J. Albrecht…22^nd Sunday in Trinity…Micah 6:6-8…The Pattern For a Godly Life…November 16^th

“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? ⁷ 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?” ⁸ 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?

Grace, Mercy, and Peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

INJ Who has redeemed us by His blood to live for Him, DFR:

The gilded age in America lasted from the 1870s through 1900. The term gilded age was coined by Mark Twain. It suggests a thin layer of gold covering up for something far less valuable underneath. In the case of America, this period showed tremendous economic growth and rapid industrialization.  On the surface everything looked great, but underneath it all, the nation was rife with corruption.

Only a few truly got rich while the rest of the nation lived in poverty. Working conditions were poor and dangerous, and no child labor laws were on the books. Perhaps worst of all, the arbiters of justice were some of the most susceptible to this corruption. Judges sacrificed justice for a bribe and lawmakers turned aside for the right price.

To us, looking back, it might seem ridiculous to live under such circumstances. But in some ways, things never change. Though we have better systems in place to keep our judicial system focused on justice, it still gets a lot wrong. You still get the feeling that “justice” serves whoever can pay the most or has the most influence.

It’s not much different from the children of Israel in the 8^th century B.C. Micah’s day was also marked by deep corruption, especially in the judicial and political realm. Justice was not carried out truthfully and mercy was cast aside for profit. And humility before God? Don’t even think about it. Anything goes when it comes to getting ahead. But perhaps the worst part of all was that this corruption spread into their religious practice. They began to treat God and His will for His people as if He were no different than the judges and leaders that were able to be bargained with.

In response, we have this clear command from the LORD – the pattern which He desires our lives to follow. To do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God is that pattern. It is founded upon God’s unchanging Law as it is His will for us. But the power to do it, is ours by the Gospel alone.

Micah 6 is a mostly one-sided discourse between God and His people. The LORD calls the mountains and hills to serve as His witnesses as He shows the evidence of His faithfulness as compared to the people’s unfaithfulness. God says, “ ‘O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me! ⁴ 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. ⁵ O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD.

The point the LORD is making here is that He has always acted in favor towards His people. He has been the one to deliver them from their oppressors. He brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He gave them strong leaders; He made sure they were blessed when Balaam intended to curse them. Why then, have they thrown away His law and the right worship?

“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? ⁷ 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?”

Instead of being filled with heartfelt thanks for God’s mercy and forgiveness, their reply reveals their hearts are filled with the darkness of unbelief. The LORD uses hyperbole, an extreme case, to show how far natural man comes to pleasing God. They are under the Law and assume that God must be pleased by something they do.

You can hear a begrudging attitude in the people’s reply. They search for what will please God, not because they want to, but because they need to. Everyone has a price, right? Be it the neighbor, or judge, or official? At some point, everyone will accept a deal…why not God?

Ranging from sacrifices that God did deem acceptable, to practices God had forbidden, the people of God who were entrusted with the Good News of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness, have failed Him. They rejected the words of Micah’s contemporary Hosea where God declared, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Jesus would quote this passage in the New Testament when the Pharisees were holding on like a vice grip to the righteousness that comes by the Law.

It isn’t about the offerings, the sacrifices, the payments made to God. Everything already belongs to Him. Any attempt to follow this pattern in life of bargaining with God for His favor or saving grace will end in disaster. This pattern isn’t limited to just earning salvation, but can appear in other areas of life: “God, I will stop committing sins against the 6^th commandment if You send me…fill in the blank.” “God, You will not find a better Christian than me, if You answer my prayer, the way I want you to.”

A little hyperbole, but that is one of the many forms it takes in our lives. We dare to wager our morality, our doing of God’s will in exchange for His favor. It is a sickness of the heart that is no better than the corruption of the Israelites back then, following a man-made pattern for life.

What the Israelites failed to understand is who God is. John tells us that God is love. He knows our attempts to please Him by our works and offerings are futile in and of themselves. Instead, He gives us a godly pattern of life to follow. One that is rooted in the undeserved love and mercy of the Gospel.

 ⁸ 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?

Three simple, God-pleasing rules, with which to order your life by. To do justice, to love kindness, or mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. On the surface is seems no different that what the Israelites were offering God, doesn’t it? These are things we do in order to please God. Right? Yes, they are, but we must first understand what it means to do each of these things.

To do justice means to exercise proper judgment as God has established in His Word. Psalm 89:14 says, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.” We take comfort in knowing God is a God of justice, that He can’t be bargained with or succumb to bribery. Why? Because it means when He executes justice, it is right and it is final. God executed justice over sin on the hill called Calvary, where His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, hung as the ransom payment for all mankind. Justice was carried out, just not on you and me. Jesus was accused, you are innocent. Jesus was condemned, you are made a new creation in perfect righteousness and holiness. Jesus died, but you are given eternal life.

God’s justice almost never stands alone, but it is connected to His mercy and kindness. God could have executed His justice squarely on our heads and it would be well deserved. But He didn’t. He chose mercy and love – He desired to not give us what we deserve, but grant us forgiveness and eternal life. What are we without God’s mercy? Broken individuals with no purpose. But by the grace of God, His selfless love for you, that is not who you are. You are His child. You are a saint who truly knows justice and mercy because you have received the fullness of both from God.

These two directions, justice and mercy, are difficult even for the Christian to follow. The heart desires to do justice without the mercy and vice versa. That is where the third instruction comes in: Walk humbly with your God. Paul writes about this in Philippians 2:5-8, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,”

No one chose the more humble path than our Savior, who left His throne above in order to become Your substitute in life and in death. What was one thing Jesus did almost more often than anything else? He prayed. He prayed to His heavenly Father to strengthen Him and keep Him on the path that would lead to the salvation of the world. So it is for us to walk humbly with our God. We are not called to lord our righteousness over other people, but in humility, pray that the LORD would send His Holy Spirit to guide our lives according to His will. That He might instill in us the desire to do justice and love mercy. That by our words and conduct, we might lead others to the cross of our Savior and the full and free forgiveness that awaits them there.

Remember where the term gilded age came from? That thin layer of gold that hid something ugly underneath? It is easy to fall into that pattern of life. Feigning righteousness on the outside, but living a corrupt life with a corrupt relationship to God underneath. God has set forth this pattern of life for each of us to walk in. Not because it is another law, but because, at its heart, it is the Gospel. It is the good news that God’s justice has fallen on Jesus and you are granted forgiveness. It is the good news that God has not given you what you deserve, but you are instead a child and an heir of heaven. It is the good news that God will walk with you in this pattern for a godly life that you may ne’er depart from it.

Perhaps the words of Salomo Franck summarize it the best in his hymn, I Leave All Things to God’s Direction.

My God desires the soul’s salvation,
Me also He desires to save;
Therefore with Christian resignation
All earthly troubles I will brave.
His will be done eternally:
What pleaseth God, that pleaseth me. Amen.