Sermon Cloud

· To refresh our memory, two weeks ago, we looked at a passage in Micah where God was literally holding court against His people. In his case against His people, He accused them of forgetting several key things. They had forgotten…

o That God had taken them from slaves and made them children.

o That God had protected them from their enemies when they came into the Promised Land.

o That God had not always punished them as their sins deserve.

o That God had given them the freedom to worship Him without fear.

· Our takeaway from that sermon was that even though we may remember what God has done for us in the past, that’s 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…

o By sharing with others what Christ has done for us.

o By recognizing that Jesus’ death was sufficient for us and therefore not living in guilt.

o 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 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 think this is the best time to ask a 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 today, 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.

Micah 6:6-8

6 “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?

· Now this is the response of God’s people after He declared to them that they had forgotten God. They may have remembered what He had done for them in events like the Passover, but the way they lived without honoring God and without trusting God showed that they had truly forgotten Him.

· Now the question, “With what shall I come before the Lord,” can be taken one of two ways.

o First, they could be seeking truly how to live in light of God’s faithfulness and grace, or

o They could not fully understand God’s faithfulness and grace, and if that is the case then they are looking to earn God’s good graces or trying to appease Him because they think that He is angry.

· I’m afraid that we will find that they still do not understand God’s faithfulness and grace as is evidenced by what they offer Him. Specifically they offer 3 things.

They offer Him worship by the letter of the law.

6 Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

· Now of course, there is nothing wrong with obedience, but the problem here is that God does not accept blind obedience without a heart of faith. We see that reiterated by Jesus in the NT when He says in Matthew 23:27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

o God is looking for more than an outward conformity to His commands. Anyone can imitate Godliness, but true Godliness is both outward and inward. Obedience that God accepts is an outward expression of the inward reality of faith.

· Unfortunately the people of God here did not get that. God wasn’t looking for slavish, outward pleasing obedience. This is the same crime they were guilty of earlier in Micah when the people “remembered” God in the Passover but didn’t remember Him in their day to day lives.

So, next they offer Him worship beyond what God has prescribed.

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

· After offering God slavish law-keeping, they offer to add to the scriptures. Now anytime we add to scriptures we are essentially telling God that He didn’t get it right the first time. Adding to the scriptures is in its essence legalism.

· The idea here in their offering is akin to saying, “Oh God, you want us to offer rams and oil in payment for our sin? Well then I’ll offer you a thousand rams and ten thousand rivers of oil.” You want obedience? I’ll give you super-obedience if you’ll just get off my back.

· Unfortunately for the folks of Micah’s day, God is not impressed by the Guinness Book of World Records Act when it comes to obedience. Legalism like this kills the heart because in doing more than scripture prescribes, people feel like they are more holy than others, they find ways to justify themselves, and eventually find themselves with no need for a Savior.

Finally, they offer their own payment of sin.

7 Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

· I read this and wondered whether to even take it seriously. More than likely what they are saying is that they think they’ve obeyed so well that God doesn’t have a case against them, so they resort to hyperbole. It’s like they were saying, “If all this sacrificing we’ve been doing doesn’t make you happy God, what do you want, my child? Find, take em if that’s what you want.”

· Their question displays their complete misunderstanding that forgiveness from God is by grace – forgiveness is not something you can earn. If you could make peace with God and restore your relationship to Him on your own, you wouldn’t need God in the first place.

· Essentially, all of these requests were from people who were willing to do all sorts of religious things, but they were not willing to do what is required of God. We need to understand that distinction.

o Appearing religious or even appearing Godly can be quite easy sometimes. Living the life of Godliness that God calls His children to goes counterintuitive though to our fallen nature or the sin in our hearts.

· It is almost as if the people of God are asking, “God, I’ve done everything you’ve asked. What more could you demand of us now? What do I have to do to make you happy?”

· Well, God gives them the answer in verse 8.

8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

· God answers their question, but it is important to understand that He does not offer them anything new. It is the same thing that He has always demanded. Specifically, God provides 3 answers to the question, “With what shall I come before the Lord.”

· Notice here also, that the question that God is answering is not, “How am I saved?” The question He is answering is, “As your children, how are we to live?”

· He essentially says that the way we are to live is not the way of routine or ritual. Instead, God demands that His people demonstrate their love for Him by acting justly, loving kindness (or as some translate it, loving mercy) and walking humbly before their God. God is asking for His children to reflect His character.

· In acting justly, we must do more than just talk about justice and mercy. It means to act justly yourself.

o And we can’t convince ourselves that acting justly is summed up in a single act. Acting justly is a lifestyle of seeking justice for those that do not have it.

o Now I’ve seen folks speak of acting justly in a variety of ways.

§ Some folks think that pursuing justice means upholding the laws of the land. These folks are vigilant in seeing ever jot and tittle of the law in our society being kept and punishment rendered.

§ Some folks feel like justice is protesting outside things like an abortion clinic.

§ There is an element of justice about those things, but the big question is, what is the living out of the justice that God is demanding?

o Well we always try to pursue, let’s let scripture interpret scripture.

§ Well James 1 and 2 speak of doing justice and pure religion. James speaks of visiting and caring for widows and orphans.

§ In chapter 2 speaks of giving honor to those in need and serving them instead giving preferential treatment to the rich.

§ James also speaks of loving our neighbors and treating others as better than ourselves.

o Essentially doing justice or acting justly is caring for those that are in need actively. Considering the poor, the widow, the orphan as better than ourselves and serving them so as to ease their need. It is a get dirty and messy justice.

· In loving mercy, we must also do more than just talk about loving people and it also must be a consistent part of who we are and not a single act.

o We are the worst of saying things like, “Well, I forgive you because I have to,” or “I love them, but I don’t like them.” And so often our expressions of mercy are done out of guilt or obligation but not affection.

o I find this type of expression so far from Christ’s example to us. Christ doesn’t look at you and your sin and say, “Well, I’ll forgive you only because I have to,” or I love you but I don’t like you.”

o No Christ forgives us because of his genuine love for us…a love that is expressed to His enemy.

o The mercy that we are called to express is a genuine mercy that desires to see people and relationships restored. Our lack of mercy is an area in which we need to greatly repent.

· And the final requirement is doozy. God says that we are to walk humbly before our God. Now, here is the funny thing about humility. Humility is never something you can declare about yourself. If someone said to you, “Yeah, I’m pretty humble,” you would immediately think that they weren’t. It’s like the old joke, “In high school I once won an award for being the most humble, but as soon as I told someone I won, they took the award away from me.”

o Humility is best described as we talked about recently. Humility is considering others as better than yourself.

o It is living a life of recognizing our unworthiness before God yet celebrating His love and forgiveness towards us.

· I guess we should ask the question, “How do we know if are demonstrating love, mercy, and justice?”

o I would answer that question and say that we only know that we are living out that verse if our lives are given over to serving others and proclaiming Jesus.

o That would mean that you are put in some pretty uncomfortable situations where you have to step outside of your comfort zone to serve and help someone.

o It’s not done on paper or on the computer, it is done by getting our lives dirty by helping others who are suffering from injustice or need.

o It would mean that your life, to some extent, is no longer yours because you have given it away to another so that they might experience the mercies of Jesus.

· We can never reduce our relationship to God to our own personal obedience. Meaning, we can never be like the people of Micah’s time where we say, “Well I’ve offered sacrifice or I’ve tithed or I’ve been honest on my taxes so God should be pleased with me.”

· No, Jesus Christ had a rebuke for folks who thought that they could measure their relationship with God just by looking at their own personal obedience to the rights and wrong s of scripture. He said Matthew 23:23, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others

· Jesus said, “Yeah you have obeyed and you tithe and you are good law keepers, but you neglecting true obedience which is being faithful in showing justice and mercy to those that need it.

· So, here is where we stand. This application I think has been somewhat vague because knowing exactly what this looks like is difficult to pin down. So in my next sermon, we are going to stay right here and we are going to figure out what this town would look like if we demonstrated the love, mercy, and justice, that God requires of us.