Micah Wk3
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We are in the last week of a three-week dive into the book of Micah. It was written about 2700 years ago during the time when the Israelite nation was a divided nation, with Judah to the South with the capital of Jerusalem and Israel to the North with the capital of Samaria. It was during this time that the prophet Micah shows up on the scene to confront the Jews in the Southern Kingdom.
During his lifetime, Micah brought prophecies to Judah during the reigns of three kings of Judah; only one of them listened. King Hezekiah, who we talked about last week, repented. The other two did not. They looked religious because they were giving lots of money to the temple, saying their prayers at the right time, and following the temple rules, but the reality was something else. The prophets, priests, and government rulers were using their positions and power to manipulate the laws to take advantage of the poor by taking their lands, their money, and their status.
Micah was “the poor's man prophet,” not because he was speaking TO the poor people but because he was speaking ON BEHALF of the poor people. Micah called out the leaders on their wickedness.
Micah’s theology seemed like a deviant theology to the people in Judah because they had twisted what they knew of God to justify and rationalize evil behavior. Their evil was so common that Micah seemed to be the deviant one with a strange theological stance. Which brings us to this week: we are going look at chapter six, which has a verse in it that is one of the more famous verses in the Old Testament.
There’s a lot to be fascinated with in chapter six. Throughout the book, Micah attacked these sinful behaviors in different ways and writing styles. It demonstrates that he was both an educated man as well as someone who knew his audience and communicated in ways that would be most effective in each scenario. Scholars believe that the prophecies in Micah 6 took place at the end of Hezekiah’s reign as his son, Manasseh, was becoming king. Manasseh was not like his father; he was an evil king that immediately turned back to these abuses of the poor. So, Micah returned, this time writing in the language of a courtroom; it was in the format of what they called a “covenant lawsuit.” For those reading this 2700 years ago, there would have been no doubt that this was courtroom language and they were being put on trial by God. They had broken the covenant God had made centuries before with Abraham, and now God was taking legal action.
Here’s a summary of this legal presentation: the first couple of verses describe the scene, where the courtroom is, and why this “hearing” is happening. Verses 3 -5 are God's accusations against them and defense of Himself. He’s essentially saying, “Look, we had a covenant, I kept my side, I did my deal, but you didn't.” The next few verses find Micah quoting what people been saying, the excuses they had.
[Leader tip; use a story from your past about a time when you tried to make an excuse for doing the wrong thing] I used to get into trouble with my parents – shocking! - because my brothers would do stupid stuff and then I would punch them. My parents would be upset, “You punched your brother, you have to have a consequence!” And I would say, “No, no, you don't understand the circumstances. He was being stupid!” And this made sense to me; I thought it was a valid defense. My parents never saw it that way.
That’s what is happening when Micah quoted their responses. They were trying to make excuses, but in verse eight God would say, “No. This is what you're supposed to do. If you do it, that’s how you get restored to Me.”
Listen to what the Lord says: “Stand up, plead my case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. “Hear, you 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 plotted and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim 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 burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Let’s look at verses 1-3 for a second.
Listen to what the Lord says: “Stand up, plead my case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. “Hear, you 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.
This is interesting because normally - even in a lawsuit back then - if you took someone to court, you would get up in front of the judge and say, “I have brought ______ [Leader tip: Brandon is a student in my group – change the name!] to court today because he did this, this and that, and here is my evidence for why _____ is a horrible person and needs to be punished.” But God didn’t do that; God began by saying, “Hey, I brought you to court today, but I need to know - have I failed you in some way? Have I not done something I was supposed to do? Did I not love you enough? Did I not care for you enough? Did I make it too hard to follow me? Is there something I have done to break the covenant that would result in you ignoring it?”
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.
God reminded them that not only did He help them escape, He gave them incredible leaders. I love that God highlighted all three of them, not just Moses. These three siblings - Moses, the youngest, Aaron, and Miriam, their older sister - were all important leaders. Women didn't go to school, they were property of their father’s, and then their husbands, and they were not allowed to talk in public. And yet, God highlighted Miriam, who was a prophetess, as one of their critical leaders alongside Moses and Aaron.
My people, remember what Balak king of Moab plotted and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
Micah 6:5 (NLT) Don’t you remember, my people, how King Balak of Moab tried to have you cursed and how Balaam son of Beor blessed you instead?
God reminded them of the time He transformed a curse into a blessing.
“Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
“And remember your journey from Acacia Grove to Gilgal, when I, the Lord, did everything I could to teach you about my faithfulness.”
This is a fourth example of how God had held up His end of the covenant. Micah was talking about when they were entering the Promised Land and God parted the water of the Jordan River so they could cross on dry land. He’s used these examples of how God had kept His side of the covenant. There can be no doubt that God was faithful.
Micah went on to quote the people and the excuses they had been using to justify their behavior, revealing their attitudes:
With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
The people’s response was fascinating: they essentially said, “So you're telling us we are not doing enough? Should we sacrifice more? Do you want more money in the offering? If you want more, we will kill more animals, we will give you more olive oil.” They even suggested sacrificing their first-born children. They said, “We will be like the other religions, we will even give you our kids.” They essentially asked, “What more do we need to pay you for you to be happy with us?”
This reveals a LOT about their focus. The reason Micah confronted them was because money and power have become their idols. Their answer showed how much this was the focus of their hearts; they assumed God was mad at them because He wanted a bigger piece of their pie. They basically told God, “Just tell us the price to make you happy and we will write the check.” They were so caught up in greed that they assumed that it was important to God, as well.
Which triggered Micah’s response in verse eight where he laid out what was really important to God. It’s so powerful, it’s no wonder that it is so well known:
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah was saying, “It's not about all of this stuff, it was never about the sacrifices, it was never about giving the right kind of offering. It was always about your heart! What is your heart doing? How are you treating your fellow people? How are you interacting with the world around you?”
When God originally showed up to Abraham and made the covenant with him, He said one of the purposes of the covenant was to make them a blessing to the whole world, and now they can't even be a blessing to their own people. They knew better!
Sometimes, it’s easy for us to skim the Old Testament and forget that Jesus wasn’t introducing a totally new way of following God when He came to Earth. Look at some of the verses that highlight the message of Micah 6:8:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
This verse is called the Shema; the Jewish people said it every day in their prayers. It was a daily remainder that following God is about loving Him with all our hearts, all our soul, and all our strength.
But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
Samuel reminded them back then that it was not about the offerings. In a way, the offerings were like the signs of a heart that loves God and follows God. They reveal a heart attitude, they do not create the heart attitude.
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
Hosea was speaking for God when he wrote those words. God designed offerings as part of the worship process in the temple, but over and over we’re seeing this idea that it wasn’t about the offerings, it was about the heart.
I heard a speaker once use the example of a man proposing to his girlfriend. He gets down on one knee, holds out the ring, she is so excited. She’s thinking, “This is it, we’re so in love!” And then he starts saying, “Yeah, I guess I just thought it was time. We’ve been going out for a while now and people keep asking, and there was a sale on rings, so I got this one really cheap, so, uh, here you go. Will you marry me?” How do you think the girl would feel? What should have been a beautiful moment would have lost all its beauty; and yet, he got on one knee, there was a ring, there was a proposal. What was missing? Like the ring, the offerings are just a symbol of what is supposed to be love. If it’s just an obligation, or a sale on rings, it loses the beauty, doesn’t it? God says throughout the Bible, “look, I want your love. The sacrifices aren't what you do to make me happy, your love is what is important.”
But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.
Which brings us back to Micah 6:8. Micah reminded them that God had told them what was good:
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Let's talk about what those three things mean. What would they have understood 2700 years ago when Micah said this to them?
First, doing what is right. The law said they were supposed to care for those who are in need. They had avoided that part of God’s teaching, but that didn’t change the fact that they knew it. The Old Testament laws told them to care for those that were in need, for widows and orphans, and those who were poor. This is a principle that goes on to be emphasized in the New Testament, as well. Micah told them to stop using their power to benefit themselves and instead use it for what God intended.
Second, to love mercy. This takes it a step further; showing mercy to someone is showing grace to someone when you are not actually required to do so. There were some circumstances where they were clearly commanded to help others; to “do what is right.” Mercy is putting someone ahead of yourself even when no one is telling you to do it.
Finally, walk humbly with your God. This completes what God was asking for. “Humbly” could also be translated “wisdom.” Essentially, Micah told them to walk with wisdom. In other words, if your walk is like God's walk, if you’re pursuing God, then you will walk with His wisdom guiding your decisions. Micah was basically saying, “If you have a covenant relationship with God, then how you walk in this world should reflect God.”
Peter, Paul, and the other apostles would teach this, as well. They taught that if God has come in to your life and has transformed your heart, then you should naturally begin to act like Christ, to walk with God’s wisdom. If we are walking with wisdom, with God, then doing right things and showing mercy should start to happen naturally.
[Leader tip: Use the popular sports team of your region!] An Eagle's fan is just naturally excited about the team, right? They love to wear the jerseys, sing the fight song, debate the stats. They’re not fans because they wear the gear; they wear the gear because they’re fans! Micah was saying the same thing; if we are walking with God this stuff happens naturally. There's no other explanation for why they would do the right thing and help those who need help.
I want to show you a music video by Beautiful Eulogy. You can go to their website and download all their music for free, https://humblebeast.com. They came out with this song called “Entitlement,” it feels like a modern-day version of the book of Micah. American culture is known so much for loving money and things, even to the point of sacrificing the welfare of others to benefit ourselves – like the people of Judah. We might show up in church and say the right things, dress the right the right way, and whatever, but is what we are doing during the week lining up with what we say we believe?
Play music video: https://youtu.be/nwmDUSGAb5U
There were a handful of lines that jumped out of me;
We worship how we feel, we don't worship who we should
We covet what others have, grab whatever we can, whatever we want, we think it belongs in the palm of our hands, going along with a song and a dance. Worshipping idols to fulfill our entitlement issues
Addicted to the feeling we get when we get what we want so we pick and we choose.
Earn as much as we can to determine our self-worth and purpose
Identified by what we buy, it's a sad state of affairs
The only thing we're entitled to is judgement for the lives we led
There's nothing we can hide behind, in the end we need grace instead
In just a few minutes, Beautiful Eulogy manage to call us out in a lot of ways. We are more like Judah than we want to believe. A big part of Micah’s warning is that at some point, we are going to face God and we will answer for how we treated others, whether it's in our family, our schools, our sports teams, or our jobs. But it isn’t just about actions. We will answer for our heart and how our heart led us to treat others.
God wants to change our hearts; Micah was ultimately asking, “who are you trying to please?” Are you trying to please yourself by accumulating all these things or are you trying to please God by blessing the world around you? There are four things that we can highlight from Micah chapter six for our lives:
The first is that rituals are meaningless. Showing up on Sundays or Wednesdays could be a ritual if you are not actually trying to pursue God. Is this meaningless or are you being sincere?
Secondly, our actions reveal our belief. Our actions, what we do, reveal what we care about. The things I talk about, the things I get excited about, the things I go to, reveal where my heart is.
Third, God cares about our heart, and finally, we answer for how we treat others. It might not be right away, but we will face God.
Micah highlighted the idea that if we truly belong to God, it's going to change how we act and treat people all throughout the week, everywhere we are. If that isn’t happening in my life, then it might be time for some tough questions. Am I with God or am I all talk and my actions reveal that? If you don’t like the answer, talk to one of us. Reach out to me, your small group leader, and tell us, “I have been thinking about this and praying about what we have been reading in Micah and realizing my actions do not make me look like the type of person that I want to be. Can you help me get there?” We can talk about it, we can pray about it, we can go after this together.
Before we close, let’s split into groups of 3-5 people and discuss these questions:
Discussion Questions:
How would you define justice based on these passages?
Would Micah believe we show mercy? Why or why not?
Who are you trying to please? How so?
How can you do what is right, show mercy, and have wisdom at school? At home? On your sports team? In your club? With your friends? In our community?
