Trinity Church Tamworth Trinity Church Tamworth

GOD IS ENOUGH … WHEN THERE IS NO JUSTICE Trinity
Psalm 75 21.04.24


Last Monday week a man in Ireland was to stand trial for almost 100 counts of historic sexual crimes. The day before, on the Sunday, he was killed when his car crashed into a tree.

Hundreds of hours of police investigation ground to a halt. Imagine the emotional pain for the victims in reliving the past and now nothing. One news report said, “as the victims learned of his death … they were distraught and angry that he would not face justice.”

If that man killed himself, it seems like an easy way out for him. If it was an accident, that’s almost as bad. When the person who abused you, cheated you or stole from you dies of old age or is living it up while you suffer, what about justice?

We know that we want justice – but should we? Or is it unworthy? We should: the desire for justice is one of the evidences that we are more than flesh and blood … and more than animals … that we are made in the image of God with desires and hopes that reflect his.

• Relatives of millions of Holocaust victims still ask, “Where is justice for what was done to them?”
• Thousands of people in Israel and Gaza are suffering while the Hamas big men who have caused it, live in luxurious homes in Qatar.
• Thousands in Ukraine and Russia are suffering because of the actions of Putin and co, who seem oblivious to even more deaths in the second year of their war than in the first.
• Family members of the six people stabbed to death in Bondi last weekend are suffering. Where is the justice for them?
So many crimes are cruel and ugly and smash many lives. If perpetrators are shot dead or killed in a car smash, or as often as not, sent to prison for just 10 or 20 years, it seems like there is no justice. And when there is no justice, pain is multiplied many times over.

How kind of God to give us Psalm 75. In a world of injustice there is a NOW and there is a THEN. I want to talk about each answer a couple of questions along the way, and then finish up with maybe the biggest question of all.


NOW, INJUSTICE IS PART OF A BIGGER STORY

Yes, injustice is real, and it is painful. But it is not the whole story and is not the biggest story.

God is speaking in verse 2. He says “At the time that I appoint I will judge with equity” … that is future. Things that are uneven, unjust, unfair will be put right on the day that God has written into his diary. We’ll come back to that.

But there is a now - Verse3: “When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars.”

The earth tottered in Japan on Wednesday when an earthquake struck. Buildings fell down, roads buckled, and trees fell.

Deeper things wobbled for many people at Westfield Bondi Junction last Saturday. For some, life in this world changed forever. Life is never the same again for so many who are abused, caught up in war, mugged or traumatised. That is why we need somewhere strong to stand when the earth totters.
 The earth tottered when Jesus was unjustly murdered by wicked men. Was their action evil? Profoundly so. But they did “whatever your hand your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28).

 Paul was imprisoned. Justly? No. But he says, “what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.” (Philippians 1:5,6)

 Powerful men in China and North Korea and in nations like our own are determined to silence Christians and unjustly force us to bow to the gods of this world. Are they in charge or part of a bigger story? God says that he “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11), whether in China or anywhere else.

In verse 3 God says, “When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep it steady on its pillars

Psalm 74

GOD IS ENOUGH … WHEN LIFE DOESN’T MAKE SENSE Trinity
Psalm 73 07.04.24


50 years ago, 90% of weddings were in church. The rate is now about 20%. Funerals are not far behind.

There may be something good about that, if it means that people are being more honest about where God fits in their lives.

But what is the result of taking God out of life? It seems that most people think we end up with a better world, and better lives – where we can all do what we want and believe what we want and get what we want, and it is all okay.

Tell that to the 10 to 20 million people murdered by Stalin who took God out of the picture. Or the 40 to 80 million killed by Mao in China.

It doesn’t work that life gets better if you treat this world as a closed world where all that works is what we see and do:
• Life gets reduced to what you own or do … the one who dies with the most toys wins; the one who is the most famous is the hero.
• Since crooks and tyrants and abusers get off scot-free, why not do what they do? Certainly, don’t do anything that costs you.
• You can’t challenge anything in the end - “It-s not fair”, “that’s not right” if we live in a closed world where “you do you” is the only rule to follow.

Thankfully many people who want to live in a closed world are not consistent – they still admire generosity and heroism and want at least some laws, and fairness and justice.
But there is going to be less and less reason for any of that the more that life is flattened to what you see, and what works, and what it means for you to do you.

Asaph is the writer of Psalm 73. He is under pressure to take on a closed view of the world.

 Over here are those who are healthy (“no pangs until death” v4), their dinner tables are loaded, and they have the best personal trainers (“their bodies are fat and sleek” v4b) … they don’t have any trouble paying their bills (“they are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind” v5).

 And because of that they are arrogant and proud: “they scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth” (v9).

 Do people see them for what they are? No. People are blind to their arrogance, besotted with their success. Others “turn back to them and find no fault in them” (v10).

 Because secretly they love and serve the living God? No – they mock him – “What would he know?” they ask, verse 11.

Then there is the other side of the picture in a closed world. There are people like Asaph. They do love the Living God and aim to live by his laws. They also full, and healthy, and popular.

No. It’s the opposite ... verse 13 “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been stricken, and rebuked every morning.”
The pains in his body which he takes to bed are still there next morning. His reputation gets trashed. His children die. His money runs out. His friends walk out on him, and his family members treat him as a loser, and he is the man who fears the Lord!

It’s not like that for every person. But it’s true enough to be able to generalise … more crooks and tax cheats and God mockers live in luxury than in prison cells. It’s generally true that God-fearers, the truly true believers are not as rich and famous as the others.

Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Doesn’t God bless the godly, and withhold good things from the ungodly? Not in this world.

That was becoming a problem for Asaph. He thought of giving God away. Verse 2: “my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” What he saw nearly undid him.

He is good man. He knows God is real; he is the man who is responsible for the church s

John 20:10-23

I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD Trinity
John 16:25-33 24.03.24


What would it look like if I could show on a graph how I have followed the Lord Jesus for 65 years? At age 11, when the story began, I didn’t know much … so I’ve learnt a bit since then. Just small faith in 1958, but some growth through to 2024. A few small sacrifices along the way, but nothing world-shattering.

Then I’d have to put in the losses … compromises, tangents, unbelief, inconsistencies and sins. The upward trend suddenly looks more jagged.

I think the graph for Jesus’ disciples in John 16 looks a lot like mine. Pretty ordinary for the most part? I think so. A lot of talk, but not much delivered when the heat is on. For every one thing they ‘get’, there are 10 they do not.

Two weeks back we were with them in John 16:17, they thought they had a lot worked out, but they missed some simple things. Jesus had said “In a little while you will not see me … and then in a little while you will.” “What does he mean?” they keep asking (v18).

So, he tells them. So that they think they now get it … “now we believe” (30). Really? … “Do you now believe?” (v31)

If they do, they do not believe very deeply. As much as they think they have grown over the past 1000 days and nights with Jesus, they aren’t as sure or as reliable as they might think … “Behold the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone.” (v32)
Now I need to say something here that is very important before we say anything else about their failure.

Their failure is very real. These are the men who had been so full of talk: “Yes, I’ll die with you.” “No, I’ll never deny you.” “We will follow you wherever you go.” However, not one of them is there even when it is time to remove his body from the cross.

What will Jesus do with them?

You may be a follower of Jesus and you are only 6 or 10 years old, or you are a starter in your 40’s or 50’s. You have been following him for 50 years and you know you are way short of where you ought to be by now. Does he write off children, or beginners of any age? Is he harsh or dismissive of weak faith?

Faith can be weak and inconsistent, but still be true faith. Jesus does not mock the man who said to him “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.” Or the faith of children. Or of others who are not the big hitters, but who have small faith. Or of faith that fails under pressure, as it did for these men.

Just because faith is shallow, or is uneven, that does not mean it is not genuine faith.

I am not talking about any old faith, as though it does not matter what you believe, so long as you believe something.

No, genuine faith has genuine content, like it did for these weak, soon-to-be-running-away disciples. The faith they had was true faith. Look at verse 27: “The Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God.”
Friends, true faith has true content, and it is so important that Jesus repeats the content again, and again and again. Who is this Jesus whom they have believed and loved?

v27c “I came from God”.
v28a “I came from the Father”.
v28b “now I am leaving the world and going to the Father”.
v32b “… you will leave me alone is. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”

Jesus has come into time from his Father in eternity – and is soon to go back again to his Father in that eternity. Even now, in time, intimately connected with, one with his Father, in a relationship that cannot be broken.

Here is more than a man. Here is the eternal God. To see him is to see God … to hear him is to hear God … to believe him is to believe God. Conversely, to resist or reject him is to resist or reject the Living God.

This is the content of the only faith that is real, and which truly matters: Jesus is et

2 Kings 25