Get in God's Boat

Get in God’s Boat: Trusting God in a Sea of Insanity

Micah 6:8 ESV

He has told you, O man, 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?

The days we are living in are like a sea of insanity. How are we supposed to trust God in such times, much less teach our children how to trust Him. People no longer trust that which is natural by divine design, much less that which is supernatural and eternal.

We live in a time when people, even many professing Christians, live by their own subjective values rather than the transcendent and absolute virtues of Adonai.

The Prophet Micah presents to us more than a code of conduct. It is a call to righteousness (s’daqa צְדָקָה). I have said this before, you cannot secure the blessings of God outside of the peace of God. If you are not walking in His ways, you cannot expect His favor upon your walk (halak הָלַךְ) or way of living.

When the woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus, in Mark 5:30 it says that Jesus immediately perceived that “virtue” had been drawn from Him. By being unclean and touching the Rabbi, she had broken religious and civil law. But she stood on the prophetic revelation of Messiah. Jesus was the Law, the authority and fulness thereof. Thus, her faith drew not simply self beneficial value, but “power or righteous virtue” from Him. All of us develop our values from what we presuppose to either be true or false. Those values are shaped by our family environment or absence thereof, regardless of its function or dysfunction, structure or chaos, morality or immorality.

Therefore, values can be subjective. But virtue is defined by God. Ethics are God’s transcendent standard based on His righteousness. Morality is either, our positive or negative response to His ethical standards. The judgments of civil law must stem from a moral law rooted in virtue. When moral law becomes value based it becomes subjective and civil law no longer exist for virtuous reason.

Once socially held values of civil law, are no longer supported by moral laws, founded upon virtue, everything loses any value. Life then has no meaning, or purpose. Life is no longer sacred, marriage is no longer sacred, intimacy is no longer sacred, the innocence of a child is no longer sacred or guarded and protected. When virtue is no longer the basis for moral law, men lose innate conviction. They become a law unto themselves allowing godlessness and lawlessness to govern. Thus, moral insanity becomes the new normal.

To live in this new normal is to live a lie. And a lie is never sustainable. But Jesus offered the Samaritan woman, at Jacob’s well, “living water.” Jeremiah 17:13 says that He is the “Fountain of Living Water.”

Jeremiah 17:13 ESV

O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.

Living water was used to reference a natural spring or that which comes from God alone. We all know that we cannot live without water. As well, water was extremely significant in Jesus’ day for ritual cleansing.

According to Chezal (Jewish Sages), the Hebrew word for water (mayim), shares the same root as the word mah, meaning “what”. It was believed that when one was immersed in water, his soul begs the question, “What am I?”

It has been said that all men throughout the ages have asked three fundamental questions affecting identity - Who am I? Which speaks to my value. Why am I here? Which speaks to my purpose. And, Where is it all going? Which speaks to my hope. How one answers these reveals their beliefs and values. Unfortunately, we live in the days when people reject the only one who can answer these questions and that is Truth.

Jesus said in John 14:6,

John 14:6 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Which brings us back to Micah 6:8.

God says that He has “told” you something. The word told is “nagad נָגַד”. It means more than just to tell you something. It means to put the evidence of it in front of your face.

In the days of Noah, God put evidence right in front of their face as a call to repentance and a return to righteousness. But only one family found a place on the boat. Everyone else found themselves drowning in the sea of sinful insanity.

What evidence has God put before us in response to our questions in this life? Questions about who we are, why we are here, and where we are going? Every disciple must seek out and know the answers to these questions in order to take up his cross, deny himself, and follow Christ.

To take up your cross is a Jewish idiom Jesus used referring to the ancient Hebrew letter tav (ת) which was simply a cross used to mark one’s property. It also was referred to as a symbol of chaos or death as, first the Assyrians then the Roman’s used it to crucify Jews who were considered Roman property. Jesus demands that you must “bear His mark.” You must fully belong to Him. You must die to your life and live His. Only then can you trust that He is truth while living in a sea of insanity.

This is what He meant when at the Passover meal He says, “As often as you do this remember me.” The word for “remember” is zakar זָכַר meaning to build an eternal memorial or make a permanent impression on your soul that you never forget whose you are, why you were chosen, and and the plans He has for you.

Thus, “He has told you man what is good (tov טוֹב) or morally acceptable to God. Jesus lived his life demonstrating it. He sealed it with the ultimate demonstration of the highest virtue. He shed His blood for a debt He did not owe. Yet, I do not expect the pagan world to comprehend this work of cleansing for a righteous Bride? But those who bear His name should know that you cannot define what is good in your own eyes and expect to have a place on God’s boat. To call good evil and evil good or to find justification for moral compromise is to forfeit your place on the boat, His Kingdom gathering. he is coming back as in the days of Noah.

We cannot live by subjective cultural progressive morality and yet call it “Following the Christ”. We are called to live by the virtues of our Creator.

Look at Micah verse 6 and 7. Let’s put this in context of a Talmid תַּלְמִיד (disciple)?

Micah 6:6 ESV

“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?

Micah 6:7 ESV

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?”

This describes many professing Christians today. They seek God with eclectic religious practices of convenient occasion, a multitude cheap sacrifices, and mingle a little cultural paganism in with their Christianity, subject to their own moral relativism, and present that to God as holy.

But God declares what He has required of us in order to live a life that trust Him even in a culture that no longer makes any sense. How do I ensure I am in God’s Kingdom boat in this social sea of insanity?

God commands you to “do Justice”. Justice is the word mishpat מִשְׁפָּט meaning judgment and in this context it means to do no unrighteousness.

God commands you to “love kindness”. Love is ahavah (אהבה) meaning to delight in or desire, and kindness is hesed (חסד) meaning to show mercy. It is to act unto others as you would before God Himself.

And finally, God commands us to “walk” (halak הָלַךְ) which means to live a lifestyle in humility (tzana צנע) or to live submissively and modestly before God.

In the days of Noah the largest mikveh (ritual immersion) covered the earth. We see the source of the word mikveh for the first time in Genesis 1:10 when God says, “to the gathering [mikveh] of waters (mayim), He called seas.”

But in our day, the only sea that covers our land is the sea of godless and sinful immoral insanity. The sea of immoral insanity is what the world now calls morally acceptable living. And it has made its way into the Church. Followers of Christ, escape the sea of immoral insanity and get back in God’s boat of righteousness. He has shown you, right before your eyes, the way of righteousness and the consequences of wickedness that engulfs the world around us. Walk as Christ and bring others into the boat of living a life that trust God, when to the rest of the world, living righteous does not make any sense.

He has shown you how to live - do no unrighteousness, even within your hearts, but live a life holy and morally acceptable to God; affectionately desire His mercies and show the fruit of them to those around you; and live a lifestyle in humble obedience to the judgements of God Almighty.

If you have fallen off God’s boat, now is the time to get back on it and throw the Life Savior of Truth (Jesus Christ) to others.