Week 3
Session
1 – Jesus is Justice.
Justice
is important to us. Middle schoolers go through a developmental phase,
according to Erik Erickson, called identity v. role confusion. During this
phase they start to identify what is important to them and begin to struggle to
see from other people’s perspectives. Justice is a huge part of this
development phase. Your middle schooler probably wants to be assured that everything,
absolutely everything is fair. They are so deeply disturbed by the hurtful
things other people say and do, mainly because they do not understand how the
world can be so unjust. What did they do to deserve hurtful words, harsh
actions from their friends and school mates.
At
some point adolescents move on to other developmental phases through loving
individuals in their life helping them come to terms with the fact that life is
just not fair. Life will not be fair this side of heaven.
In
reality, we all continue to struggle with justice to some degree, in our life.
How can the murder be spared and the young mother overcome by cancer. Why does
it feel like evil prevails? If God was just – wouldn’t He have come to fix
everything already?
One
of my favorite songs contains this line –
“The
beauty of Grace is that it makes life not fair.”
We
have a God who is fully Just and fully Gracious. Life around us, does not
represent God well. It never will. Life will fail us. God will not. So when we
are looking for justice, know that we can only find it in the One who is
Justice itself.
Let’s
find the proof! Read Acts 3:14-16 below: (For the full story read Acts 3:1-16,
it’s beautiful and worth the extra effort.)
“The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified
his servant[b] Jesus,
whom you delivered over and denied in
the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy
and Righteous One, and asked for
a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author
of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man
strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect
health in the presence of you all.”
In verse 14, The Righteous One can also be translated the
Just One. The Greek word here is Dikaion, which shares the
same root as “just” or “right” in our Philippians 4:8 passage – dikaios.
So Biblically speaking, if we are
looking for what is just, or what justice is, Acts 3:14-16 tells us the answer
is Jesus. Jesus is justice. Jesus is righteousness.
Read verse 16 again…
“And his
name—by faith in his name—has
made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus[c] has given the man this perfect
health in the presence of you all.”
And His name…His name of Justice, His name- Rightness, makes
us right with God. Grace makes life not fair.
God is able to see us as right, because Jesus is Right. In His justice and
rightness we have strength to deal with a life that is simply not fair.
This week we’ll deal with a difficult topic, but know that
it is all wrapped up in the name of Jesus. Once again, He is the answer, the
definition, the everything.
