God is just and righteous

Last weekend, we launched this series called Great God. We said that when you walk into a room, everything people know about you comes with you. Your character comes with you. Your reputation comes with you. Your history comes with you.

And today, we are focusing on the justice of God.

Growing up, I learned about injustice the hard way. When my dad came home drunk from the bars, everything I knew about him came with him—his temper tantrums, his violence, the abuse, his unpredictability, the names he called us, and the fear he created.I was terrified of him… yet I loved him.

I knew his behavior was wrong. His pattern of yelling, breaking things, and terrifying the family was wrong, and his punishments never seemed to fit the crime. If one dish was left out in the sink, he would make all of us kids get up at two or three in the morning, pull out all the dishes from the cabinets, wash and dry them, then go back to bed for an hour or two before it was time to wake up for school.

The spankings I received were always given in anger—over-the-top, violent, and unjustified. Anger ruled our house. Justice and fairness did not seem to exist. And if you grew up in a home absent of justice and fairness, you probably remember saying, “Life’s not fair.” And now that you are older, that statement may have evolved into a question like, “If God is a just God, then why does life seem so unfair?”

Why do some kids grow up safe while others grow up scared? Why do some parents come home and bring peace with them, while others bring chaos? Why are some people protected and others exposed? Why does it feel like bad behavior goes unchecked while good people suffer?

The things we didn’t think were fair when we were kids seem pretty fair now as adults, don’t they?

Our ability to change our position on what we think is just and fair might explain why we struggle so much with the justice of God.

Last week, we read Exodus 34:6–7 about how God revealed his character as he revealed his glory to Moses. Part of that passage speaks directly to justice, and I said we would come back to it this week.

Exodus 34:7 (NLT2)
“But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.”

At first glance, that sounds deeply troubling. If God punishes children for the sins of their parents, that doesn’t seem like a just and fair God, does it? That doesn’t sound like a God we want to trust.

So what do we do with Scripture like this?

Deuteronomy 24:16 (NLT2)
“Parents must not be put to death for the sins of their children, nor children for the sins of their parents. Those deserving to die must be put to death for their own crimes.”

In Exodus 34, God is not saying children are guilty for their parents’ sins. Deuteronomy 24 makes that clear.Guilt belongs to the one who sins. I am not punished by God for my father’s sin. That guilt was his, not mine. But I did grow up inside the consequences of his sin. I felt the impact of his alcoholism. I felt the insecurity brought by his anger. I felt the fear his behavior created.

Sin does not stay isolated with just the individual who chooses to sin. It spills over. It affects families. It reshapes homes. It leaves marks on the next generation. Exodus 34 isn’t a warning that God is unfair—it’s a declaration that he tells the truth about the damage sin causes. And it’s also a reminder that even in the wreckage, God shows up with grace.

Psalm 89:14 (NLT2)
“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Unfailing love and truth walk before you as attendants.”

The psalmist tells us that righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne. Justice is not something God reaches for when he needs it. It is not something he balances against his other attributes. Justice is the ground everything else stands on.

God is the standard of what’s right—always

When God is good, he is being rightly good. His goodness is never random. It never bends toward favoritism. It is always the right kind of good. When God shows mercy, he is not sweeping things under the rug. He is showing right mercy—mercy that tells the truth, does not excuse guilt, acknowledges harm, and still moves toward restoration. When God is patient, he is not passive. He is being rightly patient—slow to anger without being permissive, patient without pretending evil does not matter. When God forgives, he is not pretending sin did not happen. He is offering right forgiveness—forgiveness that deals honestly with guilt and still makes a way forward.

This is why God never has to choose between being loving and being just. Those things never compete in him. Everything he does flows out of justice and righteousness. God does not react to what is right. He does not negotiate what is right. He defines what is right. And because justice is the foundation of his throne, everything God does is right.

That means when God allows punishment for evil, he is right to allow it. And when God forgives the sin of someone who hurt you and allows them to experience a new life in Christ, he is right to show mercy. You may not like it. You may not understand it. But God is still right. God’s justice is not meant to crush you—it is meant to free you.

God’s justice frees us from self-justification

It is exhausting to spend our lives justifying ourselves. We justify our reactions, our words, our anger, our silence. We replay conversations and make ourselves the hero. We retell stories to paint ourselves in the best light. We soften our guilt by comparing ourselves to people who are worse. That is self-justification—and it is exhausting. But God’s justice frees us from that burden.

If God judges rightly, then I do not have to. If God sees clearly, then I do not have to keep explaining myself. If God knows the full story, then I do not have to keep editing mine.

Romans 3:25–26 (NLT2)
“God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin… to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.”

God declares us right not because we argued well, but because Jesus took our place. The cross handled justice—not postponed it, not ignored it. When God declares us right through Jesus, we are finally free to be honest about where we are wrong. That is what freedom looks like.

Trust in God’s justice reframes how we treat others

When we trust God’s justice, we stop playing judge. We stop keeping score. We stop demanding repayment. That does not mean consequences disappear—it means vengeance no longer belongs to us. Trusting God’s justice allowed me to forgive my dad. Forgiveness did not mean what he did didn’t matter. It meant I stopped carrying a weight God never asked me to carry. Forgiving him did not free him—it freed me.

Justice was not ignored. Justice was satisfied. Jesus already carried what we were never meant to hold. And when you trust God’s justice, you can finally let go.