Micah 6:6-8
Wednesday Night Prayer and Praise • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 357 viewsNotes
Transcript
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 oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has showed you, O man, 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 began his ministry about 735 B.C. A time of great peace and prosperity were in the land in both Israel and Judah. They were free from the threat of war. Sounds like a great time doesn’t it? However, the rich began to live like the pagan nations. The peasant farmers were driven away because the rich landowners took over their holdings by bribing the judges. This led to overcrowding which brought about filth, misery and disease. The people began to look for the “easy way” to find happiness. The influence of the Canaanites led the people to worship Baal and the partner god Anath. The rituals of this worship led to many things that were the opposite of God’s design and desire for His people.
Micah comes along as a teacher of Truth and Righteousness. He saw the idolatry, corruption and injustice the people were involved stemmed from deep roots they had as a nation. He sought to teach them God’s requirements, warn them of the pending judgement of God and remind them of God’s promises to those who would be faithful to Him.
A careful study of this short book gives us great insight into the choice the people must make: a life of chaos or a life of covenant. There cannot be any straddling of the fence so to speak. We can learn from this book that what God required of the people then thousands of years ago, He still requires of us today if we are to be His people. His expectations are clear. He requires justice, mercy and to walk humbly before 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?
Micah recognizes on behalf of these folks, and for that matter all folks, that there is a need to come before the Lord. The Psalmist declared our need for worshiping Him.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
The High Place of God calls for Him to be worshiped. There is none other like Him. There is none Higher than Him. We as humanity must come before Him and acknowledge His greatness and His splendor. Our natural tendency is to come before Him with a gift or something that would please Him. Micah offers this question, “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? He even begins to list suggestions. The first suggestion is burnt offerings. Our greatest desires as humans is to do what our Creator desires, but we always fall short. In fact, we see Micah proposing the question in verse 7 of offering more:
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
Just like the people Micah is ministering to, the idea is that the price can be paid by offering more. The offering goes from a few burnt sacrifices to more being offered, even the ridiculous offering of murdering and offering the first born. This very thing contradicts the law of God when He said, “Thou shalt not murder.”
The Psalmist once again speaks the heart of God:
Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but my ears you have pierced;
burnt offerings and sin offerings
you did not require.
Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—
it is written about me in the scroll.
I desire to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”
It seems we bring everything to God but that which He desires most. Can you imagine what the Creator of all things feels when we bring Him everything but that which He wants the most?
So, how do we do the will of God? How do we, as Isaiah 11:13 shares with us, “stop bringing meaningless offerings?”
It is beautifully outlined is Micah 6:8:
He has showed you, O man, 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.
God has shown us. There are many examples of this in His word:
and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
Observe the Lord’s commands and decrees.
It dwells near to us. We must speak it and embrace it with our very being.
Not only has He showed us, but He has shown that which is good.
It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.
The Law is only a shadow. What does a shadow do? It reflects the real image. The Law only reflected the ultimate sacrifice made by Jesus Christ and it was done once and for all!
“And what does the Lord require?” The moral problem of sinfulness requires a moral response. Part of the problem in Micah’s day was that the people had watered down the morality that God required. They had given in to selfish desires and not stood up for what God had shown them to do. This goes all the way back to the creation and in the garden. Adam and Eve chose selfishness instead of God’s law. We are still doing it today. We are choosing selfishness instead of what God has commanded, and we as a world are paying for it now. We have allowed our relationship with God to be replaced with the idols we have produced that are self-serving.
Micah called the people to reexamine the Lord’s requirements, then lists them out. All of these come in direct correlation of one’s relationship with God. It is from the overflow of that relationship.
The first thing he says is to act justly.
Justly refers to the ability of acting with integrity and assuring justice is being carried out.
learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
Seek good, not evil,
that you may live.
Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you,
just as you say he is.
Hate evil, love good;
maintain justice in the courts.
Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy
on the remnant of Joseph.
The Bible is clear about the command to act and carry out justice. The second command Micah gives is to love mercy. It is not like mercy,but to love mercy. Just like in Greek there are multiple meanings of our word love, the word for love here in Hebrew is hesed. This is a covenant type love. One based on a higher calling and one that is not unselfish. Coupled with the word mercy, it is actually a double meaning of the first word. Have a covenant relationship with the practice of a covenant love. Both of these commands of acting justly and loving mercy are spurred by the covenant of righteousness.
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
We are fortunate to be a New Testament people in that we have had this carried out for us in Jesus Christ.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:7:
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
For us to love mercy is the act of also receiving mercy.
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
Beth Moore wrote: Since the Garden of Eden, humankind has perilously confused foolishness with freedom. The radical calling of the cross is to put others first!”
But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
How much more should God’s love displayed in Jesus Christ move His people to become His disciples? As we realize the mercy given to us, we should easily do the third requirement that Micah gives us: “to walk humbly.”
Walking humbly simply means to bring one’s life into conformity with God’s will. The best Biblical example other than Jesus was Enoch.
Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.
We are to walk humbly before God. In doing so, we will live in that overflow of His justice and mercy and we will love one another.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
We do for others what Jesus did for us because what Jesus did for us changed us so we can do for others!