseparable. And I know it kind of sounds confusing, but I wanna bring some clarity to it. Verse 14 says, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Righteousness is best understood as accuracy. What is correct, the right thing, what is honest, equity, what is right. So when we're thinking about righteousness of God, we're thinking about that justice of God is standard of who he is. And when we see this word justice here, it carries the sense of decision or judgment. So do you see when we talked about what comes to your mind when you think about justice, do you see how all of that is coming together? Judgment, justice, what is right, what is good. All of that comes together to help us to understand that God is justice. We see that even in the King James Version, as it translates this verse, it says, justice and judgment are the habitation of the throne. Do you see the word righteousness in the King James Version is translated as justice. It says justice and judgment are the habitation of that throne. Now these two things, righteousness and justice are the pillars that secure the foundation of God's kingdom and they flow from who God is. They flow from who God is. Understand this, it says that righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Your kingdom, God's kingdom is built on righteousness and justice because God is righteous and this leads us to our first truth. God is righteous, God is righteous. We have to begin to understand this reality. Wayne Grudem, who's a theologian, he uses justice and righteousness interchangeably and he explains this communicable attribute in this way. God's righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right as himself, the final standard of what is right. So God's righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right. And I want you to look right here. And is himself the final standard of what is right? God is righteous, he acts righteously because he is righteousness. So our idea of justice and righteousness comes from God's being. Another theologian, Norm Geisler, states it this way. God is absolutely just or right and is the ultimate standard of justice and rightness. God is righteous, it is who he is and everything flows out of his being. Because God is righteous, he perfectly executes justice and that's our second truth for tonight. God executes justice. And that word executes just throws everybody off, right? Right, we think, when we think about the word execution, we think negatively, like somebody is going to die. But another word is exacts justice, God exacts justice. He, what that means is that he acts justly in all situations according to the standard that he has that is of himself. Understand it this way, the Lord is the perfect judge. There is no improper judgment with God. He exacts justice perfectly in his perfect timing, but what does that mean? Let's go back to our definition of justice. Justice is the moral, ethical, and legal principle of treating individuals impartially, fairly, and reasonably according to the established laws and moral standards. Now think about it this way. This means that the Lord perfectly treats individuals impartially, fairly, and reasonably according not to established laws, but to his perfect, absolute moral standard. In the book of Matthew, Jesus says this, be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect. Anybody perfect out there? But that's the moral standard, that's the law, the absolute perfect law of God, that's what we are supposed to be. If we're going to be in right relationship with God, we have to be perfect. And the reality is we're not perfect. We are not perfect. Look at this verse again. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before you. And I love this. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of the throne, but what goes before God? Loving kindness and truth. And as I started just to think about this, I really began to just stand in awe of who God is and his plan for humanity. The Hebrew word for loving kindness means steadfast love, covenant loyalty, mercy, devoted commitment. And truth is that which is trustworthy, firm, and stable, right? So we're walking through this. The reality is you're not perfect, I'm not perfect. The reality is, is we are unrighteous. Look at me, understand this. You are an unrighteous being. Scripture speaks to that from the Old Testament to the New Testament. You are unrighteous. There is no good, no not one. We see that quoted, that's an Old Testament text, quoted in Romans chapter three, verse 10. "'For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.'" That's Romans 3, 23. We read, Andrew read Isaiah 53, verse six. "'All we like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon him. All we," that's all you, "'are like sheep who have turned their own way.'" We are unrighteous beings. Isaiah chapter 64, verse four says that, "'Your righteous deeds are as filthy rags.'" And then all of a sudden you start to say, Ben, this is really depressing.
Because the reality is, you're bankrupt. You are utterly and spiritually bankrupt. And when you stand in the presence of a God who gives us the perfect moral standard, who is perfectly righteous and perfectly justice, full of justice, we stand lacking. We can't do anything about it. But that leads us to our third truth, which is this. We need God's mercy. We need God's mercy. Loving kindness and truth go before you. That loving kindness, it is the Chesed love of God. That Chesed is the Hebrew word, steadfast love, devoted commitment, mercy, and truth. I love this. Jesus said what? I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes into the Father but by me. God loves us and gives us mercy. And his son, Jesus the truth, goes before him so that we unrighteous beings can experience the mercy of God. How can we as unrighteous beings experience the mercy of God? How is that even possible? It's because of the gospel. The mercy of God exists only because of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.21 nails it. Paul writes this, he made him, God the Father, made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the what? The righteousness of God in him, in Christ. You are an unrighteous being, but when you experience the righteousness of Christ, when you experience the mercy of God, you become the righteousness of Christ. What happened on the cross? The wrath of God came upon the son of God so that we would not have to experience it. God is the most perfect judge. And so he has to sin, he has to punish sin. He can't allow sin to get anybody to get away with it. He can't experience or he can't be in the presence of sin. He has to punish it. How did he do that? He punished Christ, him who knew no sin, became sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God. That's the mercy of God. Because of the justice of God, we had to see the crucifixion in order for us to experience the mercy of God. Guys, that's, that's an amazing thought. God is just because he punished his sin. God is just because he rewards righteousness. And we experience the righteousness of God through the person of Jesus Christ. Are y'all tracking with me? This is an amazing reality. The righteousness of God is imputed upon you. That imputed word means this. When God sees you, he sees his son. He sees the righteousness of his son. If you're here in this room today and you would say, Ben, I know that I'm a child of God. I have a relationship with him. I remember that day where I repented of my sins. I placed my faith and my trust in him. What does that mean to place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ? That means that you are completely and utterly trusting in the death, the burial, and the resurrection. Why? To pay the penalty for your sin, the punishment that you deserved. That's what it means to have faith in Jesus. You're not just trusting in that Jesus existed because James 2 verse 19 says that the demons believe in God and tremble. It's not enough just to have a mental assent that God exists or that Jesus exists. No, it is a laying down and a completely utterly trusting, God, I am trusting in the penalty that you paid for my sin. And I want your righteousness on me. So if that's you today, you have experienced the mercy of God because Jesus experienced the justice of God on your behalf. If there was ever a place for an amen, that was there. Y'all missed it again. I tried to even tell you. It's fine. It's fine. I love it because I want us to really understand, like, this is why we engage in telling other people about Jesus because we've experienced a gift that we do not deserve. We experienced the mercy of God because Jesus experienced the justice of God and we should want nobody to have to experience the justice of God like Jesus did. Because somebody is going to pay the penalty for their sins. It's either going to be them or Jesus. And if you're in this room tonight and you would say, Ben, I have no relationship with Jesus, are you prepared to pay the penalty for your sin? Because our God is a just God. In Exodus chapter 34, verse 7 says, he will by no means allow the guilty to go unpunished. And we are all apart from Christ guilty in need of punishment. So we see that God is righteous. God executes justice. And because of that reality, we need the mercy of God. And the fourth and final point of this is that we can possess the righteousness of God. Remember that verse of scripture that I read, he who knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that we may become the righteousness of God. This is how we know that this is a communicable attribute. Because we can possess righteousness. You can be right with God. And what I want to do is finish out tonight to give you some homework. All right. Everybody remember the days of homework? All right. What that means, for those of you that forgotten it, I'm going to give you some verses that I want you to look up tonight or tomorrow or the next day. And I want you to recognize how you can begin to exercise and possess righteousness in your life. We can possess the righteousness of God. First we should see that we should be instructed in righteousness. Second Timothy 3, 16 through 17. We should seek righteousness. Matthew chapter 6, verse 33. We should, it says, seek first the kingdom of God and all of these things and his righteousness and all of these things will be added unto you. And read what comes before and say, what are those things that are going to be added to you? We should pursue righteousness. Second Timothy 2, 22. We should thirst after righteousness. Let's just stop about that. Thirst after righteousness. Where like on a parched day in a hundred degree and a hundred percent humidity in Memphis and all you want is a drink of water that you so want to experience the righteousness of God. You seek to drink it in. You can seek and thirst after the righteousness of God. Peter and Timothy tells us that we should be prepared to suffer for the righteousness of God. Romans chapter 10, verse 3 says that we should submit to the righteousness of God. And Romans 6, 18 says we should be slaves to the righteousness of God. And what that means is that we allow God to have full ownership of our life so that we can pursue his righteousness. And finally, we see that we should practice righteousness. Now remember, as you are living out and pursuing righteousness, you are experiencing an attribute of the almighty God and this type of righteousness can only be pursued through a relationship with him.
And so, young adults, do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ? Because as we close tonight, we see that God is righteous. He is just. And He will execute justice perfectly. And so there is no one that will get away with their sin. His justice and judgment will come at the perfect time. And it's important for you to wrestle with the question of whether or not you have trusted Jesus Christ with your life. Because if you haven't, you will experience the justice of God and His wrath in this life or the life to come.