Tag Archives: injustice

It’s Time to Rest, July 6, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

This week marked the 244^th birthday of the United States, but the way things look in some of our larger cities, anarchy may replace democracy before the year ends. Rioters still take to the streets with cries that they will burn down our cities if they don’t get what they want. But will giving in to the demands resolve the issues? The answer is no. It just puts a different bully in the seat of power.

Are the actions taken by some of our authorities right and fair? No. Will the world ever be fair? No. Can you have a fair and just system in place while we struggle with race, gender identity, religion, social injustice, political ideology, and a host of other issues that plague us? Not while people are involved. Whoever is in power puts their spin on what is right, and the opposition will complain about injustice.

The framers of our constitution began an experiment in democracy that the world had never seen. It worked when we elected statemen more interested in the good of the whole than in their reelection and party politics. Unfortunately, over the last four or five decades, we failed to elect statesmen. We now choose between politicians who advance their careers instead of their communities. It happens on both sides of the aisle. Democrats, Independents, and Republicans all leave their state and federal posts significantly wealthier despite their meager salaries from those seats.

What is the answer to our dilemma? First, we need to become educated individually and as a nation. Few of our high school graduates can point to any given state on a map if asked to name them other than California, Florida, New York, and Texas. Many think Chicago is a state instead of a city. Many are confused when told Washington, DC is not a state and has no Senators. Most do not know how the House determines how many of its 435 seats each state and territory get. Most think the President spends tax money – he doesn’t; he only approves the budget. The House is responsible for the budget, which they continue to handle poorly.

When we understand how a representative government works, and that real change comes through discourse and the ballot box, not from rioting in the street, change can be made. The thuggery that destroys private property only inflames those who would willing sit across a table from them, try to understand, and make real change. As long as violence seems the only answer, it will only receive violence in return.

We see the same thing happening in Jerusalem as Jesus proclaims a new way of perceiving God’s kingdom. The Pharisees see violence against Rome as the way to find release from the Roman empire. Self-proclaimed messiahs had come before Jesus to lead revolts against the empire, and their tombs showed their failure.

Jesus came with a new message. His disciples declared him as Messiah. But then, his friends abandoned, denied, and betrayed him. He willingly gave himself to the unjust trial before the chief priest and the Sanhedrin. He endured the torture and cruel crucifixion of the Romans. He bled and died in the most excruciating and humiliating way men could die.

Not just in his trial and death, but throughout his ministry, many around him mocked him. His words in Matthew’s Gospel show us how fickle protests like we see today can be:

¹⁶‘What picture shall I give you for this generation?’ asked Jesus. ‘It’s like a bunch of children sitting in the town square, and singing songs to each other. 17 This is how it goes:

You didn’t dance when we played the flute,
you didn’t cry when we sang the dirge!

18 ‘What do I mean? When John appeared, he didn’t have any normal food or drink – and people said “What’s got into him, then? Some demon?” 19 Then along comes the son of man, eating and drinking normally, and people say, “Ooh, look at him – guzzling and boozing, hanging around with tax-collectors and other riff-raff.” But, you know, wisdom is as wisdom does – and wisdom will be vindicated!’ (Matthew 11:16-19 NTE)

That’s what I see in the autonomous zones and the call to disband police in our country. No cops, then they cry about injustice when a murder happens in the zone and help doesn’t come. Protesters were injuring innocent bystanders, then standing behind the police for protection from citizens who want revenge on the perpetrator. We are fickle. We don’t stop to think. We fail to sit and listen to each other. Our politicians and especially our media, take the worst events and blow them out of proportion to enrage each side of any argument until no middle ground can exist.

We need to stop. We need to look to the cross. We need to remember a Savior came to show us how to love the unlovable. He died for us all to forgive and finally defeat sin and death and the grave. The kingdom of God came in the form of a human, King of kings. His power usurps all powers, not through violence, but love. His grace overshadows all injustice, not through overthrow, but servanthood.

Believing in Jesus as Messiah, God come to earth to deliver us, and following him results in his spirit residing in our hearts, directing our actions. Those actions will not end in violence against our neighbor but acts of love and kindness. Those actions will demonstrate the fruit of his spirit as Paul enumerates: “love, joy, peace, great-heartedness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, self-control. There is no law that opposes things like that!”

When we let his spirit work in and through us, our world will change. We can be part of its renewal. We can see “God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” We can exercise his will wherever we might stand. And in doing so, we can hear the words Jesus prayed and his promise to those who struggle in this life. Listen to the prayer from Matthew:

At that time Jesus turned to God with this prayer: ‘I give you my praise, father, Lord of heaven and earth! You hid these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to children! ²⁶Yes, father, that’s the way you decided to do it! ²⁷My father gave me everything: nobody knows the son except the father, and nobody knows the father except the son – and anyone the son wants to reveal him to.

²⁸‘Are you having a real struggle? Come to me! Are you carrying a big load on your back? Come to me – I’ll give you a rest! ²⁹Pick up my yoke and put it on; take lessons from me! My heart is gentle, not arrogant. You’ll find the rest you deeply need. ³⁰My yoke is easy to wear, my load is easy to bear.’ (Matthew 11:25-30 NTE)

Do you want to rest from your struggle? Do you want help with your burden? Do you want real change to happen in your life? It won’t change the world, yet. It might not change our country, yet. But it will change you when you give yourself to him. Today is the day of salvation. Call on his name and let him take the load, and he will give you rest.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Show God’s Grace, June 29, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

The headlines scream about injustice, slavery, equality, and freedom recently. I wish the world could get rid of the first two and understand the last two. I fear we will never do either. We ended our ability to stop injustice and slavery when Adam and Eve decided they wanted to exercise the knowledge of God and found they fell far short. Cain killed his brother for offering a better sacrifice than he. Lamech murdered a young man who hit him. Violence and injustice plagued humankind ever since their rash actions.

Read every account of every nation, and you’ll find slavery rampant in its history. The seven wonders of the ancient world probably came into existence on the backs of slaves from conquered nations. Aristocrats in Greece and Rome had as many as 600 slaves attending their individual properties. Many of those providing sport for the spectators in the magnificent Colosseum in Rome were slaves. The great temples and palaces discovered in South America attributed to the Incas and Mayans were the result of slave labor from captured tribes.

Our nation and the western world owes its success to slaves working in fields and homes. The advances throughout history are principally the result of labor provided by conquered people. Is it right? No. Do I condone it? No. Does it still happen in the world? Unfortunately, it does. The drug and sex trafficking that goes on in the “civilized” world under our blinded eyes is nothing less than slavery. The child labor in certain parts of the world certainly borders on the same. We enjoy the benefits of their work while they live in squalid conditions. We think nothing of their slavery and injustice.

The question is, what can we do about it? Is the redistribution of property and wealth called for in some of the recent protests the answer? Examine countries that have tried it in the past, and you’ll find it doesn’t work. That ideology is known as socialism or communism, take your pick. The Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China are the best examples of those ideologies. Dissenters of the government policies don’t survive long within their borders. Government officials live in relative luxury compared to the rest of the populace, and even their luxury does not compare well to our upper-middle-class lifestyle in this country. Legislation cannot break the myth of equality we hope to find in our broken world.

But we have hope. There is a way if we will but take it. We will still be slaves, but we are slaves now. All of us. Paul talks about it in his letter to the church in Rome in these words:

¹²So don’t allow sin to rule in your mortal body, to make you obey its desires. ¹³Nor should you present your limbs and organs to sin to be used for its wicked purposes. Rather, present yourselves to God, as people alive from the dead, and your limbs and organs to God, to be used for the righteous purposes of his covenant. ¹⁴Sin won’t actually rule over you, you see, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! ¹⁶Don’t you know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you really are slaves of the one you obey, whether that happens to be sin, which leads to death, or obedience, which leads to final vindication? ¹⁷Thank God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were committed. ¹⁸You were freed from sin, and now you have been enslaved to God’s covenant justice (¹⁹I’m using a human picture because of your natural human weakness!). For just as you presented your limbs and organs as slaves to uncleanness, and to one degree of lawlessness after another, so now present your limbs and organs as slaves to covenant justice, which leads to holiness.

²⁰When you were slaves of sin, you see, you were free in respect of covenant justice. ²¹What fruit did you ever have from the things of which you are now ashamed? Their destination is death. ²²But now that you have been set free from sin and enslaved to God, you have fruit for holiness. Its destination is the life of the age to come. ²³The wages paid by sin, you see, are death; but God’s free gift is the life of the age to come, in the Messiah, Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6: 12-23 NTE)

We are either slaves to sin or slaves to God. He gives us the freedom to choose which we will follow, but we can’t be in the middle. Obedience to him or sin, those are the choices with no middle ground. You say, “I want to be free to do whatever I want.”

Can I tell you that is not freedom. Obedience is real freedom. It’s like driving a car. I’m free to drive on the wrong side of the road. I’m free to drive off a cliff. I’m free to run into a tree. I’m free to drive 100 mph. I’m free to do all of those things, but I probably won’t live very long or at least will pay a very high price doing so. But if I obey the rules set out by an authority higher than me – stay in my lane, drive the speed limit, obey the traffic laws – I am likely to have a much more pleasant experience and drive my car for years without unpleasant consequences.

It’s the same with the laws God sets in place. We sometimes act like dumb animals and try to stick our heads through the fence to get to the grass on the other side. When we do, we get stuck or shocked, or the barbed-wire leaves horrible scars to remind us of our foolishness. But inside the fence, God placed luscious green pastureland, full of nutritious food. We are free to run and frolic in the field all day with him with no fear.

Why do we push through the fence? Like Adam, we think we are smarter than God. We want what we think is freedom. We want to do what we want to do. That is not freedom. It leads to addiction, pain, suffering, the penalty of sin is death. You can choose who you will follow but think about where real freedom lies. It’s not in breaking the rules, but in following them. It’s not in ridding the world of injustice but ridding my heart of injustice. It’s in making myself a slave to righteousness.

The problem across our country and around the world is not one of inequality and injustice as much as our thinking we can be equal with God. He is God; we are not. When we figure that out and let him be God in our lives, his love will begin to show through us. The violence will stop. The injustice will end. Slavery will no longer exist. Evil will be defeated. Unfortunately, I predict broken humanity will continue to enjoy its brokenness until Jesus returns. Some will follow him; many will not.

Those who listen to God’s spirit must share his love, demonstrate the kind of humanness God intended from the beginning, show not justice but grace to a world in desperate need of God’s grace now more than ever.

What happens when you give in to the mob? (John 19:11), April 24, 2017

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
Mob rule is a scary thing. It’s easy to get trapped in it. But dangerous when you let it rule you.
Scripture
1. John 19:11
2. Jesus: Any authority you have over Me comes from above, not from your political position. Because of this, the one who handed Me to you is guilty of the greater sin.
Devotional
1. I have to admit, on more than one occasion, I’ve just given in to the crowd.
  1. I was in charge
  2. I knew in my heart what should be done
  3. I knew the consequences that would take place if I let the crowd rule and gave in to their demands
  4. The crowd was small, my platoon or my staff or the section I was leading at the time
  5. They were tired or hungry or wanted to stop or do something I knew wouldn’t have the outcome we needed
  6. I gave in to their demand
  7. It didn’t turn out well
  8. Mission wasn’t accomplished
  9. Results were poor
  10. All of us embarrassed
2. Pilate was the governor
  1. Had the authority to release Jesus
  2. Knew what was right
  3. Knew the consequences of giving Jesus over to this mob
  4. An innocent man would die because of his failure to stand up for what was right
  5. Wife even warned him of the failure in justice
  6. Pilate listened to the crowd instead of his conscience
  7. Gave a glimmer of hope when he offered Barabas in place of Jesus
3. It’s easy to follow the crowd
  1. Jesus told us broad the way that leads to destruction, though
  2. Easy to follow the crowd that leads to nowhere
  3. Harder to follow the narrow path that leads to righteousness
  4. Harder to stand for what is right and just and holy
  5. Like salmon swimming upstream against the current
  6. Everyone else will push against you trying to turn you around
  7. But when you know what is right it is worth maintaining the course
  8. In the end you will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”

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