Faithbase

It's real simple. It'll be up on the screen for you. It's Micah chapter 6 verse 8. Micah says, the Lord says to Micah, He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord, what is that word, church? Require. What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? If you got your notes, we're going to look at those three things real quick this morning. Because I want us to really think about this beyond a resolution. Beyond I'm going to eat better and I'm going to lose weight, or I'm going to go to the gym more, or I'm going to do this, that, or the other. Of understanding what does God require of us as a lifestyle, as His people? As His church, in this community, full of lost people that don't know Jesus and are damned to hell unless we can show them Jesus. What does He require of us? Well, the first thing the Lord says to Micah right here, again, if you got your notes, follow along with me. The first thing He says is we need to live righteously. We need to live righteously. Now, Micah begins verse 8. Guys, do me a favor, throw verse 8 back up there for me. He begins it with a declarative statement, meaning God's told you this. He has told you, O man, what is good. He's told Israel over and over and over and over and over again. He's told them over and over again what is good. What is good, what is righteous, what is true, is not debatable. It's already been given to us by the Lord, regardless of what our culture says, regardless of what some professor or some politician has to say. It is God's Word that is true. So the first thing that Micah says, listen, what's good has been given to you. Then he asks a rhetorical question, right? So, what does the Lord require of you? What does the Lord require of us as believers? And the rest of verse 8 is him answering that question. And the very first thing that he says is that we as believers, as followers of Jesus, we have to live righteously. We have to live righteously. The word justice right here is actually better translated to righteousness or holiness. It's better translated in that word just, to be a just or righteous or holy person. And I've heard pastors use this verse before to preach about social justice. And if you know what social justice is, I want to make sure I say this clearly. As believers and followers of Christ in a sinful world, we should be people of social justice. Meaning we stand for the poor. We stand for the hurting. We stand for the disenfranchised. We stand for not any particular government or movement that's happening in the Middle East or happening in Ukraine. But we stand for those poor people who are caught in the middle of it. Whose lives are being destroyed because of human politics. We stand for the marginalized. We stand against racism. We stand against one race thinking they're better than another race simply because of their skin tone. We stand for the people who are hurting. We stand for the people in need. That's social justice. And as believers, we are taught by Jesus to be people of social justice. And within kind of the American spectrum of politics and religion, unfortunately, here's what's happened. You're having churches that are picking between the social gospel and what I call the true gospel. Which is extremely unfortunate. Because the true gospel of Jesus tells us that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we are to see our neighbor as greater than who, church? Ourselves. And do we get to qualify who neighbor is? No. The guy asked Jesus, well, hey, who's my neighbor? And Jesus basically answered, everybody. Black, white, young, old, Mexican, American, Middle Eastern, whatever. We exist to serve all of mankind by sharing the glory of Jesus. So, I've heard people, and as believers, we should be people of social justice. I wanted to hit on that. Because again, unfortunately, what we've seen is we're trying to, you either have to pick social justice or conservatism. I reject that. Because to me, biblical Christianity is about loving God first and then all of our neighbors. Politics is secondary. But, that's not what Micah is necessarily talking about here. What Micah's point here is, is that we as believers, one of the most powerful things that we can do for the gospel, one of the most powerful things that we can do for the glory of Jesus, is to not live like the world. To not talk like the world. To not act like the world. To not blend into the world. Church, it is not our job to make our worship service appealable to the world. Now, I want us to be applicable to the world. Do you understand the difference between being appealing to the world and applicable to the world? It's two different things. See, as believers, we are to stand out from the world. We are to be different from the world. The world should look at us and see something different. They should see Jesus in us. See, that's what Micah was dealing with. The culture that Micah was dealing with, guys, and this is so important for us, that he is dealing with the southern kingdom. And here's what was happening in the southern kingdom. They were becoming monetarily prosperous. Their businesses were growing. Their houses were growing. They had the brand new cars and all the new Apple watches and all the new things. They were being, God was blessing them with prosperity, with material things. And as the prosperity was going up, the biblical morality was going down. You see, their faith was becoming more and more grounded in the things and less in the Lord. So their morality and their faith in Jesus was getting lower and lower and lower. And here's the sad part about it. Just north of their border, the northern kingdom was being, at that time, historically invaded by the Assyrians because they had already done the same thing. Because the northern kingdom had said, we like stuff, idols, more than we love the Lord. And God said, repent, repent, be obedient, or I'm going to send somebody to help you repent. They didn't. He sent the Assyrians. And the southern kingdom is falling in the same pattern. And Micah is trying to tell them, listen, the world doesn't need to see your stuff. The world doesn't need to see your big light shows and all those things and your worship services. The world needs to see Jesus. And they desperately need to see Jesus. And they see Jesus in us by living a lifestyle of righteousness. You see, what that culture of Micah was doing, they were abusing God's grace. They're abusing God's grace. And if you've been in the church any amount of time, you know, I cannot stand the phrase, once saved, always saved. I get what it means theologically. I do. But here's what I've seen people do with it practically. They believe once saved, always saved. So that means I can go live my life however I want to. I can go sin upon sin upon sin. Why can I do that? Because once saved, always saved. Folks, that's not the way it works. You know what Romans chapter 6 says? Paul says, how can we who died to sin live any longer in it? Do you not know that those of us that were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death so that we could walk in newness of life? Not so that we could abuse grace and live like the world and be no different than everybody else out there. That if we have experienced the grace and mercy of Jesus, we will live like it. And that's the first thing that Micah tells his culture and his people that were prosperous. They had heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. They had the nicest camels and the best huts and they had all that wonderful stuff. But yet they were losing their love of the Lord. He says the first thing that we have to do as believers, the first thing that God requires of us is to live righteously.