OUR MICAHN CALL, TODAY
Sermon, August 30, 2009, Silliman University Church
Micah 6:8 (NAS Ryrie Expanded Edition)

Ben S. Malayang III
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Micah presents an absolutely brutal indictment of our humanity. He presents a vicious and dreadful charge sheet against our failure to be God’s people.

• We are being charged of no one among us being upright; that we all lie in wait for bloodshed and each of us   hunts the other with a net (V7:2).

• We are charged of scheming iniquity, on working out evil on our beds and doing evil with both hands when   morning comes (V2:1;7:3).

• We are charged of being vile and coveting and robbing others of their fields, of their houses and of their   inheritance (V2:2).

• We are charged of being full of violence, of speaking lies, and of using wicked scales and deceptive weights   (V6:10-12).

• We are charged of eating the flesh of God’s people, of stripping off their skins and breaking their bones and   chopping them up as for the pot like meat in a kettle (V3:3).

• The prophets are charged of leading God’s people astray, when given something to bite with their teeth   (V3:5a).

• We are charged of crying “peace” but against others who put nothing in our mouths we declare holy war   (V3:5b).

• Our leaders are charged of pronouncing judgment for a bribe and our priests of declaring God’s Word for a   price (V3:11a).

• Our prophets are charged of divining God’s will for money (V3:11b).

• And we are charged of worshipping images that we collect from a harlot’s earnings (V1:7).

While we desperately cling to a view of ourselves as being good enough, Micah says that we are absolutely not. While we take pride of our saintly selves, Micah charges us of basic depravity and debauchery.

Micah laments that in the face of what God has done for us, of how God had brought us out of our Egyptian slavery of sin and failures, of how God had sent giants of faith who had established our inheritance, we are failing God (V6:4-5).
And so we plead (V6:1). How might we please the Lord (V6:6)?

• Have we not come to God with burnt offerings (V6:6)? With tithes and pledges that already burn our pockets?

• Have we not brought to God yearling calves (V6:8) and our best faces as church goers and devoted workers   of the Lord?

• Have we not brought to God thousands of rams (V6:7a) and a good deal of our time and efforts to build our   Lord’s church?

• Have we not brought to God ten thousand rivers of oil (V6:7b), and a whole lifetime of devotion to the Lord’s   works?

• Have we not presented to God our firstborn (V6:7c) and the fruits of our bodies (V6:7d), or the best of our   treasures for each of our misdeeds?

Are these not enough to please God? Are not the best of ourselves and of what we have – which others envy us – sufficient to make God smile?

Micah – with brutal conviction – says “no.”

Not good enough. Nothing short of what God says is good, is good enough.

And what does the Lord require of us?

It is to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God (V6:8).

We might bring to God the best of what we think is good. But they will always be heaps of rotting carcasses to God until and unless we exude in our lives the virtues of justice, mercy and humility.

• We are not good enough until and unless we do what is right for simply because it is right, because it is right   to do so and because it is the right thing to do, and not because it is convenient, or is rewarding. We do   justice because it is in our character to be just, not because we are compelled by circumstances and   consequences to be just.

• We are not good enough until and unless we can be kind for simply because kindness defines who we are,   and not because kindness can be a lucrative investment.

• And we are not good enough until and unless we are deeply awed and humbled by God’s overpowering   presence in the deepest recesses of our being.

The question we need to ask ourselves today is this: can we be all these?
Can we ever be good enough to God?

Micah’s answer, again, is “no.” We cannot be good enough in God’s sight if we were to be good by the power of what we can do.

We cannot be good enough in God’s sight unless and until we are good by the power of what God can do. We cannot be good enough unless and until it is no less than God who works justice, mercy, and humility in our souls.

This is a tall order that is brutal for its seeming impossibility for us to ever achieve.

But Micah subsequently shows us our redemption. By ourselves, we are not good enough. But by God’s grace, we can be.

Our redemption cannot come from us, however we might think highly of ourselves. It can come only from God (V7:18-20).

I am not a theologian, but I believe that here Micah becomes a Gospel before the Gospels. He declares of a One who will go forth from Bethlehem, who shall rule Israel, from whom, and from whom only, will be our peace (V5:2,5).

He declares of a Christ that will go forth for God, who shall pardon our iniquity, who shall pass over our rebellious acts, who shall not retain God’s anger forever, who shall have compassion on us, and who shall cast our sins into the depths of the sea (V7:19).

He declares of a Christ who delights in unchanging love (V7:18), in whom we can find justice, mercy and humility, and with whom we can do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

Micah’s call to us today is really not for us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Rather, Micah calls us to be in Christ so that with Christ in us,

• He, the Christ, can do justice.
• He, the Christ, can make us love mercy.
• And He, the Christ, can make us walk humbly with God.

Like it or not, that’s just how it is.

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