Is Justice or Forgiveness more important

Is Justice or Forgiveness More Important

1. Table Topics.
a. Christmas Aunt Susie gave us a gift called Table Topics. It is this cube that has different questions one can pull out and ask people while you are sitting around the room. There are lots of interesting questions.
b. Example questions
i. At what age do you become old? 60…now thinking 26
ii. Who would you like to trade places with for one month? Steve Jobs
iii. What quality do you look for in friends? Humble…not people that are always talking about themselves and bragging.
iv. What would you most like to ask God? Interesting…I would have to think about that one.
v. When was the last time you cried? Freedom Writers
c. The other week I ran across this question from Table Topics
i. Is Justice or Forgiveness more important?
d. Nazi SS and Jew in prison Camp
i. I had thought about this question before, but the card made me start thinking about it again.
ii. Is it more important to forgive people or to ensure Justice?
1. Our son’s middle name is Justice
iii. So which is more important?
iv. Nazi SS had killed lots of Jews while part of the Nazi army. He was dying and before he died…he had the nurse bring in a Jew who was in a concentration camp because the Nazi soldier had to confess to a Jew what he had done and beg for forgiveness.
v. Jewish guy refused to forgive him for the injustice this soldier had done against his people and humanity
vi. When we are wronged or offended we want justice.
vii. When we are hurt we want forgiveness.
viii. Which one is more important?

e. We have offended God. How?
i. God created us for a purpose. That purpose was to walk with him, to reflect him, to enjoy God.
1. Krieg is not here yet. Cat and I have not met outside of her tummy yet, but in late March he will be here.
2. Cat and I made him. He didn’t exist and then from our love and union now he exists. We made him. Through families God allows us to understand what it is like to create life.
3. I want to teach him things to fly fish, throw a football, play basketball. I just want to enjoy being his father and love him.
4. It is the same with God.
5. But what if one day Krieg says I am not your son and you are not my father. He just leaves and never contacts us. He lives as though we didn’t exist or bring him into existence
ii. This is what we have done to God. We have looked at God and given him the finger, turned away and followed our own plans. Ignoring his existence and his plan for our life. I am going to be my own God.
1. This would cause so much hurt and pain to Cat and I as a family. Our emotions would be a wide range of anger at Krieg, longing for him to be back, bitterness, deep love, all those wide emotions.
2. But ultimately I would probably long to just find him and tell him that I love him and I forgive him.
3. This is what God is telling us through Jesus. I love you and I want to forgive you.


f. This is the purpose of Jesus dying on the cross?
i. Easy to grow up and miss this. We hear yeah Jesus did on the cross for my sins. But why did he die? Why didn’t God just forgive us, if we asked him? Why did Jesus have to die that ugly brutal horrorific death on the cross? Why necessary?
1. God longs to forgive us, but to just forgive us with out requiring Justice for our offensive back stabbing would mean he could no longer be God.
ii. Judge analogy
1. Judge is in court. Finds out that his best friend is on trial for raping a teenage girl. What does the judge do? If he got his friend off. Maybe he gave an obvious edge to the defense, and didn’t let he prosecutor show all of the evidence so that his friend would get away with it. He would be a nice generous friend, but a terrible judge. He would not uphold justice and would be a terrible judge.
2. Kinda similar with God. He just can’t let us off the hook because he loves us. His universal law has been violated. We are lawbreakers. So somehow justice must be upheld. If he just forgave us, then he would be a nice loving God, but a unjust God, who could not be trusted.
iii. This is why Jesus had to die on the cross. So that God could be both a loving God who forgives and a just judge who upholds his laws. So then Jesus bears the punishment for the sins of those who seek forgiveness by his death on the cross.

g. God upholds justice by Jesus’ death on the cross and through the cross he longs to forgive us. So ho does God forgive?
i. Child sarcastic I’m sorry
ii. No those who have deepfelt sorrow for their wrongdoings.…God is eager to forgive
iii. This is what we have done to God (flip bird) does it bother you that you have done this to God or do you not care? God longs to forgive, and because of Jesus, he can…but we must sincerely seek his forgiveness and not sarcastically do so? I think God hates it when people pray for forgiveness and then keep doing with no intentions of stopping. Remorse for our wrongs causes our actions and our lives to forever change.
1. Christ died for the worst/vilest things you and I have done so that you can know the peace of forgiveness. Are you indifferent about that or does it move you?
2. Justice or Forgiveness…both are equally important.