Simple Obedience (Micah 6:1-8)

Psalm 50:7-15 ““Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.””

Isaiah 1:1-20 “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your …”

v. 6 (What does the Lord require of you?)

Deuteronomy 10:12–21 ESV

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.

(8) God’s requirement, What must I do?, Where do we go now?

v. 8 (walk humbly)

1 John 1:5-7 “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

1 John 2:3-6 “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

JUSTICE

(6) Justice: the act of deciding a legal dispute or case (Dt 1:17 a state or condition of fairness in disputes (Ex 23:6 ““You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit.” )

Deuteronomy 1:17a ESV

You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’

MERCY/KINDNESS

(6) Mercy/Kindness: unfailing kindness, devotion, i.e., a love or affection that is steadfast based on a prior relationship

(Ex 34:6, 7 “keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.””

WALK HUMBLY

(6) Walk humbly - Significance of “walking with” someone:

Gen 5:22 “Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.”

Lexham Theological Wordbook הָלַךְ

to walk, to go. Sometimes God’s presence is expressed by saying he will walk with or go before his people.

God is present with his people if he walks (hālak) among them (e.g., Lev 26:12; Deut 23:14); sometimes God is said to go (hālak) before his people (e.g., Isa 52:12, Num 14:14, Exod 13:21), to lead and protect them.

Walk (positive: walk in this way) Walk in the light

Walk (negative: do not walk in this way) Don’t walk like the world

Misc Thoughts:

Seems like there is kinda a narrator the whole time (Micah’s role?)

Hollow Obedience (response to God’s indictment)

Forgetfulness of man (compared to faithfulness of God) (we don’t don’t remember or don’t realize all the ways he has saved/blessed us)

Don’t forget to connect with metanarrative, set Israel’s disobedience in the proper context

Is there a significance to burnt offerings compared to the following list? Are these examples of things you can give as burnt offerings?

Faithful compared to forsaken: Forsaken is when you turn on the one you were supposed to love more than anyone, who counted on you. It is abandoning a child in the cold to die. compare the themes here with Isaiah 1:2-4

WALKING WITH GOD INVOLVES BOTH PARTIES (MY OBEDIENCE AND HIS PRESENCE)

My Obedience (1 John 1-2 )

1 John 1:1–4 ESV

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

God’s Presence (with us and before us

With us (Gen 3:8 ) (Lev 26:12 ) (Deut 23:14 )

Deuteronomy 23:14 ESV

Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

Leviticus 26:12 ESV

And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.

Genesis 3:8 ESV

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Before us (Ex 13:21 )

Exodus 13:21 ESV

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.