Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

The most difficult achievement on earth is to realize peace.

It’s unlikely that you would take much convincing.

You can think of it on a personal scale.

It’s astounding how quickly we can fall from joyful to anxious, isn’t it?

A restful Saturday can transform you into a nervous wreck with nothing more than confusing text that seems to be sent with the wrong tone.

You can go from feeling so good about how your children are finally at a good place in their lives into staying up praying and worrying all night with insomnia all in the same day, can’t you?

And, we can see this on a more global scale, too.

‘World peace’ has become a joke of a beauty pageant answer because it seems like such a far-fetched idea.

We can’t even get along in our subdivisions and HOA’s!

Following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations was formed.

And, the belief was that if we could just get all of these world powers with their military might and political clout together in an alliance that we could just sort of force world peace by sheer determination.

And, then of course, World War II happened and proved what a pipe dream that all was.

And, this unrest that we know.

That is, the unrest that we know personally and the unrest that we know nationally and globally is trying to tell us something.

The unrest that we face and the anxiety that we face and the conflict that our world experiences all preaches that we are not living according to the design of God and in submission to the reign of God.

This week, we’re kicking off our Advent series.

Just by way of reminder, especially if this is your first time celebrating Advent, ‘Advent’ just means ‘coming’.

So, historically, the church has taken the four weeks leading up to Christmas and celebrated two advents, or the two comings of Jesus.

And, as we do that this morning, what we’re going to see is that Jesus came so that one day you could know perfect, final, never-ending peace.

That is, Jesus came so that you could have a peace that was never again under threat!

God’s Word

Read

Jesus Came to Gather God’s Scattered Flock.

(v.

1-3)

A Desperate Judgement

“Now muster your troops” Micah was a contemporary of the Isaiah and Hosea and would have likely been far less known than them.

Hebrew names are often very significant to their lives and ministries, and Micah has a good one that means something to the effect of “Who is like Yahweh?”

At this Israel has been split into two Kingdom, the northern Kingdom, which retained the name “Israel” and the southern Kingdom which was called “Judah”.

Micah’s primary ministry was in Judah, but he preached and had a word from God for the all of God’s people.

And, we’re going to see in our passage this morning that the vision that God gives to him very much encompasses all of God’s people.

At the time of his ministry, things appeared to be prospering.

King Uzziah had ushered in a time of prosperity in the first half of the century and had allowed there to be an ever-growing upper class among God’s people.

Unfortunately, this class began to buy up the land that God’s word had designated for the various tribes and injustice began to become pervasive.

Religion became more a part of their culture, something routine that they did so that they could keep their wealth and their identity rather than so they could know, love and walk with God.

And, the kings and religious leaders of Israel took part in this injustice and idolatry rather than condemn it.

Now, judgement has come to the door through the lips of Micah.

He says, “Muster up your troops!

The seige is coming!

Our king will be struck in the face with a rod!”

I want you to notice a couple of things about the way that Micah words verse 1.

First of all, notice that he includes himself in the city to be besieged.

This is an imminent attack.

He’s not letting himself off the hook here.

He’ll be there.

Most commentators believe that this fits with the siege of Sennacherib of 701 BC, which took place during Micah’s life and during Hezekiah’s reign.

Remarkably, you can read in that when Sennacherib preparing to lay seige to Jerusalem that night with 185,000 Assyrian soliders, the Angel of the Lord slaughtered them and so that particular city is actually left undocumented in the Assyrian Annals, though many of the other cities were destroyed.

Nonetheless, Micah, as he’s predicting this, wants them to see this is going to be a dire time.

So, he tells them ‘muster your troops.’

That is, scrape together whatever misfits, whatever boys, whatever warm bodies you’ve got.

You’re going to need them.

You’re going to be desperate.

Then, he says, ‘the judge will be struck on the face with the rod.’

That is, your king is going to be humiliated.

He’s going to be defenseless.

Without his generals.

Without his guards.

Withouts his aids.

There will be no crowns and glory and no honor for him.

He will be mocked and beaten in defeat with a rod.

This is going to be a dire defeat that is coming.

The judgement of God is coming to your door in this day of prosperity.

You had better be ready.

A Better David is Coming

“from shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel” Now, the prophets were never in any danger of winning popularity contests, and you could see why.

If you read the whole book of Micah, he’ll even tell the other prophets around him that their whole world is about to go black.

Often, Israel would kill her prophets.

But, the prophets never preach without giving us hope, and that’s because God never speaks to his people, even in judgement, without showing them the other side that is to come.

It would’ve been hard to see if you were them.

It was their loved ones who would go to war and their children who would face oppression, but here in verse 2, Micah is given a word from God about the future that is filled with hope, hope that we are here to celebrate this December.

Hope that is grander than Black Friday.

Hope that is more beautiful than a few days off.

You see, there had been a time for Israel in which the blessing was apparent.

There was a time in which the giants fell and the enemies were slain and the king led them in war and in worship.

There was a time in which the king was a man that loved God and loved them, and that king had come from a place that nobody expected.

They had expected a king that looked like a king.

They had expected pedigree and standing.

They had expected Saul, but Saul saw Goliath and trembled.

Saul said he was the king after God, but he operated as a king OVER God.

But then, there was David.

David was born in a tiny town that almost didn’t even register on the map, Bethlehem.

And, in Bethlehem, the prophet Samuel went to Jesse’s house, the grandson of Moabite woman named Ruth.

And, when Samuel asked to see his boys and he paraded the oldest seven of his sons before him sure that the youngest boy was too much of a runt to be considered, and yet he was just the man that God would use to establish a throne that would last forever!

No pride, no pedigree, no prestige.

Just the call and anointing of God! Oh, brothers and sisters, this is the hope that Micah has for them!

There is a greater David coming!

There is a David coming that will slay a giant far larger than Goliath!

There is one coming that will be born in this tiny town of Bethlehem and laid in a bed of hay who will be the very Son of God that will slay that giant of sin that every man, woman, boy and girl cannot defeat under their own power or with their good works.

God Delivers Us from What We Deserve

APPLICATION: And, this is far better than they deserve.

They deserve the judgement that is coming to them.

They deserve the seige of Sennacherib coming that century and the exile of Babylon coming 150 years later.

They deserve Assyria’s attack.

They have forsaken God; God has not forsaken them.

They are the ones that have made worship about riches.

They are the one’s have have forsaken justice in the name of greed.

They are the ones that have forgotten their brothers and sisters so that they themselves can have more.

God’s judgement and wrath is rightly descending upon the house of Israel.

But, hear the hopeful message of Micah because, brothers and sisters, it is the message of the Gospel: God is going to deliver his own people from what they deserve.

God is going to deliver them from his own judgement by his own provision.