What do you think of when you hear the word justice? For some of us justice is immediately about judgment, about someone getting what they deserve. For others of us justice may be a cause of fear, being afraid of getting what we deserve. Some of us think of justice in terms of our society and we think of those treated unfairly and what our government and culture needs to do to solve these ills. Right now, what is happening in Flint, MI is an act of injustice. No matter what you believe about who is in the wrong or the right and what motivates things like this the reality is there is right now an injustice going on in that community and justice needs to be served, but what does that mean? All you have to do is ask that question on Facebook and you will get more definitions of justice and ideas of how it should be served that you could have ever fathomed. Let me ask a different question, what does it mean to say that God is just? Again, many different thoughts come to mind: He is holy, sin can’t stand in His presence, He does all things well, He is perfect, He is righteous; I’m sure there are many more things we could say. Notice something about this, everything I’ve just listed describes pieces of God’s justice but none of those things define His justice. Justice is as much a part of God’s character as love, mercy, generosity or holiness is. He is a just God but what does that look like and what does that mean, maybe most of all, why does it matter? Today as we finish our brief look at the parable of the unmerciful servant we are going to concentrate on the justice of God and my prayer is that we will see that judgment and justice are not even remotely the same thing, that justice is 100% a heart issue and that the mercy and grace of God that we celebrate are actually outcomes of His justice not the opposite of it. I want to dispel the idea that God is merciful when He is forgiving and just when He stands in judgment and I hope that this parable will bring us all to see that He is never one thing or the other He is always fully Himself. So far in the parable we have seen that God is merciful and gracious, today I want us to see that His mercy and His grace flow from His justice and that justice is not something we get if we reject Him but His justice is what actually gives us the opportunity to surrender to Him. Today when we ask our question, “What kind of King is this?” my hope is that we will see that He is a King of justice.