Sermon Cloud

LOVE MERCY JUSTICE - PART 2

Sermon in Two Parts:  A Time of Repentance and then Preaching

“Your decision doesn’t match my decision.”

·        I wasn’t always the peaceful, laid back guy you see before you.  I used to be pretty smart mouthed and sarcastic….I guess I’m still that guy in a lot of ways.

·        My parents have mentioned that they first noticed these qualities in me at an early age…somewhere around the age of 4.  They tell a story, one that would be repeated often, when they would tell me to do something I didn’t want to do.  At 4 years old, this is what I would tell them, “Your decision doesn’t match my decision.”  If I asked for something and they said no, I would say, “Your decisions doesn’t match my decision.”

·        My declaration was typical of a child but demonstrated that I wanted what I wanted when I wanted.  Years later, has anything changed?

·        Sin, or disobedience to God, is at its heart, a declaration of self-will.  We want what we want when we want it, and if God has spoken against it in scripture, our hearts cry, “Your decision doesn’t match my decision.”

·        I think we will find that as we look at Micah 2

2:1 Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand.  2 They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.  3 Therefore thus says the Lord:  behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.

·        Coveting is wanting more than you have and specifically wanting what someone else has.  I think coveting is the one sin that never gets discussed.

·        Consider the 10 commandments for a minute.

o       You shall have no other God’s before me.  You might say, “I don’t worship any other gods.

o       No idols/graven image.  You will say, I promise you I have never worshipped an image or tiki god of some sort.

o       Do not murder.  Nope.  I’ve never killed any one.

o       Do not commit adultery.  I’ve never cheated on my wife.

·        And we can go on and on with this list and think, “I’ve got all of that covered.  But when we get to the command of not coveting, that is where things fall apart don’t they?

·        The commandment to not covet exposes the sinful desires of our heart.  We do want what other people have.  It shows up when we stare longingly at the car or house that someone else has that we want.  We steal an extra look at the pretty girl when our wife isn’t looking.  We wander up and down the same aisle of Best Buy looking at big screens (oops, that’s my confession).

·        Coveting is the secret sin that none of us talk about that we are all guilty of.  As we read this passage from Micah, we see that it was the sin that God’s people were guilty of as well.

·        This is this second time that God has said that His people are helpless.  Last week, God said that their sin was incurable by their own hands and this week God is saying that He is bringing a judgment for sin that no one can prevent.

·        Specifically, though these people have taken their covetousness to the next level.  Not only are they lying in their beds and coveting what others had, they actually going out and stealing the things that they covet.

o       The want land that others have, and they take it.

o       They steal homes and inheritances.

·        Now, it might be very easy to think that we might struggle with coveting but how many of us would say that we are going out and stealing things?  Well, coveting is a posture of the heart and that posture of the heart is one of discontentment.  It says that God has not adequately provided for us.  Then, our hearts begun to devise how we can orchestrate our lives to satisfy our selfish desires.

·        When we do this, our lives move from a life of faith to a life of self-will.  My question for us as we prepare to repent is this, “Are the plans you have for your life based on faith in God or are they based on selfish, covetous ambitions?

 “This is your land; this is my land”

·        God has revealed Himself in lots of ways:  scripture, nature, and Jesus.  But these revelations are always consistent and never contradictory.

·        If anyone is going to speak about the character or the nature of God, it must line up with the revelation of God in His scriptures.  Otherwise, we are just talking out of our…ignorance.

·        So you may have an idea of who God is but it cannot be in anyway contradictory to the way He has revealed Himself in scripture.   If it is, it is a wrong view of God.  Wrong views of God ultimately turn your heart to frustration and perhaps even antagonism towards God.  Why?  Because the God of your wrong views will disappoint you.

·        Let me give you an example of how I have seen this work out right here in Garner.

o       I have met scores of people (and I means scores in the 4 score and 7 seven years ago way).  I have met hundreds of people in Garner who would say that they like Jesus but they are not going to commit to a body of believers ever again because all they have ever heard or been taught about God is legalism.

o       They have burned over by a bunch of made up rules on top of scripture and they will have none of it anymore.

o       Their comments are, “Yeah I believe in Jesus, but if God is like what I heard growing up, I don’t want anything to do with Him because all it seems like to me is that God only about a list of right and wrongs.

·        You know what?  That image of God will disappoint you because the joy and freedom that was intended from the grace of Jesus Christ is absent in that view of God.  The folks proclaiming a relationship of God as one of bondage to made up rules have it wrong and the people who have abandoned worshiping God have it wrong because they haven’t seen a true picture of who God is.

·        Correct, biblical views of God do not disappoint.

·        Now last week we talked about how the folks of Micah’s time didn’t always think correctly about God.  They thought certain things about God that just weren’t true.

o       For example, the people of God trusted their own devices and fortifications for security and they couldn’t imagine God thinking any thing of it.  Well, last week, we saw God’s declaration of judgment against the people of God.  We saw God saying that He would tear down the stone walls that His people had trusted in because they trusted those walls and not God.

o       The people also engaged in immoral worship and they didn’t think God was going to do anything about that either.  Last week, we saw God say that He would burn up all the profit that His people had earned from their illicit and immoral temple prostitution that had been rationalized as worship.

o       Well, imagine what’s going to happen to the people of God when they think that no one can take their land from them.

·        This week as we approach scripture, we are going to continue to see people with false presuppositions or ideas about God and we will see scripture expose them.  These folks are very slow to change their presuppositions and despite God’s declarations against many of them, they continue to hold them tightly.

·        So, I would like to ask a slightly different question in this sermon this week.  The question I want to ask is this, “What hope do we have of changing our false presuppositions about God if we are so blind that we don’t see them.”
 

4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me!  To an apostate he allots our fields.”  5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord.

·        The 5th amendment to the US Constitution affirms the right of every American citizen to own land, and it also affirms that no one can take that land from you without compensation…including the government.  Owning land is one of the rights that we hold dear in America.

·        For the most part, America has been built on a premise that agrees with Delmarr O’Donnell from the movie “Oh Brother Where are Thou” when he says, “"you ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land”  There is a general sense in America that you’ve made it once you finally can buy your own plot of land – even it is only .17 of an acre in a neighborhood where every house looks the same

·        Theoretically, if you own land in America, no one can take it away from you.

·        You would imagine that the people of Israel viewed their owning of land a lot like most Americans do.  They thought, “This is my land and no one can take it from me.  It is my right to own it, and this is especially true because God gave it to me.”  This was part of what made up their opinion and view of God.

·        God had given His people the land of Israel, and they worked off the premise that there was no way it could be taken away from them.  They could sell the land if they wanted to but it would be returned to the rightful owners every 50 years in a festival entitled “The Year of Jubilee.”  You could even cast lots which was a sort of pulling the shortest straw way of determining something and your land would be given away in payment for something.  But even then, during the Year of Jubilee, the land would be returned to the rightful owners.  So there was not a lot of selling of the land.

·        The people of God knew that He had given them the land, so they thought, “Well God can punish us all He wants, but at least we’ll always have our land.”

·        One of their biggest problems was that they loved the gift more than God.

·        Gang, what do you call it when you like the gift more than the giver?  Normally you call than an ex-girlfriend but here, we call it idolatry.

·        The people were worshipping the gift of the land that God had given them, and that was what they were trusting in.  Now the land was a good thing; trusting the land instead of God was not, and God said, “I will take it way from you.”

·        Did the people respond in repentance?  No, they said, “We are ruined because we have lost our gift.  Instead of repenting and asking God for forgiveness, all the people could do was wonder what they could trust in now that their land was gone.

·        Surely, the priests of the day would call the people to obey.  Surely the people who had been trained their entire life in the law of God would call themselves and the people of God to ask for forgiveness.  Unfortunately, the answer is no.


“What do you want first:  the good news or the bad news?”

6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—“one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.”  7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?  Has the Lord grown impatient?  Are these his deeds?  Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

·        The language here is a nice play on words.  The priests and prophets preached a sermon that said, “Do not preach a sermon about punishing us for our sins.”  Their sermon was, “We don’t want to listen to any sermons that give us bad news.”  They gave the always theologically sound response of putting your fingers in your ears and going, “Lalalalala”

·        These priests even went so far as to say that the character of God would not allow Him to do such things.  They started asking rhetorical questions like, “Has God grown impatient?  Is that the way God acts?”  The implied answer to the message of Micah was that God would never act that way.  It is our right to have this land no matter what they thought.

·        Here is an example of the thinking that we mentioned at the beginning of the sermon.  Eventually, our incorrect views of God will disappoint us.  Here it causes the people of God to actually argue against a real revelation of God.

·        Eventually, people just become hostile towards God and we see that evidenced by God’s next statement in verse 8.

 

“Don’t make me angry.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war.  9 The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my splendor forever.  10 Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.  11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be the preacher for this people!

 

·        God makes it very clear here.  Sin is not just doing something that you shouldn’t do.  Sin is not just slipping up.  Sin, even if it is a sin of thought, is a declaration of war in one’s heart against God.  Selfish, lustful, angry thoughts whatever, are a declaration that you will do what you want.  You are saying, ‘I am my own God.”  The sin in our hearts, minds, and deeds makes us God’s enemies.

·        The evidence that these people have made themselves God’s enemy is not that they are cursing God, or use blasphemous language or something like that.  The evidence that they have become God’s enemy is that they steal valuable clothing from the men, they steal the homes of women, and they take away the splendor or the blessing of children.  Essentially, they show that they are God’s enemy because instead of showing mercy, they are opening hostile.

·        In fact, they are so openly hostile towards God that He says that the only appropriate minister for these people would be one that openly tells everyone to go get drunk.  Micah’s proclamation shows that the people thought they were actually on good terms with God and would remain in the land of rest that God had given them.  Apparently, their lifestyle, their religious leaders, and their thoughts were all hostile towards God.

·        Allow me if you don’t mind to interject one application here.  Let us never think that God is pleased with our professed faith in Him if we are actively hostile, obstinate, or lack mercy towards others.  We cannot forget that Jesus directly equates our interaction with others with our interaction with him.  Mercy towards others is mercy to Jesus.  Indifference or hostility towards others is indifference or hostility towards Jesus.

·        Feeding the hungry and clothing the naked is loving Jesus.  Not doing those things is not loving Jesus.

·        Now as we consider these things, just as we saw last week, the picture is bleak.  The people of God cannot seem to let go of their false impression or presuppositions of God.  And God is disciplining them for it.  Even their priests and prophets are saying that God’s character would never let Him do anything like punish them or take the land away from them.

·        When we see God do that very thing, we wonder what hope we ever have for loving God, changing our presuppositions, or repenting.  Living in this world is hard.  We are faced with a myriad of real temptations and our hearts are so quick to find impatience with this world and the way it is.  Fortunately, God provides a way for us to love God truthfully in the midst of a painful world.

 

“I feel your pain.”

 

Luke 2:1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.  6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
 

·        Here is the Lord, Jesus – God Himself.  He was not greeted in this world by trumpets and pageantry and royalty.  No, He was born poor and an outcast.  He was immediately subject to a hostile government and His mother gave birth in a dirty stall with dirty animals with no attendants and no immediate celebration.

·        The only hope we have for trusting God and having faith in Him is that God Himself would endure this difficult world for us.  Our Savior who paid the penalty of our sin on the cross was not unfamiliar with suffering or the very real temptation we face each day.

·        We hear this hope of Jesus in Micah’s words to the people of God.

 

“And now, for something completely different.”

12 I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.  13 He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it.  Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.

·        There is a hope that despite the fact that God’s people have so much abandoned Him.

o       God will save His people.

o       God will be glorified by redeeming a people.

o       God will gather together a people to praise Him, and He will be their protection.  They will be protected like a flock of sheep that is protected by a shepherd.

o       The shepherd will go before them, and create a way for them to be saved and rescued.

o       This shepherd will also be their true King and their head guiding them in all righteousness and salvation.

·        I’m sure for the people of Micah’s time, all they heard was the pronouncement of judgment from God, and God brought that judgment swiftly.  Their incorrect view of God led them to be braggarts who trusted the gifts of God more than God Himself.  They thought they could live and think and do whatever they wanted and that God was indifferent about it.

·        Well, this day and age is not the much different.  We think and at times are very proud of our opinions that are quite contrary to who God is.  And the worst of it is, if we are not spending time exposing our minds and hearts to scripture, we are quite ignorant of our false ideas about God.  Alone, we would be like the people of Micah’s time and be quite hopeless.

·        But we have the hope of Christ looking back on this prophecy of Micah and the fulfillment of the promise that God Himself will shepherd away from our sin.  God will lead us into freedom, and open the breach of our hearts.  He Himself through Jesus Christ passes before us and is our head.

·        With that hope, let’s make a couple of practical applications.

·        First of all in an engaging community kind of way.  Let’s be patient with each other as we encourage each other to know God better and have our false ideas of Him smashed.

·        For example, let’s not settle for phrases or clichés about God.  Let’s always shape our thoughts of God on scripture.  If we do that, we will probably talk about God a lot less but at least when we do we will speak of Him correctly.

o       Let’s say more than “Well God has a purpose and a plan for everything.”  True to a certain extent, but more true is the scripture that says “I will work all things for the good of those that love Jesus Christ,” or (Psalms 33:11-13 NIV) But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations

o       Let’s not just say, “Well pray that God will give you strength.”  Let’s say, Psalms 73:26 NIV) My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

·        When we engage community, let us do it in the name of Christ while avoiding senseless arguments with any that do not believe.

o       For example, we should never just argue with people, yelling at them to repent.  No, we should display a wonderful full picture of God encouraging them to recognize that “It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.”

o       Let’s find ways to serve even the most difficult of people.  We don’t do it begrudgingly but we know that Jesus tells us that “If we did it to the least of them, we did it to Him.”