Justice Without a Judge

Series: Making Sense of Christianity

Part 5: Justice

What happens when we cry out for justice but reject the Judge?

This message explores why our cultural pursuit of justice often turns brittle, punitive, and graceless—and how the gospel offers something better: a justice rooted in humility, mercy, and the cross.

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Going Deeper: To My Fellow Christians -

Justice is one of the loudest cries in our culture—but also one of its deepest confusions. In a world that aches for wrongs to be made right, many pursue justice untethered from any higher authority—leading to a brittle, graceless moralism that cannot forgive and offers no path to redemption. This sermon helps Christians engage that longing not by dismissing it, but by showing how it originates in the image of a just God. Through the story of Joseph—the first person in Scripture to explicitly forgive—we see a justice that goes beyond punishment and into restoration, a justice that humbles the powerful and heals the broken. The cross of Christ fulfills this ache in a way no secular model can: justice is satisfied, but mercy is offered. Use this message to help others see that Christianity doesn’t silence the cry for justice—it answers it with something better.

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Scripture: Genesis 50.15-21

(Additional Reading: Genesis 41.37-57; Psalm 85.10; Romans 3.21-26; Amos 2.6-8; 1 Peter 2.23-24)

Warm-Up:

When was the last time you felt like something unfair happened and no one made it right?

“When a society rejects the Christian account of who we are, it doesn't become less moralistic but far more so, because it retains an inchoate sense of justice but has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many of my fellow Christians believe, sexual licentiousness, but rather vindictiveness. Social media serve as crack for moralists: there's no high like the high you get from punishing malefactors. But like every addiction, this one suffers from the inexorable law of diminishing returns. The mania for punishment will therefore get worse before it gets better.” (Alan Jacobs)