Well, good morning, friends. Let's turn to God's Word. So, would you turn with me to Micah chapter 6?
We are picking up our series in Micah this morning in verse 9.
In verse 9 of Micah chapter 6, and we're going to look through Micah 7, verse 7.
As we come to the Bible this morning, it's good to remember that the chapter and verse numbers
in our kind of English translations were not part of the original text. Those were added later.
So, sometimes the flow of thought in a biblical passage doesn't always line up exactly with our
chapter and verse numbers. And that's the case with our passage today. So, we're going to pick up with
the second half of chapter 6 and then go into the first half of chapter 7. That's page 731 in the
Pew Bible if you want to follow along there. Kevin will have it on the screens as we read through it
the first time, but it'd be good to have it open and just refer to it as we look at the text throughout
our time together. So, Micah 6, 9 through 7, 7. Let me pray as we come to God's Word.
Our Father in heaven, we draw near to you this morning with confidence because, as we have sung,
we have a great high priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, who stands, Father, at your right hand,
interceding for us, making a way for us sinners to draw near to your throne. And Father, as we draw
near in the name of Jesus through his work, we find that your throne is a throne of grace,
a throne of forgiveness, a throne of mercy. So, we come to your throne of grace and we ask for your help
now as we come to your Word. Would your Holy Spirit, who inspired this Word, be working in our hearts
to bring conviction about these things, a deeper sense of these things in our hearts and our lives,
so that we can love you and love one another more fully as you have created us to do. We pray this in
Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Micah 6, 9. The voice of the Lord cries to the city, and it is sound wisdom
to fear your name. Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it. Can I forget any longer the treasures
of wickedness in the house of the wicked and the scant measure that is accursed? Shall I acquit the man
with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights? Your rich men are full of violence.
Your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
Therefore, I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins.
You shall eat but not be satisfied, and there shall be hunger within you. You shall put away but not
preserve, and what you preserve I will give to the sword. You shall sow but not reap. You shall tread
olives but not anoint yourselves with oil. You shall tread grapes but not drink wine. For you have kept
the statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you have walked in their councils.
That I may make you a desolation and your inhabitants a hissing, so you shall bear the scorn of my people.
Woe is me! For I have become, as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been
gleaned, there is no cluster to eat, no first ripe fig that my soul desires. The godly has perished from the
earth, and there is no one upright among mankind. They all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the
other with a net. Their hands are on what is evil to do it well. The prince and the judge ask for a bribe,
and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul. Thus they weave it together. The best of them
is like a briar, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment
has come. Now their confusion is at hand. Put no trust in a neighbor. Have no confidence in a friend.
Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms. For the son treats the father with
contempt. The daughter rises up against her mother. The daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
A man's enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will look to the Lord. I will wait
for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Well, it's often been said that God's word
is often like a mirror. God's word shows us not just what God is like, but like a mirror it holds
up before us what we are really like. Shows us our true state. Now we live in a time when authenticity,
you might say, we live in a time when authenticity, when knowing and kind of living out of what we
perceive to be our true self, we live in a time when that's seen as one of, if not the highest virtue
we could attain, right? And scripture comes to us and says that it can not just help us in that
pursuit, but it can actually bring us to the place of deepest authenticity. It can actually show us who
we really are. Because here in scripture, here is our creator holding up before us this mirror,
showing us who we really are, showing us who we are really meant to be.
And the first part of the answer that the Bible gives about who we really are, as it holds this
mirror up to us, is that we are created in God's own image. That God has created us in his own image.
That we as human beings are not simply the product of time and matter and chance, but that we're
purposefully made and we're actually wonderfully made to reflect God's very self.
So the Bible comes to us and says that there's almost no greater dignity that we could imagine.
And we have it, that we're made in God's image.
But the Bible doesn't stop there. The Bible also explains what went wrong.
Because after all, things aren't the way they're supposed to be. We're not the way we're supposed to be.
You know, we were created in God's image to love him and to love one another, and yet we don't love God
with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we don't love our neighbor as ourself.
And this problem is what the Bible calls sin.
So if we're really going to understand ourselves according to the mirror of God's word,
we have to hold these two things together.
That we're created in God's image with incomparable beauty and worth,
and we're also fallen and sinful. It's as if we're kind of bent in on ourselves.
And we don't love the things that we're supposed to love, at least not rightly.
And we don't desire the things that we're supposed to desire, at least not in the right order,
in the right proportion.
And of course, it's that second part of what the Bible shows us,
the part about sin,
that we don't really like all that much
as humans.
And you know, for the past few hundred years, culturally and intellectually,
that's the part that we've been trying to kind of write out of our human story.
We've been trying to understand ourselves without that critical piece.
But you know, trying to understand ourselves,
trying to understand humanity without a robust understanding of sin,
it just doesn't work.
You know, imagine going to see a counselor
because you're trying to work through some anger issues.
You know, you always find yourself short-tempered or irritable.
You're even losing your cool at times, you know, at work or with your kids.
You just don't know where it's coming from.
So you're like, man, I gotta go see a therapist.
So you go to the counselor,
and the counselor starts to ask you some questions.
And you know, it comes to light that you've kind of suffered
all these terrible losses in your life.
And you've just kind of ignored them.
You haven't really squared up with them and acknowledged those losses
and really grieved them.
And then your counselor one day looks at you and says,
you know, I think I might know a part of where your anger's coming from.
I think you need to grieve these very real losses in your life.
But then what if in response, you just shut the whole conversation down?
You're just like, no, no, no, that's not true.
None of those things are real.
None of those things matter.
And you just sort of charge on, right?
Well, obviously, you're never going to understand yourself or your anger
unless you come to terms with those things, right?
But that's a bit like what we've been trying to do as humans
when we try to understand our humanity
without any reference to our fallen human nature.
You know, we want to understand what makes us tick
and why we do the things we do.
But we keep turning a blind eye to this very real,
very glaring part of our own history
of what makes us who we are,
whether we like it or not.
And so much of what God commissioned the Old Testament prophets to do
was to confront people with this reality of their sin.
The gift of the prophets is that they won't let us keep living in self-delusion.
They won't let us continue to hide behind our veils of inauthenticity.
They call us out into the open.
And that's what our passage here in Micah, chapter 6 and chapter 7, is doing.
Micah's holding this mirror up to God's people.
And through Micah, God's showing his people their sin.
And of course, we can look into this mirror and we can turn away.
We can turn away like the person who refuses to listen to their counselor,
refuses to deal with all the hard and painful stuff in their life.
We can just run away.
But how foolish would that be?
Micah says right at the start of our passage,
the voice of the Lord cries to the city.
And then he says,
it's sound wisdom to fear your name.
It's sound wisdom to be in awe of God
and to listen to what he says.
So we can choose.
We can choose the path of foolishness
or we can choose the path of wisdom.
Why don't we look at what Micah has to say?
Why don't we look at what Micah has to say to us about our sin?
What would be wise for us to listen to and to understand?
Well, our text actually has three parts.
And in the first part,
Micah shows us the gravity of our sin.
The gravity of our sin.
This is verses 9 through 16 of chapter 16.
This is the second half of chapter 16.
Micah drills down into the gravity of our sin.
And again, as we said,
in this section, Micah holds up a mirror to his contemporaries.
And what shows up in that mirror as he holds it up?
Well, in verses 10 through 12,
kind of the first part of this section,
we see that the problem that shows up
is what we might call economic injustice.
Commercial dishonesty.
Specifically, in the marketplace,
the merchants and business owners,
they're using false scales and false weights
to cheat and to deceive
and to get rich at other people's expense.
Imagine coming to the marketplace
after a long week of work
or maybe even a long season of work,
of the harvest season.
You've come with what you've grown
and harvested on your farm
that you and your family have spent
weeks and months gathering
and packing up and bringing into the city.
And you put your produce on the scale
and it reads 500 pounds.
So the merchant pays you 500 pounds worth,
you know, whatever that would be.
But what if the scale was rigged?
You know, what if the scale was rigged
to actually read 20% less than the actual weight?
You know, the scale said 500 pounds,
but it was supposed to read what?
600 pounds.
But you only got paid for 500.
And what if that just kept happening again and again?
And all the merchant class are working together.
So you can't go to another stall
and sell there instead
because they're working the same system.
And then you go and you complain to the authorities,
but you realize they're getting a part of the profits.
So they just ignore your complaints
and say, forget about it.
That's just business as usual.
Just take what you can get and be happy.
But what does God say?
Does he say forget about it?
It's just business as usual?
No.
God says, can I forget?
Can I forget these treasures of wickedness?
Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales?
And the answer is no.
It's impossible for God to forget or to acquit
because of who God is,
because of his holiness
and God's utter truthfulness and integrity.
He cannot forget
and he will not acquit.
The way that they're cheating each other
and stealing and lying from one another,
all of this is a deep offense
to the God who created them
and who created humans in his image, remember.
These humans that are being cheated
and scammed and oppressed,
they bear God's image.
It's an offense to God to treat them that way.
And God says he will not allow it to continue forever.
Now, if you and I were to walk the streets of Jerusalem with Micah,
would we see what God sees?
Would we notice what God notices?
Or would we be just like the upper class?
Would we just shrug our shoulders and say,
that's how business is done.
What can you do?
You see, the funny thing,
the tragic thing for us as humans
is that we have a tendency
to not take sin very seriously.
There are all sorts,
in whatever culture we find ourselves in,
there's all sorts of just respectable sins,
you know,
things that just culturally are like,
that's fine.
That's just the way it's done.
Things that we just don't think are all that bad.
But Micah here wants us to see the gravity of sin.
It's not just skimming a little off the top.
It's not just how business is done.
It's lies and violence
against a person made in God's image.
Now,
maybe you aren't engaged
in corrupt financial practices.
But are you and I
willing to take a look
at how we go about our work
and how we approach our finances
and ask,
God, is there anything here I'm missing?
You know, I read a statistic this week
that something like
10% of the world's population
owns 90% of the world's wealth.
Is there something we're missing?
Am I excusing or minimizing something
that's actually dishonoring to you, God?
Sin is serious.
And we have to treat it that way.
And in verses 13 through 16,
God shows the people
that judgment's coming.
And the key word in verse 13 and verse 16
that kind of bookends
this second half of our section here,
verses 13 and 16,
is the word desolation.
You know, the people keep amassing wealth
through their unjust practices,
but God says the day is coming
when you'll be desolate,
when you'll be empty.
You shall eat and not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger within you.
You shall put away, right?
You'll save things,
but it won't preserve.
And what you try to preserve,
I'm going to give to the sword.
And what you shall sow,
but not reap.
You'll tread olives,
but not anoint yourselves with oil.
You'll tread grapes,
but not drink wine.
It's just images of futility,
of the created order
not working the way it's supposed to work.
Things breaking down.
And for the Old Testament people of God,
what this meant was exile.
All the wealth,
all the fields,
all the pleasure that they had amassed,
God said it will collapse in a day
when Babylon comes
and topples Jerusalem.
That's what verse 16
is getting at at the end.
You might have wondered
who Omri and Ahab are.
Well, Omri and Ahab
were wicked rulers
from a generation earlier
in Israel's northern kingdom.
The people in the north
a generation ago
followed in those king's footsteps,
and God judged them,
and they were sent into exile.
And here Micah is saying
to the people
a generation later
in the southern kingdom,
you're just like them.
You might think you're better,
but you're not.
Your sins are just as serious,
just as grave,
and exile will come for you too.
How about us, friends?
Do we think sin
is that serious?
Serious enough
that God would be right
to strip everything away from us
because of it?
Do we think sin is that grave,
that serious,
that God is right to judge it?
You know, this is perhaps
the greatest sign
that we don't really think
sin is all that serious,
all that grave,
is that we don't actually think
God is within his rights
to judge it.
We think God should just overlook it
and just forget about it.
But if sin really is
an offense against God,
the infinitely holy
and infinitely loving God,
the infinitely worthy God,
and if sin is against
God's image bearers,
then we have to agree
that the penalty for sin
must be massive.
the just penalty
for sinning
against an infinitely
worthy God
is an infinitely
weighty penalty.
So where do we go?
Where do we go to find help?
How do we get out
from under that weight?
Right?
Well, that brings us
to the second part
of our passage.
Chapter 7,
verses 1 through 6.
After showing us
the gravity of sin,
Micah goes on
in this next section
to show us
the extent of sin,
the extent of it.
In verse 1 of chapter 7,
Micah begins
with sort of a short allegory,
with a short kind
of illustration.
He sort of pictures himself
like a harvester
going out into the fields
looking for leftover fruit
along the edges
of the field.
You see,
in ancient Israel,
the harvesters
were commanded
to sort of leave fruit
along the edges
of the field,
to leave some of the crops
and produce
along the edges
of the fields
so that anyone afterwards
could go and kind of harvest
and gather something
for themselves.
But when Micah
goes out into the field,
he finds nothing.
It's all gone.
There's not a single fig
to be found.
And then in verses 2 through 4,
he gives the interpretation
of this short allegory.
And what is the interpretation?
What's the word picture
all about?
Verse 2,
The godly have perished
from the earth,
and there is no one upright
among mankind.
In other words,
Micah is looking for someone,
for anyone,
who might be able to help.
Someone who's truly upright.
Someone who's genuinely righteous.
And he finds no one.
In other words,
what Micah sees
is that sin
isn't just a serious problem.
It's everybody's problem.
Sin reaches into
every human structure,
every human relationship,
every human heart.
Micah goes on to paint
a pretty bleak picture
of what the powerful people
are doing in his day,
the princes and judges,
the ones who are supposed
to be protecting the people
and upholding justice.
Turns out they're doing
just the opposite.
They're not protectors.
Micah says they're hunters.
They're weaving nets
nets of lies
and serving their own interests
at the expense of others.
Micah says the best of them
is like a briar.
They're like a tangle of thorns.
You know,
the princes and the judges,
they were people
you were supposed to be able
to run to
and get help.
But Micah says,
go ahead and run to them.
You'd just be running
into a bunch of thorns.
But this corruption
among the powerful
has gone down
into every level of society,
Micah says.
Look at verses 5 and 6.
What a sad
and heart-wrenching picture.
No one can be trusted.
Not a neighbor,
not a friend,
not even your own spouse
or children.
It's just a picture
of anarchy,
of total breakdown.
So what's Micah's point?
Is he just like
having a particularly bad day?
Did he like
wake up on the wrong side of bed
and he's just like,
I'm done with humanity.
They're all a bunch of,
you know,
no goods.
Was he just exaggerating
for effect,
you know?
Well, I think Micah's point
is that ultimately
the stain of sin
affects everyone.
We can't just point
to those people
or to those people
or to that group of people
or to that particular group
of people
as the really bad ones,
right?
No, the extent of sin
is universal.
We're all infected.
Now, thanks to God's
common grace,
we are all not as bad
as we could be.
But every part of us
is bent by sin.
The corruption of sin
goes the whole way down.
And that means
we ultimately can't look
at the end of the day
to our princes and judges
to rescue us.
And that means
we ultimately can't look
to our friends
and our neighbors
to rescue us.
And that means
we ultimately can't look
to our spouses
or our families
to rescue us.
And that means
we ultimately can't look
to our own selves
to rescue us.
The more we try
to get those relationships
to be our Savior,
the more disappointed
and broken we will be.
So where does that leave us?
Is that the end?
Is that all the Bible
has to say about who we are?
Is that all the mirror
shows us?
That we're created
in God's image
and that we're fallen
into sin?
That we're beautiful
but broken?
Is that the final word?
Well, actually,
there's a third part
to the story.
We humans are created
in God's image
and we humans
have fallen into sin,
to desperate,
serious,
universal,
grave sin.
But third,
God has acted
to redeem us
and to repair
what's been broken.
But this doesn't come
from us,
this healing,
this repair,
this forgiveness.
it comes from God.
In verse 7
of Micah chapter 7,
the last sort of verse
that we're looking at
this morning,
after recounting
the kind of grim reality
of sin for 14 verses,
after abandoning
any hope
of finding rescue
in sinful humanity,
Micah says in verse 7,
but as for me,
I'll look to the Lord.
I'll wait
for the God
of my salvation
and my God
will hear me.
And so,
after showing us
the gravity of sin
and the extent
of sin,
Micah here is pointing us
to the answer
for sin.
To the answer.
And the answer
for sin
doesn't come
from any human source.
How could it, right?
If you and I
both can't swim
and we fall
into the deep end
of the pool,
the last thing
that we should do
is cling to each other
for rescue.
Right?
That's not going to work.
We need a rescue
that comes from
outside of us.
So where do we look?
You know,
and this is the other tragedy
of human existence.
Not only do we just minimize
and downplay
and pretend
and just sort of
act like sin
isn't really there,
the other tragedy
is that
we look everywhere
for rescue
except for the one place
where it can be found.
We'll look anywhere
and everywhere
for an answer
except for the one place
where God says,
here's the answer.
Here it is
because I love you.
And where is it found?
It's found in God himself.
Micah knew enough
about God's character
and God's nature
to know
that his only hope
in the midst
of his just sin-sick world,
his only hope
was to look to God
and to wait
for the God
of his salvation.
He knew enough
about God
to know
that if he waited
on that God,
God would answer.
After all,
wasn't this the God
who heard the cry
of the people
in Egypt
when they were in slavery
and who came
and eventually set them free?
Wasn't this the God
who led them
through 40 years
in the wilderness
and then finally brought them
into the promised land?
Wasn't this the God
who answered their prayers
again and again
when they were oppressed
and subjected to pagan rulers
and foreign gods?
Wasn't this the God
who did all this
even though the people
were sinful
and rebellious
and didn't deserve
any of God's favor?
Hadn't he shown himself
to be gracious
time and time again?
And so Micah looks
to this God
and says,
I'll wait for you.
I'll entrust myself
into your hands, God.
And then he ends
with this just amazing prayer
of simplicity
and faith
and confidence.
He says,
my God will hear me.
But friends,
how much more
can we say the same thing?
How much more ought we
to have the same
kind of turn
and response
as Micah
knowing what we know
from the New Testament?
Micah could look back
to the Exodus,
back to the wilderness,
back to the period
of the judges
and the kings.
But we can look back
to the very heart
of the gospel itself.
And what is the heart
of the gospel?
What is the very good news
at the center
of the Bible?
Well, we've been
walking through
that story
really all morning
if you think about it.
that there's one God
who's holy
and good
and this one God
made all things
and made you and me
in his image
to love him
and to serve him
and to know
infinite delight
in his presence
with one another.
But rather than
turning to God
in obedience
and in love,
we've turned away
from God
in sin
to be our own rulers
and to live without God
in the world
that God has made.
And because God
is holy and good,
that turning away
in rebellion
deserves punishment.
Because God
is so holy and good,
he won't leave
our rebellion
unjudged.
But in love,
God makes a way
to both exercise
his just judgment
and to forgive
his fallen image bearers.
How does God do it?
God becomes
a human being.
And in Jesus Christ,
God lives
a sinless human life.
And then on the cross,
he dies
in the place
of sinners
taking the wrath
that their sins deserve.
And then three days later,
Jesus Christ
was raised from the dead
to demonstrate
that his sacrifice
for sins
was complete
and perfect
and that it paid
for all of the sins
for everyone
who would turn
and trust in him.
Jesus Christ
is raised from the grave
to give forgiveness
of sins
and new spiritual life
to all who believe
in him.
And Jesus
then ascends
to the Father's right hand
and he now
intercedes
for all
who come to him
and he promises
to return one day
to make all things new
and to release creation
from its bondage
to decay
and to establish
the renewed heavens
and earth
free from sin
and death
once and for all.
Friends,
if we really want
to know ourselves,
if you really want
to know yourself,
don't look to yourself.
look to the Lord
Jesus Christ
because in him
we see what's
really true about us
that we're forgiven
sinners
made in God's image
but loved
and the recipients
of God's undeserved grace.
That's who you really are.
And if you look
at Jesus Christ,
you see that he will
one day release us
from all brokenness
and sin.
And if you know yourself
in light of Jesus
as a forgiven sinner
loved by God,
then you know
what you can do?
You can take stock
of even your worst
flaws and failures.
You can really look
at those in the mirror
and not be crushed
by it
because you know
that you're forgiven
and loved.
And so you can look
at those sins
in the mirror
and you can say,
those don't really
define me.
And you can turn
away from them.
And you cannot be
defined by those habits
and patterns
and desires.
And you can do
the hard thing
of asking for help
to break out
of destructive cycles
of sin
and selfishness.
and you can be
open
and you can be
transparent.
And you can let
your life
be found
in the love of God
for you
in Christ.
And you can walk
in holiness
and obedience
before him.
Let's pray together.
Oh, Father in heaven,
that is what we long
for,
to be free
from sin
and to walk
in the freedom
of holiness,
righteousness.
But, Lord,
we know that
in order to get there,
we sometimes have
to take a hard look
in the mirror.
Father,
perhaps your spirit's
been doing that
this morning
in our midst.
Perhaps in our hearts
you've been putting
your finger on sins
that need to be confessed
and turned away from.
Perhaps this morning
your spirit's been
working in the hearts
of those
who don't know you
and who've been
trying to
live under
their own righteousness
and their own steam
and their own identity
O Lord,
would your spirit
come
and shine his light
into those places
of our hearts
and then,
spirit,
would you turn
our eyes to Christ
and help us
to see the forgiveness
of our sins.
O Lord,
grant saving faith
to those
who are far from you
this morning.
And Lord,
by your Holy Spirit
in us,
would we
put sin to death
and walk
in the newness
of life
that you have
given us.
Pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.