Readings: Micah 6:1-8 | 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 | Matthew 5:1-12
Text: Micah 6:1-8
This is a good reminder from the Lord. Maybe you’ve seen it quoted places:
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?
By itself, this sounds clear and achievable. Like kids entering a new class at the beginning of a semester, you want to know what this teacher expects. So, the Lord tells us what is good, and He has three simple expectations: Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
However, this verse is set in context that can only be ignored at great peril. If you liken God to your stern teacher, perhaps you’ll be on the lookout for a more lenient deity until he should come along. Look at the whole Old Testament lesson to see what the Lord has to say to His people:
[Read Micah 6:1-7]
“The Lord has an indictment against His people.”
That’s legal language that only comes up when someone’s in trouble. Are we in trouble with the Lord?
We have a pair of readings this Sunday and next which prepare us for Lent. In this passage from Micah 6 and next week from Isaiah 58, the Lord has a complaint against the worship of His people. It’s a noble thing to worship the Lord, but it is an act of an honest heart. It cannot be done either as going through the motions, or as if our choice to worship Him were something praiseworthy.
Now, hear what the Lord is saying here: He is speaking to people who were definitely convinced that it was good to be pious and heed the Word of the Lord. But they lacked something important. They put the Lord to the test by outwardly doing all kinds of pious acts, making a practice of godly things, paying attention to the Lord’s commands. But they tested Him because they did these things without recognizing what their God was after:
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.”
He brought them out of the land of Egypt, where they were slaves and were steeped in idolatry and rebellion. They had forgotten the covenant made by God to Abraham, where He had promised to rescue them and make them a nation. It wasn’t anything about them that made them worthy of rescue (Deuteronomy 7:1-11). Once He had rescued them, the sons of Israel put the Lord to the test in the wilderness, Moses tells us, ten times (Numbers 14:20-24). Yet, the Lord is far more patient and long-suffering than even the kindest human parent. Hundreds of years by this point, He had borne with them, sending them prophets to call them from their hard-heartedness.
So, He asks, “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!” That is to say, what has the Lord done wrong for His people? When they accused Him of wrongdoing, He fed them [Exodus 16]. When they sinned along the way, He gave them healing [Numbers 21]. When they exhausted Moses, He still gave their children rest, even though they did not deserve it [Numbers 20:10-13].
But now, they’ve grown complacent and entitled. Their hearts ask, why wouldn’t the Lord be gracious to us? In some fashion, we must deserve it. At least we’re not as bad as those people who know nothing of the Lord. Look at how disobedient they are, and now look at how good we are!
A holy God is not impressed.
There’s a whole angle of apologetics that makes the case for God to unstable believers. Their songs sing about how great God is, how He always welcomes back the failures. They appeal to reasonable arguments for why it’s superior (dare I say, smarter) to believe in God than the alternatives of secularism and atheism. But they are missing people’s real problem—and it’s a big one—human sin knows the “righteous acts of the Lord” and yet willfully disregards them so that we can go our own way.
Each sinner in their life needs to hear the indictment of the Lord: You have wearied your God and Savior by being secure in your sins. As often as you have heard His Law and not come humbled in repentance before Him, you spit in the face of the crucified Christ and say, “Come down and we will believe in you!” (Mark 15:32). But what has the Lord done that He needs to be justified to us, that we might accept Him?!
6 “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?”
The Lord gives us what we truly need: His saving work. He changes the direction all around, so that our eyes are directed at His work. We come before the Lord empty-handed—as He says to the Church at Laodicea: “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” (Rev. 3:17) For us “poor, miserable sinners,” He gave His own firstborn for our transgressions. He gave the fruit of the Virgin Mary’s womb for the sin of our souls. The true worship of God is to receive in faith God’s sacrifice for our sins, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. All true worship of God flows from this source.
The indictment the Lord has against His people reaches its sentencing upon the cross. Behold Jesus of Nazareth, innocently condemned, forsaken by His Father, dead, and buried. There is your sin. “13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”
So, now, let’s return to the verse we heard at the beginning:
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?
He has told us what is truly good: His work as it was in creation [Gen. 1:31], so also in Redemption. And what does the Lord require of His forgiven people? To do what we were created for. We are to delight in His commandments by loving God with our renewed heart and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
So, (if you have a Lutheran Service book, please turn to page 321-22) looking at the Luther’s Small Catechism’s explanations of the Ten Commandments, especially the second half of each one, we look at each of these positive commands in the explanations beginning on page 321, where we start out with the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods.” The explanation states that, “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” And then looking at the Second Commandment, “…but call upon his name in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.” The Third Commandment: “…but hold God’s word sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” The Fourth Commandment: “…but honor our parents and other authorities, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.” The Fifth and Sixth Commandments: “…for every physical need, to lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife, love and honor each other.” The Seventh and Eighth Commandments: “…but to help our neighbor to improve and protect his possessions and income, and to defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way for our neighbor’s reputation.” The Ninth and Tenth Commandments (explanation paraphrase): “to help and be of service to our neighbor in keeping his inheritance or his house, and finally, to urge our neighbor’s wife, workers, and animals to stay and do their duty.” This is what’s meant by justice. Mishpatim (מִּשְׁפָּטִים) is the Hebrew word to do justice. It’s to do these positive things that God’s word instructs us in. And we are able to do them, having been forgiven of our trespasses.
To love kindness is deeper than to delight in being gentle. The ESV notes that this is the same word elsewhere translated “steadfast love” or “mercy.” We are to love the Lord’s kindness, His faithfulness to His promises, His mercy toward believers which endures forever [Psalm 136:1].
And to walk humbly means that our course of life is to be pure of deceit, quick to confess when we fail, and grateful to walk with Him even as He became “God with us.”[1]
So now, let us joyfully sing and pray that God continue His good work in us with the words of Psalm 51. [the Offertory]
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
[1] “with your God” uses the same preposition “im” as the name Immanuel means “God with us.”
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