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Righteousness・Justice・Fairness
(Proverbs 2:1-9)
Andy Nagahara
Today we begin chapter 2 of our series on reading Proverbs. Here again the exhortation comes in the form of a father speaking to his son. What will God teach us today? Let’s listen with anticipation. Let’s read up to verse 5.
1. Seeking God’s will as if seeking hidden treasure (1-5)
1 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, 3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
There is no one who doesn’t want to know more about God’s thoughts. And yet, not many people actually know God’s thoughts well. This is not something to compare with others. Nor does it have anything to do with the amount of knowledge about the Bible. A pastor with graduate-level theology does not know God’s will any better than you.
When it comes to knowing God’s will, the good news is that we have infinite potential to grow. The bad news is that we all have very little understanding of God’s mind.
God’s desire is only for us to know more of His thoughts. This section describes what we need to do to achieve this. Verses 1 and 2 encourage us to accept the Father’s word, take his commandments to heart, and pay attention to the words that are spoken. When we read chapter 1, I mentioned that “father” in Proverbs does not only refer to one’s physical father. We can think of this as being taught through someone else. We have the potential to learn God’s thoughts through anyone. One example is the Bible story we are listening to now, but we can also hear God’s thoughts from books other than the Bible and from conversations in mini-churches.
Turning to verses 3 and 4, we see there that we need to be active, serious, zealous, and persevering in our seeking. It means that you can never get it just by being taught by someone or learning it from a book or other source. Even if you spend your whole life studying theology, without this attitude it is impossible.
What opportunities do we have to have God’s will? Verse 3 says, “call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding “. How can we call out and raise our voices? The answer is worship.
When I spoke to you all last month, I spent 10 minutes longer than usual talking about the importance of worship. I asked you to not let non-essential things distract you from your focus on God because that is the key to maintaining your relationship with Him.
If Your Church cannot provide such worship, then it is worthless as a church, no matter how fun and friendly the community it may be. I told you that we would not have any programs or events that would interfere with worship.
We value worship above all else because it is the only thing that is essential to maintaining our relationship with God. But it’s not just about Sunday morning worship. I am not legalistically saying that everyone has to come and worship here every week. Worship can be done anywhere, with anyone, or even alone. What’s important is not the frequency, length, or location of our worship, but the fact that we raise our voices, call out to God, lift our eyes, and listen.
Do you worship with the same zeal as for silver, as for hidden treasure? It seems that Moses knew that the time would come when the people of Israel would forget to obey and turn their backs on God. The book of Deuteronomy records it this way:
But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29)
This “But” means “even though they were exiled from their country and were sojourning in a pagan land.” No matter what situation we find ourselves in, even difficult situations that we have caused ourselves, we can find the Lord if we seek him with all our heart and all our soul.
In verse 5, God concludes by telling us that what we gain from seeking with the same diligence we have discussed is truly the fear of the Lord and finding the knowledge of God.
The second half of the chapter explains what the things you have learned are needed for. Let’s read on.
2. Righteousness, Justice and Fairness: the values God expects from us (6-9)
6 For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand what is right and just and fair–every good path.
The Lord gives us good thoughts, a shield to protect us. They guard our paths. But that is not our selfish path. It is “the path of faithfully walking along the path of judgment.” That is the path God requires of us. The last paragraph expresses this more clearly. It is “the way of righteousness, justice and fairness.”
Some say that the gospel is a matter of the salvation of individual souls, not the salvation of society. That is wrong. Jesus is not just concerned with personal salvation. The salvation of society lies beyond the salvation of the individual soul. Jesus wants those who are saved and follow Him to change society and do their part in realizing the Kingdom of God.
In other words, those who have been saved by Jesus and become part of his body will save this society. If we say that since if an individual’s soul is saved they can return to heaven, then we should not seek righteousness, justice and fairness in this world, then the gospel would be like the opium religion that Marx criticized. If that had been the case, it would have been valued as a convenient religion by the powerful and religious leaders of Israel at the time, and Jesus would not have been crucified. But Jesus is not only the giver of salvation for individual souls. The Gospels are filled with righteousness, justice and fairness demonstrated by Jesus.
The way to find out what God expects of us is to ask our Lord Jesus. So, I would like to look at the righteousness, justice and fairness that God expects from us through the words and actions of Jesus himself, as recorded in the Gospels.
Jesus was aware that the society of Israel 2,000 years ago in which he lived as a human being was a society in which justice was not practiced. Before him, John the Baptist had strongly condemned this, and Jesus supported it. But it was a society that would eventually end up killing John, Jesus, and many of his followers.
The fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew contains the famous “Sermon on the Mount by Jesus.” In it, two things are said about righteousness.
(Matthew 5:6, 9) 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Like this passage, in many places in the Japanese Bible the word “righteousness” is used instead of “justice.” Jesus had compassion and friendship for the vulnerable who suffered in a society where justice was lacking, and he was willing to sacrifice his life for them. In this passage, justice and fairness are listed alongside righteousness, but both justice and fairness are achieved by righteousness and are concepts that are included within righteousness. Justice is to judge and judge correctly. Fairness is treating people fairly and equally. Jesus called for justice from the powerful and He Himself dealt with people fairly.
Although I will only look at one example today, we can see from many episodes in the Gospels that Jesus values fairness and justice. Jesus chose twelve core disciples who would later be called apostles. It can be said that the selection of these men demonstrated a level of fairness that was unusual in Israeli society at that time. The disciples Jesus chose were, by any common sense standards, a strange bunch. They were people with no religious background or education and were unknown. And the worst of all was the tax collector. They were wealthy people who were contracted by Rome to collect taxes, adding their own share to the taxes their compatriots paid, but they were hated by the people as Rome’s agents, and religiously they were considered sinners with whom one should not associate. Let’s read the Gospel of Luke 5:27-32.
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus’ fairness went beyond liberal fairness; it was radical fairness. Apparently, this was unacceptable to those in power, religious leaders, and educated people of the time. Jesus came for and became a companion to the religious outcasts, the socially weak, and the losers of his time. Do you remember the message from the week before last? He accurately asserted that “there is no one who is unclean.” No matter what religious leaders or those in power say, God has demonstrated in both word and action that it is his will that all people be treated equally and fairly.
But making that claim was much more difficult back then than it is today. “Sinners” were people who did not or could not keep the law, and were labeled in society at that time as immoral and misbehaving. Along with tax collectors, such people as prostitutes, thieves, usurers, gamblers, those who did not give a tithe, and Gentiles were considered to be guilty of this offence. The crucifixion was brought about by the hostility of people who hated Jesus, who loved “sinners” so much that they shared meals with him intimately, and wanted to wipe him from society.
Jesus knew very well that they would crucify Him for practicing justice, but He did not dare walk away from it.
He suffered as a “friend of sinners” and died. Jesus maintained his fairness even to the point of death. God resurrected this Jesus. That is what Easter is about to bring us. I believe the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is evidence that the radical fairness that He Himself represented will triumph. In terms of justice, the justice that Jesus sought was completely absent from the politicians and religious leaders of the time. Jesus then harshly rebuked them and was not willing to compromise.
What would Jesus think about the world we live in today? I believe that, to use the words from the Gospel of Mark that we heard in the message two weeks ago, he must be “felt with deep compassion (or intense anger / indignation).” So much so that I feel righteousness, justice, and fairness are now being trampled upon.
What’s more, even people who call themselves Christians are participating in this. But there is hope, because the risen Jesus still walks with us.
I hope that you will continue to walk this path of righteousness, justice and fairness with Jesus, not as nominal Christians, but as followers of Jesus.
(Prayer) God, thank you for the blessing of being able to start this week by worshiping you.
Please allow us to understand your wisdom.
Make what we think, what we do, and what we say right by the wisdom that comes from You. May we continue to walk with you on the path of righteousness, justice and fairness.
Thankfully and hopefully, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Summary
Knowing God’s will is not an easy task. We will not find it unless we seek it with the same fervour as for hidden treasure. It cannot be realized without worship that is offered with all our hearts and souls. The reason God expects us to know His will is because He intends to use us, as part of the body of Christ, to bring God’s righteousness to the world. Our role model is Jesus. The righteousness, justice and fairness that he showed us are still the path we should follow today.
For Discussion
1. How can we receive God’s wisdom?
2. What kind of righteousness does Jesus require?