The God of Our Salvation

Focus Verse- Micah 7:7- Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: My God will hear me.

Lesson Text- Micah 6:6-8- Wherewith shall I come before the Lord,

And bow myself before the high God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

With calves of a year old?

7  Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

Or 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?

8  He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;

And what doth the Lord require of thee,

But to do justly, and to love mercy,

And to walk humbly with thy God?

Micah 7:7-8- Therefore I will look unto the Lord;

I will wait for the God of my salvation:

My God will hear me.

8  Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy:

When I fall, I shall arise;

When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.

V. 18-20- Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity,

And passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?

He retaineth not his anger for ever,

Because he delighteth in mercy.

19  He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us;

He will subdue our iniquities;

And thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

20  Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham,

Which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.

1. Background of Micah

Micah’s ministry in Judah probably began late in Jotham’s reign and ended early in Hezekiah’s reign, dating 730 and 690 B.C.

Both Israel and Judah expierenced affluence and matieral prosperity in the late 8th century BC. In the south, King Uzziah’s military victories brought wealth for some. A wealthy merchant class developed, and many poorer merchant farmers found themselves at the mercy of government supported businessmen.

As business dealings became more corrupt, God’s prophets spoke to the nation, confronting the ill-gotten wealth and the godlessness that accompanied it.

Amos and Hosea prophesied in the northern kingdom of Israel, and Isiah and Micah prophesied in Judah to the south.

Judah’s commercial and secular culture replaced God’s covenant ideal. The rich became richer, but at the expense of the poor.

The growing affluence in Micah’s day led to increasing callousness toward the weak and a blatant disregard for God’s foundational laws.

Judges and lawmakers became involved in conspiracy, bribery, and other corruption. Religious teachers were more concerned about making money rather than teaching God’s word. The wealthy learned to separate their worship from everyday practice.

Explain how this sounds a lot like our generation...

At this same time of Micah you see an international power shift. Assyria was on the uprise, becoming one of the most evil, bloodthirsty, manipulative, and arrogant empires of the ancient world.

The 4 Assyrian kings made millitary inroads into Palestine during Micah’s ministry, taking Samaria in 722 BC, and making Israel and Assyrian province.

Israel and Judah were both under seige. The Israelite and Judean people wavered between their faith and apostacy and the suffered many crises.

But you find that in the end, through the seige of Jerusalem that God had a plan of judgement for His people, but also a plan for deliverance.

2. God’s Accusations Against His People

In the book of Micah, God called out the many spiritual problems of Judah and highlighted a glaring injustice: Micah 2:1-2- Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds!

When the morning is light, they practise it,

Because it is in the power of their hand.

2  And they covet fields, and take them by violence;

And houses, and take them away:

So they oppress a man and his house,

Even a man and his heritage.

Mosaic law required that a piece of land remain with the families and within the tribes. According to the law, the land actually belonged to God and He “leased” it to the people in return for their obedience to His law. If they disobeyed God, they defiled the land and invited God’s judgement. If anyone wanted to sell property, they had to wait until the next Year of Jubilee, at which all land reverted to the original owners.

This arrangement was in place to keep the rich from oppressing the poor and to help stabalize the economy.

But the wealthy people in Micah’s day were bent on aquiring large amounts of land and large estates on which they could enslave the poor and make huge profits with little investment.

They were so intent in their pursuit of wealth that they layed in the bed at night devising evil schemes and ruthless plans and then they got up eraly the next morning to carry put their evil agendas.

These wealthy men gained so much authority in the land that they controlled the courts and the councils at the city gates, so they always got whatever they wanted.

It did not matter to these proud men that they took away farms illegally and evicted families from their homes mercilessly.

These men practiced the worlds golden rule, “Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.”

1. Matieralism

These men committed a sin that we know as matieralism

Matieralism is committed by people who are obsessed with aquiring more and more wealth and things.

These wealthy men in Micah are not the only ones guilty of the injustices of matieralism.

This sin is a prevalent thing even in our society. Just as those men in Micah robbed God of the land that He owned, we rob God of things that are rightfully His today.

We rob God when we do not prioritize our time.

We rob God when we do not priortize our finances.

We rob God when we set in our minds to enjoy our best life now, instead of submitting our lives to Him for His will and His purpose.

Ultimately people that rob God, whether knowingly or unknowingly reap what they sow.

Our God is a just God, and he deals justly with the unjust, and rightly with the unrighteous.

2. Judgement

God pretty much let Judah know that He would judge them because of their rebellion against His law.

In Micah 2 the oppressors were judged, in Micah 3 the unjust leaders and false prophets were judged. They were stricken with sickness and their land was made desolate.

They thought that they were getting away with their sin.

It’s common for someone to think that they are getting away with something, but scripture tells us that no one is going to get away with anything, because one of these days everyone will have to stand before God and give an account of the deeds done in this body.

3. We Need to Have Compassion

In this lesson we see that these oppressive men had no compassion on the poor.

They did not care, all they wanted was to attain their wealth and prosperity.

But, we that are blessed with more are called to show compassion on those who have less regardless of race, social and economic status, and eveb physical abilities.

In the case of Judah, God indicted His people for mistreating people who were not as wealthy and being merciless towards them.

3. What Pleases God

Micah 6:8- He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good, And what doth the Lord require of thee, But to do justly, and to love mercy, And to walk humbly with thy God?

1. Do Justly

In this passage of scripture, the word “just” means lawful. In the NT “just” means “equitable.” Something that is holy and righteous.

According to the definition of the word “just” in Micah 6:8, to please God, we must do what is lawful, we must be holy, righteous, innocent, and do what is equitable.

Our first obligation is to please God. Pleasing God leads to obedience, which equals to salvation.

There is a saying at my job,” People want you to do what is right, but they don’t want to do what’s right.” Does anyone know somebody like that?

I find though, if I do my best to do what is right by God, more often than not, we will find peace with our neighbor.

Justice creates an atmosphere of compatibility.

To do “justly” is to “do what is right.” This requirement is a response to 3 major laws: God’s law, man’s law, and our law.

God’s law is His word,

Man’s laws are the laws that are set by our governments.

Our law is the inborn set of principles God has placed in every man and woman.

Ro. 2:14-15-14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

Everywhere you go, you are going to find people with an inner sense of right and wrong, and this inner judge that we have the Bible calls our “conscience.”

In every culture there is a sense of sin, a fear of judgement, an an attempt to atone for that sin in order to appease the god of that culture.

The Jews had the possession of the law, but Paul makes it clear in Romans that the possession of the law means nothing if you do not practice it.

To do justly is not something that has only an outward appearance, but it has to be something that is ingrained on the inside.

Paul says in Galations 5, If we live in the Spirit, we should also walk in the Spirit.

That means if we have recieved the Holy Ghost, there is a change that takes place on the inside, and it works its way outwardly. Then the fruits of the Spirit begin to make themselves known. in your life.

To do justly is to live in accordance to God’s word, and to allow God to transform your life from the inside out.

2. Love Mercy

Mercy in this passage translates as “faithfulness, goodness, godly action.”

We would be lost without God’s mercy on our lives.

Because He has had mercy on us, we are commanded to love mercy. We are commanded to love faithfulness, goodness, and godly action.

Loving these things are easy.

Most commands are for the things that are not easily obeyed.

For us, loving mercy is almost as natural as breathing.

The difficult part of the command is loving mercy enough to extend it to those who we feel do not deserve it.

Did we deserve God’s mercy?

He extended it to us any way, even though we are unworthy.

As we are commanded to love mercy, we are also offered a blessing for doing so in Mt. 5:7- Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Having recieved His mercy, we share His mercy with others.

3. Walk Humbly

You could read this as, “To humble yourself to walk with God.”

Humble here means “Lowly, Submissive, Modest.”

In Phil. 2:6 scripture says,”Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.”

It goes on to say that He came to earth in the role of a servant.

Jesus set Himself in a place of lowliness.

In classical Greek, lowliness and humility were derrogatory terms suggesting low mindedness. But you find in the Gospel that God chose the humble, lowly, and low minded people to stand against the high mindedness of the world.

Pride robs God of his glory, but humbleness allows God to recieve all the glory.

4. We Must Do What Pleases God

It sounds like a simple statement, but sometimes we misunderstand the purpose.

Our ultimate purpose is to please God, because He is the only Saviour of the world, and He is the only one who can give salvation.

Psalm 3:8- Salvation belongs to the LORD.

Salvation can only be attained by pleasing and obeying God.

We know that salvation is a choice. No one else can decide for us.

We must personally choose whether or not we want to have a relationship with God.

We can’t ride on someone else’s coat tail, there is a personal choice that each and every one of us have to make, ae we going to live for God or not?

4. The God of Our Salvation.

1. He is Merciful.

Micah 7:8 says that God delights in mercy. He does not give mercy because He feels obligated to do so. We do not earn mercy, it is an unmerited, uninherited act of love.

Jesus told the pharisees in Mt. 9,”I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.”

The pharisees were so married to the law that they could not understand love and mercy.

The blood of animals served its purpose in the OT, but grace and truth came by Jesus to accomplush what the law could not do.

It was not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away our sins, but Jesus became our perfect, spotless lamb, who became the propitiation of our sins, He took our guilt and our shame so that we could be set free.

2. He shows Compassion

John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whoseoever believes on Him should not perish , but have everlasting life.

He did not have to robe Himself in flesh, but He did.

I thank God that He had compassion on me and He though that I was worth dying for.

He though I was worth saving, so He came to save my life, He though I was worth keeping, so he cleaned me up inside, He though I was to die for, so He sacrificed His life, so I can be free, so I can be whole.

As I close this lesson, I want us to realize that salvation is near.

We can before we leave this place today, make a choice to live a life that is pleasing to God.