Will you turn in your Bibles to Micah chapter six please? Micah chapter six beginning with verse one will be looking at this old test Old Testament passage this morning Before we do that, let me let me pray for us Family Father made the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable and pleasing to your sight And we pray that we will leave here saying what a what an incredible Savior we worship In Jesus name amen Micah chapter six here God's word Listen to what the Lord says Stand up plead your case before the mountains. Let the hills hear what you have to say Here O mountains the Lord's accusation Listen you everlasting foundations of the earth For the Lord has a case against his people. He is lodging a charge against Israel My people what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me I Brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you also Aaron and Miriam My people remember what Balak King of Moab counseled and what Balam son of Bior answered Remember your journey from Shalom to Gilgal that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burn offerings with the calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has he has showed you oh man. What is good and what does the Lord require of you? Tag justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God This is God's holy word I'm concerned I'm concerned because I believe we are living in serious times on October 9th 2012 the USA today reported that the Protestant Church has lost majority status in America in 2007 53% of Americans claim to be Protestant now a little over five years later That number has dropped to 48% But what was also telling about this report was that there was an increase of a group called the nuns and The nuns are a group of people that affiliate with no religion at all They don't go to church and they don't care to go to church and that percentage rate went up from 15% to 20% And within that 5% increase in the past five years a third of those people represent my age or younger There are people like Rebecca Cardin who's 21 who says I prefer to act with compassion rather than choosing a pre to system the beliefs And there are many people like Rebecca who say that they want to go out and serve but they don't want to go to church and they don't want to Learn about theology I'm concerned about our present day, and I'm concerned about our future generations I'm also concerned that there are many preachers today that aren't preaching the full word of God But yet they're taking bits and pieces of the word and they're tailoring it into a message that people want to hear and not what people need to hear And what they do is they they say these feel good messages to inspire people to have your best life now or to make every day of Friday I'm concerned because these messages are leading people astray, and they're giving people a fault since of security And many people today are focused more on self-fulfillment than they are on self-sacrifice I'm also concerned that people many people today are growing tired and weary of the Lord They're becoming apathetic and they're leaving the church because they don't want to hear it And because all these concerns are happening all these things are happening I believe we're facing a breakdown in our social structures today where neighbors friends even family members can't be trusted a Few months ago. I was reading through the book of Micah and I saw many similarities of Micah's day to our day today For example if you look at chapters two and three of Micah you see there are many false prophets who are preaching a message That wasn't the full message of the Bible. They were tailoring our message and giving a message to people of What they wanted to hear and not what they needed to hear and so they would take that some pieces of God's attributes And they would say well God is a God of love and mercy and and I will say I agree with him obviously God is a God of love and mercy and I'm grateful that of that that he is a God of grace who loves his people I'm so grateful for that But the people but the prophets of the day of Micah's day wouldn't say That God was also a just God a righteous God who must punish sin and must discipline those he loves And so what they did was they were telling the people of gods of Micah's day That if if they continue to to live for God that that God would bless them and even if they they they continue to live on their own ways God still loves them because he's a God of mercy and he wouldn't take them away from their land Well, that was giving the people false hope because the people ran with that and they said well I can do whatever whatever I please and they were walking into obedience with God and They were focused more on their own self fulfillment and not on the needs of others for example in chapter three We see that they were greedy landowners who were mistreating their tenants There was much injustice happening in this day because people were abusing this So I was so in Micah's day you you read about false prophets You read about people who were more concerned about their own self fulfillment and not self sacrifice You also saw that the people were growing tired and weary of God and that's where we turned to this passage in verse three in chapter six God asked the question, what have I done to you? Why are you tired of me? Why are you bored of me? I'm offering you life. I'm offering you everything, but yet you don't care. Why? So people were becoming apathetic And in chapter seven and Micah we see a breakdown in social structures We're friends neighbors even family members could no longer be trusted So just like Micah's day, we're experiencing experiencing something very similar and I'm concerned But I'm hopeful I'm hopeful because despite all these statistics and despite brokenness all around us Here's always hope and that's what Jesus offers us in his word and I'm hopeful for several reasons The first reason I'm hopeful is that we have a gracious and a righteous God who pursues his people Look with me in this text Micah six the setting is out of a courtroom where God is the judge Micah is his envoy The mountains are the witnesses and God's people are the accused And God is bringing his people into court and he's asking this question, what have I done to you? Why are you tired of me? Why are you growing weary of me? But what's amazing about this setting in this text is look with me in verse three and in verse five What does God say there? He calls them my people? Why does he do that? I believe he does that because he's telling us people that I am your God and you are my people and I love you And I ultimately want what's best for you God is gently dragging his people into court. He's not doing so in an anger out of anger or out of bitterness He's doing so out of love, but out of firm love and he's saying come to court. Let's talk about this. Let's reason with this I love that setting where he says my people because he once again reminds his people that he is their God and they are his people It's a covenant relationship a covenant promise that God has made with his people But just like any parent who has to discipline their 16-year-old daughter who shows up two hours late Has to has to provide discipline and there's consequences for that So God has to do that for us if we continue to walk in disobedience He disciplines those he loves it's not it's not because he's mean it's because he has to it's for our own good and for his glory So I'm hopeful because we have a gracious God who loves his people But he also is a righteous God who writes the wrongs in our life in our society and in our world Praise the Lord for that. I'm also hopeful because of the past Every single one of us in this room has a story to tell And I guarantee every one of us can look back in our past and say wow Look at how God provided for me And even if you're a non-believer here this morning and you are seeking the Lord or have doubts I guarantee that you can still look back in your past and say that wasn't just coincidence something supernatural must have happened If for example, you may have had a rocky road in your marriage your marriage was falling apart, but God reconciled that marriage Your marriage you may have had rebellious teens who ran away, but God brought them home and there's restoration You may have been in between jobs and you didn't know how to make ends meet, but God provided for you at what seemed to be the last minute You may have been sick and God healed you you may even be sick right now and God may not have delivered you from it But he's helping you through it and you can see that What God is saying in this text and what he's telling us today is to remember I Love that phrase remember when remember when God did this I Encourage all of us this morning to remember how God has provided for you in your past Because what that does is it provides hope for today and a bright future for tomorrow Because we reflect and we embrace what God has done in the past and that's what God is doing in this text He's telling his people Remember when he's saying okay your board of me you're tired of me I don't know why because look at what I have done I'm Lord of lords king of kings. I am everything and I'm offering you life and life to the full Remember what I did for you and your ancestors and he gives three examples in this text Look with me in this text the first example he gives is that of bringing his people out of bondage out of slavery From a tyrant rule or Pharaoh he brings them out of that situation of slavery and to freedom He brings them into the promised land of pain and flowing with milk and honey and God is telling us people remember When I brought you out from under Pharaoh's hand Remember when I provided all his plagues and I actually protected you Remember when I part of the Red C's remember remember when I provided leadership of Moses Aaron and Miriam Remember that That was me. I did that because I love you. You're my people and The second example he gives and you can find in the book of numbers chapters 22 through 24 He gives an example of a king called King Balak of Moab and King Balak of Moab heard He got wind of the the people of God the Israelites and he was concerned because they were going through his land And he was concerned that they were gonna defeat his people and And so what King Balak did was he summoned a false prophet King Bay or the prophet Balam and he asked Balam to put a curse on God's people He said put a curse on these people so we will defeat them But what happens? It's an incredible story number 22 to 24 check it out if you if you haven't read it in a while It's amazing because what happens is Balam is on his way to see Balak and his donkey stops him and God uses the mouth of a donkey To confront Balam and to tell him to stop and then he brings an angel in the angel tells Balam He says don't put a curse on God's people, but bless God's people So God uses the mouth of a donkey to speak and God is saying remember that Three different times King Balak asked Balam and he gave more money and he brought more more elders and leaders to convince Balam to put this curse on God's people and Balam wasn't a wasn't a believer in God. He was a false prophet but three times Balak tries to do that, but God convinces Balam to put a blessing on his people and not a curse Once again God says remember that time and The third instance is found in Joshua chapter three and four Joshua's three and four it was an example of how the people of God were going to Jericho and they were about to enter into the land They had a they had to defeat the people of Jericho, but before they got to Jericho They met a they were at a forking road where they were the rushing waters of the Jordan River and they couldn't cross it So God said okay, what I want to do right now is I want to convince you my people that I'm powerful I'm Lord of all And that I'm going to give you confidence and know that I'm on your side when you go into battle against Jericho So what I'm going to do is I'm going to just like the Red Sea I'm going to have you walk on dry ground And so the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant as They stepped into the Jordan River that was rushing waters as they stepped into it The waters gathered up into a heap and there was dry ground and the people made across the Jordan River safely and Right when the last priest stepped out of the water out of the dry ground onto the land the waters rushed back into place God says remember these examples of how I provided for you how I provided for your ancestors Don't forget it Because what makes you think I won't do that today what makes you think I won't do that tomorrow? What makes you think I can't do that today? So I'm hopeful that we have a gracious and righteous God who pursues his people I'm also hopeful that we have a God who's provided for us in the past I'm hopeful to that we have a savior who is to come and In Micah chapter two it talks about a shepherd who gathers his people and then in chapter five It talks about a ruler who will rule over his people I am hopeful because Jesus will come again and I believe he's coming very soon and he will make all things new He will write all the wrongs around us. He will restore that which is broken And I'm hopeful because Jesus is alive and active And he's with us But as we wait for his second coming I'm also hopeful because of you the local church I believe and Bill Hibles quoted it. So I'm quoting him He said the local church is the hope of the world and I believe that Because as we wait for a second coming God uses us as ordinary people to do extraordinary things And we do that through the power of the Holy Spirit Bill Hibles in his book courageous leader says there is nothing like the local church when it's working right It comforts the grieving and heals the broken and the context of community. It offers truth to the confused and Provides resources to those in need it opens his arms through the forgotten the downtrodden and the disillusioned No other organization is like the church. Nothing even comes close. I Completely agree with that when the church is working right and People are forgiving one another when we're supporting and encouraging one another when we're showing each other grace When we're loving each other That's where you see true healing That's where you see restoration I also heard it said once that the mafia and the church are the only places where you have to be bad enough to get in It's so true right in fact if if it were the opposite way if if we had to be good to be here and We had to be perfect then this building would be empty all of us are sinners saved by the grace of God and The more we relit we embrace that truth the more we'll respond well to others out of love and out of compassion and out of generosity So I'm hopeful because the local church is the hope of the world now earlier I mentioned to you that there are many people my age are younger that are leaving the church It's sad is the truth. How do we respond? There's many ways but but one thing I would say to you today is that for those of you who have lived life longer than us we be methoring and we need it desperately I'm a new parent I have a 15-month-old daughter I have no idea what I'm doing. I need help. I'm grateful my parents are here and they've raised four of us, but I need help from you There are many of us young adults who need help with our marriages once again. I've been married over four years I don't know what I'm doing a marriage. I need help We don't know often we don't know often we don't know how to make decisions in life And so we need help we need to learn from you because you've made your share of mistakes and you've made your share That's we want to hear from you I can look back in my life and I've had two mentors one through three years of high school and one through three years of college Ron Brown was my college mentor Harold can was my high school high school mentor Harold actually lives here Both those men spoke truth when I needed to hear it We open up the Bible. I remember that we went through books I remember that but the most important thing I remember is they gave me their time and That really helped shape my life that helped shape my faith. And so that's one way we can impact our city is by mentoring and just takes one Another way we can impact our city is through our deeds of service and I'm excited because one area that I'm overseeing is mercy and on Saturday April 13th we are going out into the community and we're partnering with seven or eight organizations and we're serving our city We're not just doing it as one church. We're doing it with over 30 churches in the city We're going to be the hands and feet of Jesus impacting our city That's another way there many other ways and we're doing it You've seen the bulletin. There's many ways you can do it through the church There's also many ways you can do it through your business by loving your employees But that's what God is calling us to do to be the church to restore the brokenness around us Okay, so I'm concerned, but I'm also hopeful How do we respond with all this information? I've already mentioned a few examples, but but really how do we respond? There's two ways we can respond the first is with pride or we can respond with humility and Unfortunately in this text we we read about a guy a Worshiper who responds and pride look with me in verse seven or verse six He says with what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God shall I come before him with burn offerings with Caves a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with 10,000 rivers of oil shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the Sin of my soul? What's happening here is that this worshiper is responding out of pride? He's saying all I have to do is a checklist of things and I'll be right with God Okay, I've disobeyed him and so I'll just give a little bit more of my my money or I'll sacrifice more I'll do more sacrifices And God is saying Worshiper, you don't get it I don't just want more things. I want you. I want your life. I want to change you from the inside out
God doesn't want more things. He wants our all and Unfortunately, the worshiper didn't see it that way. He just saw his life as a checklist, but God wants a relationship and How often do we respond like the worshiper? I look at my life and I think well if I just do these things God's gonna love me and it's gonna ride all the mistakes I've made all the sins I've made No, we need to be people of repentance faith and obedience Not just obedience. We got to have that repentance part first Because the more we acknowledge who God is the more at the more we acknowledge who how much we sin the more we're gonna acknowledge how big he is and how good he is But the worshiper didn't see it that way and often we don't either and so when we look at the world around us and we see society Falling apart and all this broken is happening. It's easy for us to look at the world and say wow This is terrible. You know, we can we can respond in pride in two ways. We can either retort or we can retreat We can retort by responding angrily at people and saying I can't believe they're leaving the church. I can't believe they're living this way We can be judgmental. We can be critical and when we respond that way they aren't gonna come Who'd want to come to a place where we're calling them out in a negative and mean way? Now, yes, we need to confront them firmly, but also gently just as God did with his people We don't need to do so in an angrily way and say I can't believe you're doing this Because that just looks like we're holier than now So we can respond in pride by retorting or we can also respond in pride by even retreating by saying okay The world is falling apart and so there's really nothing I can do. I'll just sit back and just watch it happen because what can God? How can God use me? But that's actually prideful Because as I said earlier God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things and if we think we can't do anything we're wrong Because because God can do anything through us. I believe it He's good. He's powerful. He's mighty So instead of responding in a prideful way We are to respond with humility and the ways we respond with humility is by either repenting or By restoring Of course, we have to first repent and acknowledge that we don't have it all together and say Lord I'm sorry. I confess my sins. I need you more than ever and the more we repent The more we will acknowledge his goodness and his grace and I believe people outside of the church are looking for authenticity They're yearning for that they want transparency and the more we openly admit, you know I messed up, but it's only by the grace of God go I and People respond well to that. I'm not saying we need to admit publicly every every sin you make But I'm saying you could say you know what I've struggled with that too But this is what's helped me. It's the Holy Spirit. It's Jesus and his grace The message of grace is powerful and People need to hear it. I believe they're yearning to hear it But they don't they don't even need it. They don't just need to hear it. They need to see it and When we respond with repentance and humility people are drawn to that The other thing we can do is we can Respond by restoring the brokenness around us and that's where we get into the my commanding Micah says he has shown you oh man What is good and what does the Lord require of you? And then he says to do justly or act justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God Well, let's let's pick that apart for a minute. What does it mean to do justly? Well to do justly means to take the rightful action or appropriate mode to life to pursue the righteous standards in our communities and relationships To give people what they are do whether Punishment protection or care is to treat people fairly is to treat people with respect is to be assertive to respond firmly but also gently So for example, if you're an employer in the room is to treat your employees with respect pay them the wages at their due give them time off Encourage them for doing a job well done correct them when they make mistakes If you're an employee don't speak bad about your employer But instead talk to others and encourage others to Embrace their employer and to respect their employer as hard as that may sound For you children in the room and teenagers it's to respect your parents when you don't necessarily want to Because they ultimately are there to help encourage you and to grow and to correct you That's what it means to do justly now What does it mean to love mercy the Hebrew word mercy is Kessed or Kessed? I can't do the high the Kessed it means goodness or kindness or loyal deeds or faithfulness In other words, it's the motive behind the action so as we do justly as we treat people with respect we do so out of love and compassion It's that emotion behind the motive and Zacharias 7 verse 9 and 10 it says this is what the Lord Almighty says administer true justice show mercy and compassion to one another Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless the alien or the poor and your hearts do not think evil of each other So Zechariah saying do justly but do so by loving mercy by showing compassion and love And then the third thing Micah says in his mandate is to walk humbly with your God the Hebrew the Hebrew word humble is Sana Which means modest careful or prudent? I love that word prudent and a couple months ago is reading through the book of Proverbs There was one word that kept standing out and that was the word prudent Prudent means to be wise or judicious in practical affairs Look with me on the screen. There's two verses or four verses. I want to look at in Proverbs Proverbs 12 16 says a full shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man Overlooks an insult in other words is somebody says something negative to you. Don't immediately Respond quickly and don't get on defense But instead be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to become angry Proverbs 12 23 says a prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself But the heart of fools blots out folly if someone tells you something in confidence Don't break that confidence If someone tells you something don't don't immediately go tell somebody else. Oh, did you hear about this? And so often in church I think even in prayer request. It's easy to gossip You can say oh, did you hear about this prayer? Let's pray for them. You know, just be cautious of that be prudent of that Proverbs 14 15 says a simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thoughts to his steps Don't just take everything as truth We're in an age of technology where we have access to unlimited information So there's many world views out there that we're we're hearing Back it up with scripture And if someone tells you something about someone go to the source and ask The source is this true? I heard this Proverbs 15 5 says a full spurn says fathers discipline, but whoever he's correct or corrections shows prudence In other words, it's okay to learn from your mistakes discipline is a good thing We always think that that it's bad thing and every time you hear that God is a rattle and just God people often think that's a negative But it's positive Because we have to learn from our mistakes. We have to grow and as I said earlier It's ultimately for his good his glory and our good So we are to respond with humility and another way to look at humility I also heard it said that humility is like underwear You've got to have it, but don't let it show That's how we are to respond to wear humility, but don't let it show We don't need to go out and say well, I did this for you and so often I do that's my wife. I'll confess I'll say oh yeah, I got two flowers because you know I wanted to make all things right and she says you didn't need to tell me you got me flowers Just give me flowers Now don't do that just be humble and don't say anything about it So this is the call to true discipleship the my commandate And in 1917 before the American troops were going into world war one to fight France and Belgium the New York Bible society wanted to and wanted to give every single troop a new testament Bible And they asked President Teddy Roosevelt to inscribe a message in every single one of those Bibles And this is what Roosevelt said he said the whole teaching of the New Testament is foreshadowed in the my commandate Do justice and therefore fight valiantly against those that stand for the reigns of mollic and biells above Love mercy treat your enemies well Secure the afflicted treat every woman as if she were your sister Care for your little children and be tender with the old and helpless Walk humbly you will do so if you study the life and teachings of our Savior walking in his steps President Roosevelt acknowledged the my commandate as a call to true discipleship And believe it or not after President Roosevelt We have had six presidents who have sworn in on the my commandate when they were inaugurated in office We also have three of our nation's buildings in Washington DC that have the my commandate inscribed in front of it So people before our day have acknowledged the my commandate is important It's a call to true discipleship It's a call to treat others with respect To do so with compassion and to do so with humility So church even though and family church family. I'm going to call you that Even though the world around us may seem to be falling apart and there's much brokenness There's hope We have a gracious God We have a God who provided for us in the past and he'll provide for us again We have a church that is the local churches the hope of the world and we have a Savior who is to come And he will make all things right and all things new So instead of looking at the world around us and saying wow our world is a falling apart We've got to be optimistic because we have hope We have good news and that is of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ So let's respond in faith and obedience and trust That he can use us to do extraordinary things Through the power of his Holy Spirit Let's pray that we will have revival in our land Let me pray Our Heavenly Father we thank you for your words and scripture We thank you that you are a good God that you love your people We thank you that you correct your people as hard as that is sometimes we thank you for that We thank you that You have provided for us in the past and we know you'll provide for us again. We thank you That you have a Savior your son who will come and rule and reign over all We thank you that he will make all things new and we thank you that he is restoring the brokenness around us through the church today and through your spirit And we pray that we will have hope and not Not be anxious about all that's going on But I pray that we'll respond with faith and obedience and courage And may we follow the micomandate to do justly love mercy and walk humbly with you I ask these things in Jesus name. Amen