Sermon Cloud

A Service Encapsulating the book of Micah

Call to Worship: Micah 7:1 - Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.

Time of Repentance

Micah 7:2-6 – 2 The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net. 3 Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together. 4 The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. 5 Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; 6 for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.

· For the people of Micah’s time, judgment had finally come for their sins. The judgment from God is a lot like the judgment in Noah’s time where God declares that there are none upright who stand before God.

o The princes that rule the people are wicked.

o The judges will do whatever you want them to do for a bribe.

o The supposed great men not only devise evil but do it.

o The best man among the people is like a brier.

o The most righteous man is like a thorn hedge.

· God promises them judgment to the point that even families will turn against each other. This God did in the time of Micah.

· Is there any betrayal worse than that of a family member? This is what God used to punish the people for their sin.

· Now standing this side of Micah, we proclaim that judgment for sin has been poured out on Jesus Christ and that there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. We still see God’s discipline today in the consequences of our sin, so what do we do with a passage like this?

· We need to be reminded that the people of Micah’s time for guilty of several things:

o Forgetting God by emphasizing ritual over relationship

o Building their own personal kingdoms while neglecting love, mercy, and justice

o Justifying themselves based on their own goodness before God

· These are areas that we need to ask God to forgive us for.

o Are we here out of a desperate passion to worship God or is obligation and appearance more important to us?

o How much of our energy and time are put in providing a life of comfort for ourselves while neglecting mercy and justice to those in need?

o When we approach God, do we see our relationship through a lens of our own goodness or through Jesus’ goodness alone?

Assurance of Forgiveness

Micah 7:7-9 - 7But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. 8 Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. 9 I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication.

· In light of our sin, the only choice we have is to say, “I will look to God and God alone. My only hope is to wait for Him and the fulfillment of His promises.

· I wait knowing that my God hears me.

o If I ask for forgiveness, He hears me and forgives me.

o If I cry out for help, He hears me.

· We should have no fear of any enemy or of any obstacle.

o When we fall, our savior Jesus picks us up.

o If I am down and depressed metaphorically sitting in darkness, my savior, Jesus is my light.

o If I am sitting under the consequences and discipline of my sin, I recognize that God is just ordering my life the way He has, but I still trust that through Jesus Christ, He will bring me out of whatever darkness I am.

Prayer for the Kingdom - Micah 7:10-17 – 10 Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, “Where is the Lord your God?” My eyes will look upon her; now she will be trampled down like the mire of the streets. 11 A day for the building of your walls! In that day the boundary shall be far extended. 12 In that day they will come to you, from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt to the River, from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain. 13 But the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants, for the fruit of their deeds.

· The opening verses speak about the world looking at God’s people, and when they see God’s people suffering, asking, “Where is your God?” The implication behind the question is, “If your God was so powerful, why you are going through such a hard time? That’s a question we ask sometimes as well.

· Micah then speaks about both the protection of the people of God and their destruction.

o This is seen as the walls being built and their boundaries being extended.

o Simultaneously, Micah speaks of a coming destruction where the Earth will become desolate.

· When it comes down to it, the issue for the people of Micah’s day (and for ours) still comes down to whether or not the people will walk in repentance of their sins.

· Hope comes in verse 14-17

14 Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land; let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old. 15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvelous things. 16 The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf; 17 they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their strongholds; they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God, and they shall be in fear of you.

· But in verse 14, the tone changes. There is a prayer to God that He would lovingly shepherd His people. There is a prayer that God would bless His people as His has done before.

· And when God blesses and restores His people, the world will look and see God’s protection. What will be the world’s response? They will repent and be ashamed of their actions. They will repent to such an extent that they will cover their mouths and speak no more. They will hear no more and they will repent in dust.

· They will leave behind the strongholds that they have trusted in and they will finally respect and fear the name of the one Lord God.

· Do we realize that that is part of the mission of the church?

o We are to pray that we can walk in the providence of God, in the circumstances of our lives, and no matter what, we are to praise God.

o Whether our circumstances are great or poor, we proclaim that God is just, and through that the world will see the glory of God and repent.

· This is how we can pray for the kingdom. We pray that we would find grace to praise God in the midst of troubles while even praying that God would relieve us our sufferings.

· Then, we pray that God would give us a Kingdom mindset not only to for ourselves in suffering but also pray that God would use it in such a way that we would see others come to know God as we give Him glory in any circumstance.

· 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.

o 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 guys 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, this church is named “Sovereign King” and it emphasizes two things.

o God is the King of all creation, and

o 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. Listen, 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.

o As Mike mentioned before, the world watches our lives. When we suffer they wonder, “Where is your God?” But when say, “God is just in all He does,” the nations repent in dust.

o 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, 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. Let’s jump in.

Micah 7:18-20 - 18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. 19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. 20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.

· By beginning the way He does, Micah asks, “Who is a God like you,” which is another way of, “There are no gods like you.” Micah is asking a rhetorical question that requires no answer.

o This is like the other day when Amy had just a horrible day. She felt bad, the kids were going crazy, but then despite the crazy day, she made this incredible sausage and tortellini soup and after the kids went to bed we had a candle lit dinner.

o My response was, “How awesome are you?” Which requires no response because well…she is awesome.

· Micah’s question works the same way, and it should give us pause before we examine His answer. We should ask ourselves, do we live with such a wonder of God that we go around thinking, “There is no one as awesome as you God. There is nothing or no one that satisfies as you do.” If we can’t say that, we just found a new area to repent and a new area by which to praise God. It would do us well to either for the first time or once again recapture an awe for God.

· Well, Micah explains why God is so awesome. What makes God so distinguishable from any other thing in creation is this incredible list of qualities and characteristics.

o God pardons iniquity.

o God passes over transgression.

o God is not angry for a long time.

o He delights in steadfast love.

o God continually has compassion on us.

o He is the one that gets rid of our iniquities.

o God casts all of our sins away from us into the depths of the sea.

o God is faithful.

o He shows steadfast love, and

o He does these things because He promised, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”

· Now this is not an exhaustive list of God’s qualities. God also punishes sins. He is just. He is a jealous God. He omnipresent and omniscient. But for the sake of the people of Micha’s day, and the sake of you and me, these are the qualities that we need to emphasize and consider today.

· So, God forgives sins. In fact until He passed over lots sins for the sake of the remnant of His inheritance.

o Now what that means is that covenantally, God has made a people and brought that people to Himself. That was true in the time of Abraham, it was true in Micah’s day, and it’s true today.

o God, the Creator, lowers Himself and establishes a relationship with the creation.

o For God to maintain that relationship, He has to forgive sin and pass over it because there is no way we could have a relationships with God otherwise. So God makes covenants with His people binding Himself in a pledge of love to those that have faith in Him.

o So, if your sins are forgiven it is because of God’s covenant faithfulness to you.

· That doesn’t mean that sin doesn’t anger God but Micah is clear that God does not remain angry forever. Why? Because God loves thoroughly and steadfastly, and He takes great delight in loving us that way.

· At the essence of any relationship with God is compassion. God is God of all compassion and as 2 Corinthians 1 says, He is the God of all comfort. If you are in relationship with Him, the it must be that God has shown compassion to you.

· Now you guys have heard me say this, scripture presents us, because of our sin, as the enemies of God. If we sin, it is not just slipping up, it is rebellion against God and us serving our own means instead of God’s. So how in the world is it possible for God to be compassionate to His enemy?

· The answer is right there in verse 19. He treads our iniquities or sins underfoot. That means that God Himself deals with the sin problem. The only that I can do about my sin problem is pay the price for it and be punished. God, however, can trample my sin underfoot and He does.

· And not only does He conquer our sin, He casts our sin into the depths of the sea which is another way of saying that He separates us from our sin.

· Consider that for a minute.

o How many of you walk around with ongoing guilt from sin that God has forgiven you of?

o How man of you live in regret of some sin thinking that God is still angry with you?

· I know people whose whole lives have been devastated with guilt over sin all because they think that God will not forgive them. They are a lot like Martin Luther who beat himself in freezing cold water to trying to pay for their sin. They pursue everything under the sun to assuage their guilt. Since moving to Garner, I’ve encountered addicts of every shape and size

o Drug and alcohol addiction

o Pornography addiction

o Video Game addiction

o Food addiction

o Self-mutilation

· The list goes on and on, and though I can’t say for certain that every addiction I’ve encountered started because of a guilty conscience, I can say that every addict I’ve met struggles with whether God could truly forgive and remove the stain of sin.

· Folks we often fall into the trap of thinking that God will forgive and save us from hell but that the extent of His love to us.

o Heaven is not a place that is populated by people who are afraid of going to Hell.

o Heaven is a place that is populated by people who are passionately loved by Jesus who passionately love Him in return.

· God takes your sin, tramples it underfoot (instead of trampling you underfoot) and removes it from you casting it into the depths of the sea.

· Folks, when it comes down to it, I want you to have a passion for Christ. I want it to be a central description of you, your family, and Sovereign King Church. Scripture tells us that it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. That is the emphasis of this passage of Micah here. God will not only graciously forgive you. He will remove your sin from you.

o Consider that for a moment. Your sin is not just forgiven; your sin is removed from you.

· Consider for a moment what you are passionate about. Consider how excited you get about various things: sports, politics, making money, etc. Does your fervor for Christ even come close to those things?

o Listen I understand passion. I named my daughter Landry after Tom Landry the coach of the Dallas Cowboys. That’s passion.

o I read Facebook status’ on Friday and people were bewailing an injury to Tyler Hansbrough of the Tarheels. Their day was ruined. That’s passion…misguided but passion nonetheless.

· But the proper passion of our life, the one in which all other passions should pale and all other passions should be derived, is a passion for our compassionate Savior Jesus Christ.

· And if we cannot describe our relationship with Christ as desperately passionate then our picture of God and His grace towards must be too small.

o Maybe it is that you don’t think you can be forgiven.

o Maybe you know you are forgiven but you don’t feel like your sin has been removed from you.

· Either way, when we see the depth of our sin met by the compassionate love of God, then the proper response of our heart is passionately love our Savior.

· The reason so few people respond to presentations of the Gospel is because people sense no passion behind it.

o Oh, they understand what we are saying.

o They get that we think that they are going to bust the gates of hell wide open if they don’t believe in Jesus.

o But sometimes, sadly, I don’t think they see a passion in our lives that they think is worth going after.

· Folks, don’t reduce your relationship to Jesus to a couple of truths about heaven and hell. He is more than that. He is the God who passionately loves us, forgives us and yes rescues us from hell and delivers us to heaven. And the more we embrace the depths to which we love Him, we will avoid the trappings of the book Micah.

o We won’t reduce Christianity to ritual, but will revel in our relationship.

o We will be merciful to those that need mercy because we have been shown mercy.

o We will seek justice in this world where it is absent because we have seen justice done in our lives.

o We will love because He first loved us. Let’s pray.