The Justice Mercy and Grace of God - October 26th, 2025

Alright, I'm gonna let's all stand. Um, and I want to read the passage for today, Ephesians chapter 2, verses 3 to 6. This is the reading of God's word, and it reads, among whom we also all formally conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for just gathering us today.

We pray that you would really grow our theology and our doctrine so that we would just appropriately worship, not just in spirit and in our desire and our zeal, but also in truth. So, Lord, as we grasp the deeper theological truths of your holy word and of your love for us, help us, Lord God, to be in awe, to be humbled, and to truly shine brightly in a dark world around us. And so, would you do a mighty work in our time together? And pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and take your seats. So I've actually never done this before as your pastor, and usually I try to introduce my sermons with a good illustration or story. Um, but today I'm gonna do a quick show and tell. Alright. So I brought up here with me my favorite stuffed animal.

I personally own one stuffed animal, and I bought it with my own money as an adult. Okay, so there's no nostalgic childhood memory attached to this. And this was actually very difficult to find. It was a very rare find. It's actually a limited edition, stuffed animal, and like I said, very difficult to find. And I bought it at a bargain price of $19.95. And it's mine, okay. I have no intention of giving this to my kids. They are not allowed to touch it. They are not allowed to play with it. When I die, it's not going to be passed on to them. So, Becky, I'd like for it to be buried with me. Okay.

It has a first, middle, and a last name. Um, his first name is after one of my favorite minor prophets. He's so special. The middle name I gave gave him is the word, is a name Quito. Okay. Uh, it's a capital city of Ecuador. I've been there twice, one of my favorite cities in the world. And so for show and tell, I brought this stuffed animal with me, and I want to introduce to you. His name is Amos. Okay. Amos Guito. A mosquito. Chung. Alright? Now, this was very hard to find. It's a limited edition, because nobody makes stuffed animals of vile things like cockroaches, head lice, or mosquitoes. They're disgusting. They're hateful things. And I do not use the word hate often, but I use it for the mosquito.

Okay. I hate mosquitoes. One night when I was in high school, I got about 30 bites. And my body was burning with itchiness, and I was angry. So, in a sleep-deprived rage, I made a decision. I'm going to catch one alive. I'm going to catch one alive, and I'm going to cut off its nose, pull off its legs one at a time, and then I'm going to pull off both the wings one at a time. And then I decided in my immaturity and in my anger to capture that mosquito and just the body, put it in a glass cup, put a plastic vinyl wrap over it, and then microwave it and watch my blood inside its body explode under the cup. I wanted to torture it, torment it the way it tortured and tormented me. Mosquitoes were an object of wrath to me, especially that night, all over my body.

But unfortunately, I could not catch any alive. They die quickly.

If you like it.

Especially in the areas of the world where there are many deaths from malaria from dengue, many baby deformities through Zika. When mosquitoes are killed, nobody is sad. Generally, all people of all tribes and nations and languages and tongues celebrate the termination of a mosquito. Even if I had not gotten bit, if I saw a mosquito on a wall, I would preemptively kill it. Even if it had nothing to me, I would kill it. Because they are not only great nuisances, they actually are a threat. They carry disease. So they are universally an object of wrath. And if I killed it, you would not judge me. You would applaud me.

What is the greater distance? The distance in similarity between me and the mosquito, or the similarities between me and God. So this greater distance question is going to be very important for today's passage. And we're going to be thinking through three words. Justice, mercy, and grace. Repeat after me, justice, mercy, grace. All three of these things are attributes of God we learned about through the prophecy of Jonah. And in the prophecy of Jonah, God's mercy was especially highlighted. And starting next week, we're going to be studying through the prophecy of Nahum. All three things, justice, mercy, and grace are in Nahum as well. But in Nahum, it is the justice of God that will be especially highlighted.

So justice, mercy, and grace. And before we jump into Nahum, I felt that it would be very helpful to take some time to properly define what these are spiritually and theologically. Because I feel like a lot of times we think we know what those words mean, but they're not always accurate. Right? Justice, mercy, and grace. An improper understanding of these things leads to bad theology. Bad theology leads to superstitious practice, and it does not build up or strengthen our faith. And superstitious practice and gatherings, celebrating man-made superstitious doctrine, it leads to inappropriate worship, and it falls desperately short of being acceptable to God. And all of that leads to a misapplication of gospel truths.

And misapplication leaves a very bad witness to a world that desperately is in need of gospel truth. Right? So today we're going to be looking at these three things through Ephesians chapter 2, justice, mercy, and grace. And hopefully, after we study through those things, we can think of appropriate applications as well. So first I want to take a look at what the Apostle Paul says about the justice of God. Ephesians 2, 1 to 3. And you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

So the apostle Paul starts with this indictment. We were all dead. He describes all mankind as those who were once either the walking dead, like zombies, mindless creatures of instinct, or we were also dead men walking. And dead men walking usually means someone's waiting execution, right? Every single one of us. It doesn't matter what kind of religion, family, race, class, or historical context we were born into. We all inherited Adam's sin. And we all inherited his sin nature, and we all came into the world as sinners. We did not become sinners because we sinned. We sinned because we were sinners. We were born into this world as wicked sinners. It is hardwired into our DNA to rebel against God.

So we were hardwired from birth to be hostile towards God. We were hardwired to sin. So the offensive truth is we could not sin. Does that make sense? And all of us, Romans 3 23, have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the judgment or the wages of sin has always been death. A death both spiritual and physical, a death that's first spiritual and then subsequently physical. So remember, we do not, we're not sinners because we sin and then we receive death as a penalty and a punishment for our sins. Every single one of us comes into the world spiritually dead. And so the death is the judgment that comes just as a consequence. So both a spiritual and a physical death are the wages of sin that all mankind has inherited, as it says there in the beginning of Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death.

So look to your neighbor and say, You are rotting. Go ahead. You are rotting. You are dying. Okay, welcome to reality. So we were once dead men walking. We were literally the walking dead. Okay? And that's how the apostle Paul describes the condition of every man, even Jew and Gentile, apart from the intervention of the grace of God. So we were once children of wrath. In other words, we were children for those whom wrath has been appointed. So some translations actually translate the word technon, children, as objects of wrath, like mosquitoes are to humans. The apostle Paul writes that we were the targets of God's hatred. God's hatred towards sin is perfect, and it's an absolute hatred.

It is a righteous and an indignant and justified hatred. God hates sin. God hates the sinner. God's hatred toward the sinner is perfect. It's absolute. His hatred toward the sinner is unbridled in righteous rage and wrath. Because he is a God of justice.

God's justice is intricately tied to his holiness. And that is a very supreme important starting point of the gospel of Jesus Christ. God is exalted in justice. Try to imagine that with me. He is elevated and lofty and magnified because of his justice.

So a lot of times when we think of the attributes of God that we celebrate, it's not justice. But the scriptures make it clear in many passages that God's justice sets him apart. And we're going to read two verses of the many. Isaiah 5 16, Yahweh of hosts will be lofty in justice, just judgment, and the holy God will show himself holy in righteousness. Deuteronomy 32 4, the rock. His work is perfect. Why? All his ways are just. A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is he. So God is not only lofty or exalted or magnified in his justice, he is completely devoid of any injustice. There is zero injustice in him.

So that means that God's justice, his standards, his requirements, and the bar of his law are perfect. So his righteous standard has no flaw, no loophole, because God is lofty in judgment, and because of this, we are doomed. Look to your neighbor. You are rotting. Without Christ, you are doomed.

Sin in the Bible is simply the word missing the mark, Hamartia. That's the meaning of sin. Think of a target with a bullseye, and you missed it. That's sin. And because of this, because he is without injustice, he is a holy, holy, holy, perfect God, we are doomed, dead in our transgressions and sins without the intervening blood work of Christ. And so this is what Wayne Grudham says about God and his justice. Wayne Greedham's a theologian. God's justice means that he always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right. And that is bad news for all humanity. And that's where the gospel of Jesus Christ starts. So the good news starts with bad news.

Without the bad news, the good news is just information. So it's absolutely imperative for us to understand that it is absolute folly for any person to demand justice from God for anything that happens in our world. He will do it, but for you to say, God, I demand justice, who the justice of holy, holy, holy God puts a target on all of our heads. It makes us all objects of wrath. So I'm going to read Ephesians 2, 1 to 3 again for you. And you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all, Jew, Gentiles alike, were formally conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

This is your testimony. Right? Up until meeting Christ. And here comes the most important but ever written in the history of humanity. And this is the beginning of the part of the good news. But God being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, is verse 4. So just as much as God's justice is intricately tied to his holiness, his mercy is intricately tied to his love. So our God, who is love, is rich in mercy. And our minds are going to blow there.

Because we can't understand the two. It's hard. If he is perfectly wrathful against all injustice, how does he exercise his mercy? The greater distance. We should be confused. This was what upset the prophet Jonah so much to where he wanted to die, and he mentions that three times in Jonah, right? I'm angry enough for death. He took issue with the God of justice, extending mercy to those he thought did not deserve it. Which is a really funny statement just there. Right? Jonah 4, 2, you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, and one who relents concerning evil. So now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death to me is better than life. And that's verse 3.

And God says, Do you have good reason to be angry? And he goes, I do, even to the death. It's so funny. God demonstrates his mercy by relenting. He is a God who has great restraint. He is exceptionally slow to punish. He is ridiculously slow to exact vengeance. He is a God who relents.

So mercy by definition is a relenting of punishment that is truly due. That's mercy. Nahum, who we're going to study starting next week, goes as far as to say that Yahweh God is a refuge. The Nahum 1-7 is the verse that's on all the in-and-out cubs. If you look at the bottom, there's a Bible verse, right? Nahum 1-7 is one of them. Beautiful verse. God is a strong refuge. God, the judge, protects the repentant guilty from his own judgment. That's Nahum 1 7. Yahweh is good and impenetrable defense in the day of distress. If God is for us, who can be against us? He knows those who take refuge in him through repentance. And this is good news. Holy, holy, holy God, bears patiently with sinful, evil, arrogant man.

He is a God who holds back his wrath. He is a God who relents. But the God of justice does not just stop at mercy. He not only does not exact vengeance, he goes farther and extends grace. And he saves the objects of his wrath by his grace. Ephesians 2, 5 to 9. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. And he raised us up with him, seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, this not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.

And there are three aspects to the grace of God that are touched upon here in Ephesians 2, 5 to 9. And they're highlighted there in the yellow.

It revives, it literally makes alive. Then the grace of God elevates. And finally, the grace of God lavishes. Okay? The three elements of the grace of God. First, it resuscitates, and then it elevates, and then it lavishes. So remember, you and I have been created by God and for God to love God, to serve God, and in sin, you and I have rebelled against that purpose. We were created to be useful instruments and conduits of God's glory all throughout creation. That was the original purpose for mankind. But we rebelled against that purpose. So we were by nature targets of wrath because of our harmtia sin.

But we who believe now, we were saved by faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, and as a result, we were restored and saved back into that purpose. Right? We were raised with Christ from the dead into newness of life, Romans 6, 4. So it's important to remember that you were not saved for you. Amen.

You and I have been saved by God and for God to love God, to serve God, we were not saved for us. That's so important to remember. So first, we were revived. We were made alive. We were restored. But our restoration was not just to a position of just useful servitude. It was to a position of sonship. Do you guys see this? And we see a glimpse of this through Jesus' story of the parable or the prodigal son. You're familiar with that story. The focus of the parable of the prodigal son is actually the older brother. But in the life of the younger brother, we see the gospel visualized. Okay. In the parable, a young man demands that his father give him his inheritance. Basically, he's saying, Dad, I want you to die so that I could have your inheritance.

I could live however I want. I don't want your authority in my life. Just give me the good stuff. Death to you, so I could live however I want. That was a prodigal son. And then Father gives him the inheritance, and then what happens? Luke 15, 13 to 14, not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together, went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate, living recklessly. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. So this fictional parabolic young man was as good as dead in his transgressions and sins. He was walking according to the desires of his flesh, and the wages of his decisions were destitution, desperation, and poverty.

Okay? He was walking according to the course of the world, and then he squandered and wasted everything. And then he found himself. I am absolutely destitute and impoverished. I am dead. Just a matter of time. But I'm dead. I have no status. I have no food. I have no life, no purpose, no joy, I am dead. And here's a moment of his repentance and his change of direction. Verse 18 and 19, I will rise up, go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. So the young man had learned and determined, like the psalmist in Psalm 84 better is one day in my father's courts than a thousand days elsewhere eating pig slop.

That's what he he grew in wisdom, right? So he returns to the Father. Justice would have turned his son away. Right. Mercy would have been a little kinder. Mercy would have restored him back into the house, but as a slave as he desired. But let's see what the grace of the Father looked like. So he rose up and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw it felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to his father, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, his servants, his angelic hosts. Quickly, bring out the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his hand, sandals on his feet, bring the fat hint calf, slaughter it, let us eat it and celebrate.

He was lost and has been found. And they began to party. So grace, it first resuscitates, revives and restores, and then grace elevates. And we see here that the father lavished on his son. He put the best robe on his son, he put a ring on his hand, he put sandals on his feet, and then he threw a party.

They threw a party.

And that's the very point of the parable of the lost coin, which was right before this. Verse 10, going backward, in the same way I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Grace is unmerited favor, which revives, elevates, and then lavishes. Truly amazing. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And he elevated us with him, seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might lavish us with the surprising riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.

Verse 7 tells us that in the ages to come, for all eternity, God will hit us with the full force of the riches of the grace of his kindness again and again and again and again and again and again with pure kindness, creative, good, beautiful, unending kindness. So you and I who once were divine objects of wrath will be rewarded lavishly. That's dumbfounding. We will be paid, we will be rewarded as if we had earned our salvation by living and pleasing the Father just like Jesus did.

To even think I am like Jesus is a blasphemous radical thought. But he will qualify you as if you lived just like Christ. So obviously, we did not live like Jesus did, nor did we deserve the status of co-ware with Christ in any way, shape, or form, but God gifts this status to you. And by his grace, God resuscitates us and then elevates us, and then he lavishes grace upon grace to us, and he will continue to do that for all eternity. This is 100% a gift, 100% unmerited, so we can't boast.

When we become biblically literate, the more silent we become outside of praise and thanksgiving. We cannot boast.

I'm gonna bring Amos back into the picture. Okay.

And my Bible, so don't worry, I'm not too super weird. Amos represents a disease-carrying mosquito, it represents a great threat for many in the world. Mosquitoes represent death, right? Now, what is justice? I see the mosquito. I extinguish the mosquito. The world does not suffer loss, the world actually gains. Threat is removed, justice is served, no one is grieved. Why was no one grieved? Because justice was executed. Justice is celebrated, right? This is gone. Now here is mercy.

I catch it. Okay. I catch the diseased, blood-sucking mosquito. And weirdly enough, instead of killing it there and then, I just let it go into the wild. What happens? There is a chance that he will bite someone else. Right. With an extending of mercy, there's always a risk. No one extends mercy to mosquitoes in this way. Nobody, right? If I saw one of you catch and release a mosquito, I would not clap. I would not go like, wow, you're so godly. Oh. I actually would think of it as weird. I actually would think of you in a negative way. I might even be alarmed. Why would you extend mercy on a thing that can cause itchiness, interrupted sleep, and perhaps even disease?

Justice is normal. Mercy is strange, but grace is absurd and outrageous. This is grace. I see the mosquito.

I not only do not kill it, but I love it. I pour my affection out on it and I hug it. Even if it does not understand. Monday morning, I go to the courthouse, fill all the paperwork to make this Amos, Quito, Chung, legally my third child. I call all of you. Come over to Orange County to our house. We are going to have an adoption party. I invite all of you to come. Next month. Our three-bedroom house is too small for our new addition to the family. I will buy a new house so that it's suitable for all three of my kids. I will legally give him the name Amos Quito chung. And I will enroll him in school.

I will open up a 529 savings account for his future college education. And I will see that Amos gets the exact same treatment by all of you as Maddie and Caris. I will see to it in my will that he gets the same inheritance as Maddie and Caris. I'm bringing him to church. No one better tease him. No one better lay a hand on him. Stephen and Tiff better not discriminate against him on Sunday school. Christmas performances are in a month or two, right? He better have a part. He better have a part in the presentation or else. That is outrageous. That is absurd. This is the grace of God. What is the greater distance, the distance between disease-carrying mosquito and then disease-carrying man?

Or the exponentially greater chasm between disease-carrying man, arrogant, selfish man from holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy God. This is a silly illustration. What's even crazier is, if this were all true, I have the power only to change Amos' standing. Right? I'm crazy. I can't do anything about his nature. I can change his standing. I have no power to change his nature. I have no power to change the nature of this thing that is an object of wrath to something that is deserving of mercy. But what God does in every way, shape, and form, internal and external, he transforms and qualifies an object of wrath into a consistent object of glory.

Not just mercy, glory, and then he throws a big party. And so the angels, when they see transform man, are saying, You are worthy to judge us because you are a co-heir with Christ, and you are above us. You are superior to us. This is not grace, then. This is appropriate submission. Appropriate for celebration. Now I'm hoping that you're like, this is crazy. The gospel is crazy. Amen. Now, what is our response? I have two words. Be good. That's it. Repeat after me. Look at to your neighbor and say, you were corrupt.

You were rotting. You were diseased. But praise God, he saved you. He changed you. So be good. The gospel does not require goodness, it produces goodness. The gospel restores us back to the intended purpose and produces good works in us. And we respond by being good. Ephesians 2 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. What does this mean? What does it mean to be good? It means to be full of the spirit. It means to be full of faith and wisdom. It means to be full of power. It means to shine radiantly. It means to proclaim the good news. Even to the older brothers that are in our lives. The older brothers are those who think that they are qualified for the inheritance somehow by their works.

They hate the truth that there is no way to the inheritance outside of Jesus. That's the older brother. And the older brothers hate that Jesus is alone, the way and the truth and the life. Because the older brother wants to boast. Now his older brother was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing, and summoning one of the servants, he began inquiring what these things could be. And he said to him, Your brother has come, your father has killed the fattened calf because he had received him back safe and sound. But the older brother became angry, not wanting to go in. Father came out pleading with him, but he answered and said to his father, look, for so many years I have been serving you.

Never have I neglected a command of yours. You've never have you given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.

And had the older brother been given the opportunity, this hypothetical older brother of the parable would probably kill his brother. Right? Darkness always hates the light. The darkness has always hated the light. Darkness always wants to extinguish the light. So don't be surprised if the world hates you, John 3 13. So this is how we respond. We love because he first loved us. We are gracious because grace has been extended to us in all things, whether by life or by death, we proclaim the excellencies of him who called us by his goodness. Are there people who are neutral to you but outside of the faith? The application is be good. Are there people living in darkness who are hostile to you?

What do you do? Be good. Are there blind older brothers who think they're in the same house who self-righteously hate you? Be good. And especially are there brothers and sisters in the same family who you've been so blessed and so encouraged by. Be good to them. Be gooder. Let us not lose heart in doing good. For in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to who? All people. What does all mean? All. And especially to those who are sitting to your left and your right, worshiping together with you on a Sunday. To the household of faith. That's what man has been created for.

That's been our purpose from before the creation of time. My hope is that as we properly understand justice, mercy, and grace, awe, humility, terror, and supernatural kindness just flows over us into the lives of those around us. Amen. The appropriate response to grace is worship. Worship excludes boasting in self. Worship always exalts what is being worshipped. It never exalts the worshiper. So may we worship truly in spirit and in truth. Amen. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for the many illustrations that we have that teach us about our posture and our helplessness.

And we thank you, Lord, for the many illustrations that cause us to sit dumbfounded that you would save a wretch like us. So I pray that you would help us to chew on and meditate on the truths that we've learned. And may the acknowledgement and the meditation of those truths really bear good fruit in our lives for your glory and for your renown in the lives of the many around us. We pray this in Jesus' name.