Do. Your. Job.

Intro

Intro

Today, I want to talk to you about what is, to me, a central part of our Christian identity. I say central, because while what we think is important, and what we believe is important, it is all essentially worthless if our actions don’t reflect this inward change we claim to have. In short, our faith can feel very real, and in fact be very real, but unless we take on the job we are given we are not following our Christ.

James, in his epistle, reminds us of that very idea. He tells us: “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

All the inward parts of faith, it turns out, are not intended just for us. It isn’t intended as a balm for our soul alone. God is not merely a personal convenience that brings only a believer hope, or comfort, or even eternity. All throughout scripture, we see God using His people for one reason - the very same reason He Himself became flesh - to bring all people to Himself.

And we are part of that. He has called and equipped us to help to make that happen. But that can only happen if we stop trying to get what we want, and start doing our jobs.

Micah 6:9–16 NRSV

The voice of the Lord cries to the city (it is sound wisdom to fear your name): Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city! Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is accursed? Can I tolerate wicked scales and a bag of dishonest weights? Your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, with tongues of deceit in their mouths. Therefore I have begun to strike you down, making you desolate because of your sins. You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be a gnawing hunger within you; you shall put away, but not save, and what you save, I will hand over to the sword. You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine. For you have kept the statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you have followed their counsels. Therefore I will make you a desolation, and your inhabitants an object of hissing; so you shall bear the scorn of my people.

Micah 6:1–8 NRSV

Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.” “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, 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?

Micah 6:9-16

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Scripture MIcah 6:9-16,1-8

Pray

[picofMIcah] We live in the age of hot takes. Purposefully planted polarizing opinions that attempt in some way to coerce people to choose sides and control both debate and social policy. Those same opinions are used to justify actions that are based not on justice or mercy - or dare I say even based on the Spirit of God at all - but rather they are based on feelings, or maintaining some invisible advantage that will bring with it moral justification for whatever position they are artificially outraged about.

You can see this in our society pretty regularly. Well, you can see it if you are willing to humble yourself and look honestly and introspectively at all that you think and do - and especially those people and things we condone or support.

But this isn’t just an issue for our social policy, or our political rhetoric. After all, those are merely a reflection of our faith; at least they are supposed to be. You see we, followers of Christ, are called to something far greater than participating in the dog whistling, and constant goal-post moving. We are called to something more than the hypocrisy of a faith that cares more for self, or party, or social agenda masked with scriptural backing, than it does for the very reflection and image of God shown through all people.

We have sold our faith, it seems, for pieces of silver. Sold it in the hopes of being given the reins of power so that we can impose some vague moral values on the world - values that we ourselves fail to be able to uphold due to our shared flawed souls.

We have lost our way. Lost touch with the reality of our Christ - the abiding love and grace and mercy that He offers to us in this world - and we instead take hold of whatever system of belief or rules that we think we need to have in order to be thought of as being Christian. We seek to appear to be God’s people, without really being God’s people.

This is, it turns out, exactly where we find our text today. Micah, whose words are those of our God, is speaking to those around him, sure enough, but he is speaking to us as well.

You see Micah, in this moment, finds himself surrounded by people, a society if you will, who claim to know God. They claim to understand God, and to live out the life God has for them. But in reality, they are living their lives for themselves, and fail to see the destruction that was waiting for them.

Throughout his prophecy detailed in this book, he calls attention to those who earn riches through dishonest means. People who worship things that bring them money or comfort. A people of faith, and more broadly a governmental complex that would seek to build a society that would enrich some groups and empower some groups through dishonest policy and business practices that would impoverish and in fact socially enslave everyone who isn’t in power.

[picofmodernsociety] That should sound familiar to us all. And not just familiar, it should sound to us a clear warning! You see Micah wasn’t heard in his time! The Jewish people didn’t heed, or even give any real credence to his warnings, and they were then overtaken. Put simply, Micah was trying to remind them of their job, but they chose instead to do what feels good, or what they thought would benefit themselves.

In that moment, as in this, He is the voice of God - of our Christ - reminding us all to do our jobs.

But some, I am sure, would claim that they ARE doing their job! I get that. But those claims are based on an incomplete view of God’s will. A picking and choosing of phrases out of context, and worse, not viewed through the lens of Christ!

The only lens, just as we spoke about last week.

[greatcommandment] The Christ who calls us to love all people. The Christ that was there in the beginning, who is the light of all people, who is love made flesh!

You see, following that God has requirements. And what are those? What are those things that Micah is warning us all to make primary in our lives? What are those things that are so important to the continuance of life and faith that God would require us to live them out?

Is it politics? Is it normative social behavior? Is it oppression of thought or of differences? Is it winning at all costs? Is it selling our values for votes or acceptance or likes?

Micah 6:8 NRSV

He has told you, O mortal, 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?

[] No. That isn’t what God requires. That isn’t even what He would ever want.

[] No. That isn’t what God requires. That isn’t even what He would ever want.

[] No. That isn’t what God requires. That isn’t even what He would ever want.

Micah, and through him God, tells us our job! And further, He is looking at the job we have done, just as He looked at the job they were doing, and has a bone to pick!

“The Lord has a controversy with His people!” Micah says. And even today, the same can be said. We come before God with our offerings, just as they did, hoping to appease God through our flawed human efforts. Hoping to cast His vision away from all those things we are doing and thinking that are oppressing others. Hoping to divert His eyes from our hearts that claim to love all people, but secretly, and passive aggressively, hate those who don’t think like us.

There is no room in our hearts for compromise. No room for justice and mercy. No room in our beings for God to work on others that aren’t like us. No room for anything because like the Jewish people in this text, we have our rules! We know what God wants! So it doesn’t matter what we say or how we act, because WE are the new chosen people!

So we come before God on Sundays, well most Sundays, with our offerings. Our gifts. Our justified sacrifices that we think bring us eternity. Outwardly confident that God will be pleased with our gifts! Surely God will be pleased with our thousands of rams and our rivers of oil! Surely we can offer the fruit of our bodies for the forgiveness of our souls!

Obviously you see where I am going. You can’t. That isn’t what is required.

Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God.

[lovegodloveneighbor?] That’s our job. The very same job Jesus calls us to. Love God with all your heart, and soul, and mind, and your very being! And love your neighbor as yourself. You see, if you just love - truly love, not claim the adolescent love that most people claim for Christ - then you will bring true justice to others. You will show mercy to all!

That's your only job! Not to be the moral arbiter of the world. Not to be the judge of anybody or anything. Not to try to attain power to impose the will of God on people. To just love God, and love God enough to actually love all people.

You see, when we do that, when we do our job, we make room for God to do His! It isn’t unlike children who just won’t do their job, and choose to instead play and do what they want. When they act like that, everything gets thrown out of whack, and great change is required to fix the situation! When we live like children, and live only for what we want or what will bring us wealth or joy or power or status, we throw everything out of whack and change is needed! And church, just like those same children, if you want to fix it, WE must do first things first - we must do our jobs - if we want to show Christ to this world!

[corruptionpic] You see, when we live for ourselves first we love only ourselves. And when we do that, we distort everything we touch! We distort Justice because we have no love. We seek power because we have no love. We try to keep others oppressed while maintaining that rules are needed for their actions but not for our own. We do this because we have no love! Because if we had love, true love for God - the God of Justice and mercy - then we would want justice for other people more than justice for ourselves! We would seek to lift everyone else up higher than ourselves! If love ruled in our hearts - if Jesus Christ himself ruled our hearts and lives - then we would want nothing more than for mercy and justice to flourish in this world because it is through those two things that this world can see Christ in us!

Instead, we don't seek Justice and love Mercy. We seek whatever pleases us. We seek what helps us to win. We seek ways to bend the rules and allow cronyism and unethical behavior to rule the day. and what's worse, is that we don't ourselves do this, but we support people who do. We support corporations who do. We support politicians who do. We support systems and ways of life and thought that do. We support anyone that will allow us to shy away from the requirements of our God! Seek Justice. Love Mercy. Walk humbly with your God. That is our job. Not gaining the whole world! Not winning the day! Seeing the job of Christ, the very job Christ himself calls us to do, as the most important part of our life is more important than anything else we think say or do.

[sheep and goats pic] Jesus Himself tells us that very thing.

[read sheep and goats briefly]

In Micah’s language, as he says in the flipped text we read, we have followed the counsel of others, and will bear the very scorn of God.

As hard as it can be to hear, if we don't do our job in Christ. If you don't do justice and love mercy and love your neighbor as yourself and love your God with all your heart, then you are not following Jesus! There's no other way to put it! We must become introspective people! You can't walk around thinking that you have in your heart the light of Christ when you don't. The evidence of a life lived for Jesus is a life lived for others. A life that denies self. That turns away from all this behavior that leads to only hate and hurt. That seeks only Justice in this life and the next. A life that loves Mercy enough to love your neighbor. That understands that there's a God above that rules all of that. A God we claim to follow and love.

Luke 15:20 NRSV

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

[] But it isn’t over yet. We have life. We have our jobs. And we have a chance.

[] But it isn’t over yet. We have life. We have our jobs. And we have a chance.

[] But it isn’t over yet. We have life. We have our jobs. And we have a chance.

The good news for all of us today is that God is waiting for us still. That in all our difficulty to understand. In all that we fill our lives with that doesn’t matter. In our refusal to do the job He has given us to do, there is still hope! There is hope because we can, in this moment, return to our Father!

We can humble ourselves before our God. We can run back to Him and He will show us the love that He wants us to live out! A love that accepts all people! A love that doesn’t discriminate! A love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things! A love that keeps no record of wrongs but rejoices in the truth! A love that can and will not ever let us go - and just as important - will never let anyone go! A love that will never fail!

The love that runs to us. Embraces us. And brings us into His presence. All people. And if we fall in love with him, this God whose life on Earth we are called to emulate, we can’t help but love others. Love everyone. And loving everyone we would then naturally seek justice for all people. We would have mercy for all people. And most importantly, we would bring Christ into the lives of all people, and with Him that same love that will never fail them either.

That is our job. I pray that today we all run together back to the Father, and allow Him to so fill us with love that we would be ready to do that job, and seek the best for everyone in this life.

[Invitation]