Sermons About Micah
Satisfaction
The 4th of 4 messages in the inaugural teaching series of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA.
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LIFE - Justice, Mercy, Humility:Required
God is very clear in what he requires of each of us. Micah chp. 6 speaks with amazing clarity regarding living a life that meets the requirements of God.
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Love, Mercy, and Justice Part 10 - The Series Finale - He Will Again Have Compassion on Us
What is your God like? It is not an easy question to answer not because God is unknowable (He is) but because God's qualities and characteristics are so immense in number. I mean, what do you emphasize? His love, mercy, justice, knowledge, knowability...the list goes on and on. I'm sure if we made a list of the attributes of God just from among you here, we would get a cross-section of all the things that God has shown about Himself coupled with all the things that we like to emphasize. For example, out church is named "Sovereign King" and it emphasizes two things: God is the King of all creation and He is Sovereign in rule over that creation allowing no one, not even you, to usurp His authority. Sometimes I wonder though, whether or not the God we worship is the God we communicate. One way or the other, we are always communicating something about God from our lives, our choices, and the way we react to certain things. Unfortunately, what we communicate is not always what we say we believe about God. As Micah mentions, the world watches our lives. When we suffer they wonder, "Where is your God?" But when we can earnestly say, "God is just in all He does," the nations repent in dust. We don't and cannot live perfect lives, but the way we react to sin and imperfections is a powerful testimony as to who God is. So if we say, God is just in all He does, then we need to be able to praise Him in the midst of pain and suffering. If we say God is loving, we better be loving. If we say God is the God of all comfort, we better be comforting. But the world scratches their head when we say, "God is merciful and forgive," but we are slow to forgive. The world scratches their head when we say God is just in all He does, but we only get around to giving Him praise when everything in our lives get better. No matter what we communicate though, God is communicating Himself to the world. Romans 1 makes it clear that by nature itself people know that there is a God. One can just look at the beauty and complexity of the cosmos and know that at least God is creator and He creates beauty. John 13:35 say that the world will know that we are God's disciples if we demonstrate love, so constantly the message of who God is, is communicated to the world. So again I ask, "What is your God like?" This Sunday at Sovereign King, as we close out our study of Micah, the prophet is going to answer that question. He is going to tell us who our God is and what He is like. The challenge for us will be to conform our thoughts, beliefs, and actions to the truths of who He is. Then we trust that God will use those things to bring the nations in.
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Love, Mercy, Justice Part 9 - a message on giving
One of the lessons that should be learned from the economic crisis of 2008 is that the line between those in financial need and those that are not is pretty blurry. As home after home are foreclosed on, it is time to be honest with ourselves. Just because a person can afford to live in $300,000 home, does not mean that they are either doing well financially or that they have made good financial decisions. In fact, the person living in a $500 a month apartment struggling to make ends meet might actually be better off financially than many in upscale suburban neighborhoods. The main difference is that the folks in the nice communities get to walk the fine line of financial ruin in nicer accommodations. Unfortunately, it is easy to dismiss folks who file for bankruptcy or are mired in credit card debt because the temptation is to think they are just getting what they deserved. The thought, "If they had made smart decisions with their money, they wouldn't be in this mess," is easy to think. There is a sense of justice in many people's thoughts and speech that says, "Well, that's what you get if you aren't smart with your money." Now, our temptation if we are no where close to losing our house and if we don't have any credit card debt (or if we are even some where in between) is to look down on folks who make poor financial decisions. And I would say if that is the case, we need to be very careful of falling into the sin of self-righteousness. Yes, we need to obey and be fiscally responsible, but God always judges us on the heart behind our obedience. So, even though we are doing fine financially, we need to ask the question, "What is the heart motive?" Are you financially conservative and responsible because you want to be generous towards God and His kingdom or is financial conservatism just the smartest way to live the lifestyle that you want to live and the added bonus is getting to feel spiritually AND financially superior?
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What Then Shall We Do? - Love, Mercy, and Justice part 7
Two weeks ago at Sovereign King, we looked at a passage in Micah where God was literally holding court against His people. In His case against them, He accused them of forgetting several key things. They had forgotten… That God had taken them from slaves and made them children. That God had protected them from their enemies when they came into the Promised Land. That God had not always punished them as their sins deserve. That God had given them the freedom to worship Him without fear. Our take away from that sermon was that even though we may remember what God has done for us in the past, just remembering is not enough. If that memory doesn't give us hope for today, then we are essentially forgetting God as well. I encouraged us all in the day to day to remember what Jesus has done for us by His work on the cross. We can do that in some very simple ways: By sharing with others what Christ has done for us. By recognizing that Jesus' death was sufficient for us and therefore not living in guilt. By celebrating the fact that when we are faithless, He is faithful still. As we return to the book of Micah and we find that God's court case has come and gone, the people of Micah's time finally get around to asking the right question. They want to know, "Well, what should we do?" Now it is difficult to determine exactly out of what motivation the people of God were asking their question, but I do think this is the best time to ask that question. Knowing that God has been, is presently, and is always going to be faithful to you because of Jesus Christ, that is the perfect time to ask Him what He would have you do because you know that no matter what, even if you fail or succeed, God is going to be there for you. This is sort of like learning to ride a bike when you were a kid. My experience wasn't very good because my brother put me on the bike at the top of a hill and just pushed me down. I wound up with a broken nose, so that didn't end very well. No, most folks have a parent walking beside them, steadying them on two wheels. And if the child starts to fall, the parent catches them. Eventually, the child figures out that they can risk falling and risk riding because they know they have their parent there to catch them either way. That's what it is like if you are asking God what He would have you do when you know that He will be faithful to you even if you are faithless. So having said all that, in the sermon this Sunday, why don't we seek to answer the very question that the people of God were asking. They asked that in light of God's faithfulness, "What should WE offer back to God?" Let's find out.
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I Remember You - Love, Mercy, Justice Part 6
I knew a couple who told me a story about the morning of the wife's birthday. This couple generally made a big deal out of birthdays. I can relate because Amy and I are like that; birthdays in some ways are bigger than Christmas for the two of us. Well, this couple got up in the morning, and the husband didn't mention anything about the wife's birthday. At first, she thought maybe he was going to surprise her and was just playing it cool, but after a few hours, she started to worry. Well, the time came for them to head to the wife's family's house to celebrate her birthday, so she said, "I guess we need to head to my parent's house." The husband was getting ready to ask, "What for?" when the reality that he had forgotten her birthday hit him full on. Now instead of manning up and just saying, "I forgot sweetie; I'm sorry," he said, "Oh, hey the money was tight this week so I couldn't afford to get you a card. I'm sorry, but hey, happy birthday." Now, we've all forgotten something that was important at some point in time whether it was a meeting or even a commitment. Sometimes those slips ups come from just being busy, and sometimes they come up because honestly we are just not very considerate. But when we forget something really important, it hurts the people that are involved because when we forget something for someone, it is like forgetting them personally. That is the point that God is going to make in the book of Micah this week: forgetting what God has done is the same as forgetting God. So we should approach our study from the book of Micah this week asking, "What have we forgotten that God has done for us, and what would change about our life if we remembered?"
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