Church Family,
Are you willing to accept the injustices of the world as simply a fact of life?
Do you look at poverty, oppression, and suffering as unwelcome, but obligatory parts of human existence?
God doesn’t.
God was simply unwilling to assume the brokenness of the cosmos as something to be tolerated. Instead of bidding to passively appreciate what was good about the world, God had the courage to change the things that He could. Through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God took the sinful world as it was, and God intervened on our behalf to defeat the powers of sin and death.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are also called to be discontent with the brokenness of the world. We too, as apprentices of Jesus Christ, are not to look at injustice and suffering as unfortunate but incurable realities; we are imitators of Jesus, and that means living as people who actively demonstrate mercy and justice in the places where they are most needed.
On Sunday morning at First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn we continued in our spring sermon series entitled More Than Sunday: Living as People of the Resurrection. In the sermon (which you can listen to here) we saw how the Apostle James emphasized to the church just how essential this component of faith is to true discipleship.
Seeking justice and practicing mercy are not ancillary to the life of faith, but central to living the Gospel.
Just like with other components of our Christian walk, none of us will live this component perfectly. But, just like with prayer, and worship, and knowledge of God’s word, this is an aspect of discipleship that we are called to increasingly grow into; day-by-day and year-by-year.
So let me simply ask you to reflect on whether or not this is the case for you. Are you growing in your ability to show mercy and in your heart for justice? Do you find yourself spending more of your time and energy caring for the poor at this point in your journey of faith than you did in previous eras? Are you less content with the brokenness of the world because you have fallen more in love with the Savior of the world?
Grateful to be growing alongside you as a community of justice and mercy,
Chris Griggs
