Sermon Cloud

I interact with lots of people each day, and one hard and fast rule that I’ve learned is that every person has a presupposition about who God is.  Now to explain that, a presupposition is an idea that you bring about someone or something before actually interacting with it.  For example, I assume that living on the island nation of Dubai would be incredibly sweet, but I have never actually been to Dubai, so my impression of it being sweet is a presupposition.  Some of our presuppositions are right and based on factual evidence and sometimes they are just flat out wrong and based on what we think something is like.  Either way, they are our presuppositions and often we hold to them pretty tightly.

Let me give you an example of how our presuppositions about God play themselves out.  When something tragic happens to someone that we like or love, our hearts move to the question of, “Why would a loving God allow that to happen?”  We trust that God is loving so we think that should cause Him to do or not do certain things.  So when we think of God’s love, we wonder why something happens that appears or feels unloving.

However on the other hand, when we hear of a child being abducted or someone committing a terrible crime, our hearts are swift to hope that God would meet out judgment quickly.  We think, “Well God is the one who ultimately judges people so I hope He judges those people quickly."

So the big question is, “What informs our presuppositions about God?”  Sadly, and quite often, they are informed by every other thing but scripture. 

Well Sovereign King is going to start a new series on the book of Micah entitled “Love Mercy Justice” and in it we are going to see how those 3 qualities accurately describe God’s character.  Then, and only then, we will pursue how WE are to display those characteristics. 

The context of Micah is his warning the people of God about the coming destruction of Judah at the hands of the Babylonians and the immediate attack of an enemy named Sennacherib.  Why were God’s people being attacked?  They are being attacked as the sovereign will of God to punish them for their sin.   

What was their sin?

·        Israel’s sin was a sin of idolatrous worship of other gods as well as social sinning against one another. 

·        The civil and governmental authorities also were guilty of not governing the people in a Godly ways.

·        There were priests and false prophets that were guilty of living in a false security of God while pursuing the idols of the land. 

·        It was not a pretty picture.

Sounds like a bunch people working off of false presuppositions about God.  So, this Sunday, we are going to attempt to answer this question:  in what ways did the people in Micah’s time not understand God correctly.  When we get done answering that question, I think we will want to ask that same question about ourselves.