God’s Case
(Based on Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12)
To set the scene, picture getting sued by God. Because that is exactly how the scene is set up in our Old Testament passage this morning.
“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 case against his people;
And he is lodging a charge against Israel.”
In these first two verses from the beginning of chapter 6 in Micah, God calls the court to attention, calls the mountains as his witnesses since they’ve been around long enough to have seen what’s been going on. God then announces that he’s commencing proceedings against all the people of Israel.
God makes his opening argument or statement to the people.
“My people, what have I done to you?
How have I burdened you? Answer me.
I brought you up out of Egypt
and redeemed you from the hand of slavery.
I sent Moses to lead you,
also Aaron and Miriam…
In other words, “What have I done wrong to you that you are treating Me this way?”
Then the people God is suing offer their defense:
The people respond.
“With what should 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?”
So, in other words God asked, “What have I done that you’re treating Me this way?” And the people responded with, “What more do you expect from us?” Putting it in today’s terms, it would be like saying, “God, we go to church. We give sacrificially to the offering every week. We have our devotions and try our best to follow You with our lives. I know we’re not perfect, but what do You expect from us? What will make You happy?”
What Does the Lord Require?
In verse 8, God answers the question, “What does God want from us?” The first part of verse 8 says, “He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?”
The Message, a paraphrase of the Bible written by Eugene Peterson, puts it this way: “But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do…” God isn’t giving us new information. What we’re about to read is consistent throughout Scripture. There isn’t some new request in Micah, and it’s not something that only applied two thousand plus years ago. God’s requirements for God’s people have been consistent throughout history, throughout all of Biblical teaching, from start to finish.
It’s consistent. It’s also pretty simple. Anybody can remember three things, right? And yet, although these three requirements are simple, it seems from this lawsuit that God’s people have a pretty spotty record at how well they do with these three requirements.
In fact, we could ask, “How well are we doing with them today?”
Verse 8 says, “What does the LORD require of you? To act justly…” I think it’s important to understand the full concept of this part of passage. What is justice? Is it just about treating others fairly? I think so, but it goes beyond that. The full concept behind this is the idea is of not just treating those you regularly come into contact with fairly, but in promoting justice in all of society. It’s a concern for justice for everyone; to work for right relationships and justice for all, especially for the most vulnerable.
The issue with justice is how those who have power and privilege treat those who don’t. The reason why this is so important is because when you read the Bible, God always takes the side of the poor. God is a God of justice who pleads the cause of the poor, and requires his people to do the same.
Listen to what God said all the way back in Deuteronomy, when God was outlining how his people should live. Deuteronomy 10:18 says of God, “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigners residing among you, giving them food and clothing.” In chapter 15:7-9, he says:
“If anyone is poor among your people in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need…Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then, because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything that you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be openhanded toward those of your people who are poor and needy in your land.”
Justice is essentially how those of us who have look after those who don’t have. God says, “I don’t want people who just come to church and worship me. I want them to do something about the inequity and injustice in this world. I want them to promote justice for those who don’t have.”
If this is one of God’s non-negotiable requirements, the question is, are we doing this? How much do we speak up for those who are vulnerable in this world? Churches are usually pretty good at charity, of helping those in need. Charity is showing kindness, but Justice is dealing with the root causes that made the charity necessary. And how well do we do this?
Here are some facts for you to consider:
The world is enjoying unprecedented wealth, and yet more than one billion people live in abject poverty, struggling to get by on less than $1 a day.
Each day, 50,000 people die from preventable, poverty-related causes. Which means that every 1.7 seconds, another person dies of simply being too poor to get the right medication for preventable diseases or starving to death because they were too poor to have enough food to live.
Today, the richest three people in the world own assets that exceed the combined wealth of the world’s poorest 48 countries.
There are other issues to justice besides poverty, such as racial issues, unjust laws, equality, etc…
I wish I could tell you the solutions to all of these issues, but the answers aren’t easy. I can’t tell you the solution, but I can tell you that God requires us to do something. God requires of his people that we promote justice. In Micah’s day, God was so angry about this that he sued His own people because they weren’t doing it, they weren’t promoting justice.
If anybody should care about these issues, it ought to be God’s people, who share His heart and who have received God’s love. What does God require? That we work to promote justice in this world.
The second requirement from God is to love kindness or to act with mercy. Justice is working to address the causes of racial discrimination, poverty, inequality, but acting with kindness or loving mercy means that we walk alongside those who suffer – showing faithfulness, generosity, and compassion. It doesn’t just mean showing mercy. It means actually loving it, making it something that’s what you love to do. Mercy isn’t deserved. We don’t look at some people and say, “You don’t deserve mercy!” We give them mercy as freely as it’s been given to us.
One last requirement, to walk humbly with God. What I would expect to be number one makes number three on God’s list. I don’t know that these are given in any particular order, but I would have thought that God would have come first and dominated the list, but instead the list is led by how we treat others.
“Walk humbly with your God” includes all the things we normally think of in our relationship with God. It involves intimacy, cultivating a relationship, staying attentive to God’s will. It’s being deliberate about pursuing ongoing spiritual growth and discipleship, of becoming more like Jesus.
If you asked the average person in our circles what following God is all about, this would be it. This is what we should focus on in order to walk humbly with God.
So, these are what God expects from us individually and as a people of God. They are how he expects us to live: to promote justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with Him.
We need to ask ourselves and our church; How much do I/we promote justice? Do I/we care about the issues of justice as they relate to those in need? Do I/we ever contact the government when they make decisions that are unjust to others? How much do I/we love kindness and act with mercy? Does that kindness or mercy flow from a heart that’s grudging and condescending, or from a heart that sees the image of God in another person, especially someone who may not be like me/us? How often am I/we excited to share the love of God with others? Am I/are we walking humbly with God? Does my/our heart reflect God’s priorities? Do I/we see past my/our own world and see what God cares about?
If these are the big three, how are you doing? And how are we doing as a church?
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