I don't know about you, but if you look around you at the world we live in, it's very easy to ask the question, is God not concerned for his own glory?
! Where exactly is God in the world that we live in?
I mean, it's wars and rumors of wars and climate change and political upheaval and all kinds of things.
And as Paul prayed just now, the most horrific atrocities that we see in the world.
And I think it's a quite legitimate question to ask ourselves, is God not concerned for his glory that these things are happening in the world?
Sometimes we joke about it.
One of the other things that make me wonder about that is Arsenal's form over the last couple of years.
But, you know, sometimes humor is all we've got.
But these things we do to each other are bad enough, aren't they?
What's fundamentally even worse than that, I think, is that the world seems to be turning its back on God.
And that was true for Israel in their days and it's true for us today.
We see it in the UK that we live in now, don't we?
Just a couple of things that happened over the last couple of weeks and months that made me wonder,
is God concerned for his glory in our time, in our country?
Last year, the Church of England said regular Sunday attendance fell 3% to 756,000.
Now that might sound a lot, but that's about 1% of the population.
People's lives are too busy, they said.
That's why that number fell.
There's a vicar of a church in Blackpool who spends her Sunday mornings at a prayer tent at a nearby car boot sale to address worshippers there.
I wonder what they're worshipping exactly.
And she also holds her Sunday service at 4.30 in the afternoon, so people can attend after taking their children to sports or doing their shopping.
That's more like the Lord's half day, it sounds.
Norwich Cathedral recently put in a helter-skelter, so people can see the roof more clearly.
And Rochester Cathedral put in a mini-golf course.
The Reverend Cannon there said,
We hope while playing adventure golf, visitors will reflect on the bridges that need to be built in their own lives and in our world today.
Because, of course, that's what happens when you play mini-golf.
The Daily Mail was a bit more tongue-in-cheek about that.
They said, Holy in one, worshippers at a medieval cathedral are being asked to put their faith in God on a crazy golf course in the nave.
And, I mean, we laugh, but it's actually quite sad.
Now, just in case you get the wrong idea, this isn't to bash the Church of England.
Less than 5% of the whole nation goes to church regularly.
And many churches do much worse than that.
I mean, don't get me started on the prosperity gospel and what people get told there.
And what it comes down to for those priests, vicars, ministers, is,
Are people going to come?
Are our numbers up?
How does it look?
Are they looking at our beautiful roof?
People are more concerned about their own glory than about God's glory, it seems.
And Micah warns us about this, and he tells us about a time in Israel's history when it was basically just the same, isn't it?
Now, he's the last of the first six of these minor or shorter prophets at the end of the Old Testament.
And the first half of them is just all about the sin of Israel and the nations.
And it's filed up, and this is the height of it.
And he brings together all those themes, and he says, you know, Israel's sin is like prostitution.
Turning away from God after something else, after other gods.
And they're spiritually lethargic.
They can't be bothered.
And they're weak.
And it's about wealth and amassing wealth.
And they're mistreating refugees and committing social injustice all over the place.
And they're cold towards nations who need to hear about the Lord.
But the priests cry peace when they've got something to eat, and declare war against people who put nothing in their mouths.
That's what they're concerned about.
And we read there, don't we, at the end of chapter 3, about how corrupt these leaders are.
How they actually tell people what they want to hear.
They give them the message they want to hear, and the price is right.
Basically telling them their horoscopes.
Making up the kind of prophecies that it sells.
And they're super, super confident they've got God on their side.
Because look at verse 11.
Yet they lean on the Lord and say, is not the Lord in the midst of us?
No disaster shall come upon us.
But God doesn't let things stand.
I mean, basically they think God needs them more than they need Him.
But God doesn't depend on us, and that's really what they were counting on.
They were counting on the fact that if His temple is with them, if His temple is among them,
if they were going through the motions of serving God,
then He wouldn't desert them because He needs their worship.
And because they've earned His favor that way.
Now, it's, you know, again, easy, you know, we can read that and think, well, that sounds ridiculous.
But, you know, do we sometimes hear people say things like,
I think I've done enough, that God won't be too cross with me?
Or something along those lines?
I think if we're brutally honest, we've probably all thought along those lines to some extent at some point.
And God is telling us here, and Israel is telling us, no, He doesn't need us to be God.
To be utterly perfect and utterly holy and utterly complete in Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Glory be to Him forever and ever.
And that's a sobering thought to realize that, that God doesn't need us.
That He can't be manipulated.
And especially not by people who should be leading God's people spiritually.
These priests and prophets who were telling people what they wanted to hear.
That is such a warning in our time as well.
And God sent other nations to destroy this temple they relied on.
This temple, it was their security blanket, wasn't it?
The end of chapter 3 there, verse 12.
Because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooden height.
God sent other nations to come and destroy the temple in Jerusalem.
Now, if you're an Israelite, and you hear that this is going to happen,
that is like the gut punch that makes you want to curl up in a fetal position under the table and cry for your mommy.
Because the temple is what made them.
It's what made them different to all the other nations.
Where God was meant to be with them.
But they've gone from being more in awe of God's glory, to being more concerned with their own glory.
And this is the turning point that we come to in this chapter here, at the end of chapter 3 and chapter 4.
That is God's judgment on them.
And for an Israelite, that is the worst thing that could possibly happen.
The worst message you could probably hear.
And then, here at the beginning of chapter 4,
we see that you don't have to be in a car crash to get whiplash.
Because if you read Micah, and you read through chapters 1 and 2 and 3,
and you go into these depths, and you get to this height of God's judgment on them,
your temple will be destroyed, and the symbol of me living with you won't be there anymore.
Then chapter 4 starts, doesn't it?
It shall come to pass in the latter days,
that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established,
as the highest of the mountains.
And it shall be lifted up above the hills, and people shall float to it.
And you hear that, and you think, well, wait, wait just a minute.
Didn't we just, like, literally in the previous verse,
hear how the mountain Zion shall be like a field,
and Jerusalem ruins, and the mountain of the house,
nothing more than a wooded hike?
And now suddenly, it shall be established as the highest of the mountains.
And lift it up above the hills, and people shall float to it.
Now that is just phenomenal.
That reversal in those, from verse 12 to verse 1 there,
it is an incredible, complete about turn, isn't it?
It's really quite breathtaking.
It is an earthly Jerusalem that meant everything to Israel will be destroyed,
and yet somehow, a new Jerusalem,
the mountain of the house of the Lord, will be established.
What's going on?
Well, today I want us to see one thing, really.
It's a bank holiday, and it's hot.
It's one thing, about God's desire for his own glory,
and it's this.
What God was showing Israel through this vision that Micah has right here.
And it is this.
God's desire for his own glory is greater than the problem of our sin.
And it means he's more gracious than our sin deserves.
God's desire for his glory is greater than the problem of our sin.
And it means he's more gracious than our sin deserves.
No three points, no alliteration.
Just this one thing.
And God's glory is greater than we think,
because God is greater than we can imagine.
I think it's the one thing we see here, isn't it?
See, when the temple was destroyed,
it seemed like God's glory had been lost.
Israel's not a people anymore.
They're going into exile.
The temple's no more.
The temple that was the symbol of God being with them,
of them being special, God's chosen people.
But here's what God tells to these people who are about to go into exile.
It's not a logistical message of,
this is how it's going to work,
and this is how long it's going to be,
and you're going to return,
and this is how it's going to be,
a functional message of,
I will restore you to this land of something.
God gives this incredible vision of this total about turn of what he's done,
and even more, isn't it?
He tells them,
my glory is heavenly.
My glory is not earthly.
You have it all wrong.
My glory is not limited to this temple that's here with you,
to these things that you do,
the worship that you give me here at this temple.
My glory is so much greater than that.
And they're symbols of much, much greater things.
And I think,
with it unplanned,
I think it ties in with something that Paul said this morning as well.
We can think things through so much to the nth degree
that we lose the feeling of what it is meant to give us
when we read a vision like this in the Bible.
So I'm not going to go through each of the little images and dig into them,
but I want us to feel this weight of this glory that God gives them in this vision.
And he tells the people who are about to go into exile,
the people who look at the world around them and say,
where is God and what is happening?
He tells them,
look at what I am doing for my glory.
Not what you can see in front of your own eyes now.
And he does what is impossible.
I don't know if you've noticed,
but Micah describes something that actually sounds like it's impossible, isn't it?
Things flow downhill, generally speaking.
And since we've worked out gravity,
we understand why that is.
Things flow downhill,
not up a mountain.
So when they tried to determine the origin of the River Nile,
and with David Livingston,
and John Hannity Spake,
and Richard Burton,
and those guys,
the whole point was,
they tried to work out
the highest point at which water flows into that system
must be where the system starts.
That's how they thought about it.
Because they know things flow downhill,
not uphill.
You know,
it's a fascinating story,
that if you've never kind of looked into it,
about all the adventure and misadventure,
and human drama,
and all the jealousy,
and survival,
and tribes that want to kill them,
and malaria,
and all kinds of things.
But they had this right.
Things flow downhill,
not uphill.
Water doesn't flow uphill.
And just like water doesn't flow uphill,
people don't naturally
come to God.
It's impossible
for us to just do that on our own.
People don't naturally come to God saying,
yeah,
let's learn from His Word.
Let's learn from God
how He wants us to live.
How He wants us to direct our lives.
In fact,
from the Garden of Eden,
isn't it,
we've done the exact opposite.
But God's glory is greater than our sin,
because He does the impossible.
people who rejected Him.
Peter says in Acts 2,
he says,
this man was handed over to you
by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge,
and you,
with the help of wicked men,
put Him to death
by nailing Him to the cross.
And just for the avoidance of doubt,
that's you and me too included in there
before we were saved.
And our sin wasn't to break down
a physical building
where God had dwelled with His people.
We killed God dwelling with His people.
And despite that,
because God's concern for His glory
is greater than our sin,
He turns our hearts back to Him.
We forget when we read about the nations
in the Bible,
we are those nations.
Flowing uphill to this heaven is I.
And that started at Pentecost,
when this vision of Micah started to come true,
isn't it?
And we don't see all the wars ended yet,
and we don't see a world
where everyone has enough from their own labour,
and enough to eat,
and enough to,
a place to sleep,
and all these things that Micah describes here.
And we don't see those swords and spears
having become flowershares,
and pruning hooks,
and the peace that He looks forward to.
But the real peace we need,
peace with God,
is available now when we come to Him,
when we come to this heavenly Zion
that Micah describes.
When we have that,
the rest starts to follow.
But here's the question,
how is God doing this?
How is God making the nations
flow to Him,
to this heavenly Zion that He describes,
to come and ask to be instructed by the Lord?
And we have this strange reason given,
at the end of verse 2,
don't we?
For out of Zion shall go forth the Lord,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Because God's word is going out
to these nations.
God's law,
God's instruction,
God's word.
And when God's word goes out to the world,
the miraculous happens.
We shouldn't lose confidence
in God's word going out into the world
and doing the impossible.
Nations coming to God
in the most spectacular way.
And the effect is astounding.
The gospel has gone out to places
that were unimaginable
when Micah gave these prophecies.
Places they didn't even know existed.
And it continues to go out to them.
And the nations continue to come
to God
after his heavenly Zion.
You might know,
you might have heard
the kind of statistic
that more Muslims
have converted to Christianity
in the last, say,
20 years
than in
4,200 years before that.
since the start of Islam.
Astounding.
China may already be
the most Christian nation
in the world
in terms of
the number of believers.
We don't think about it that way.
Whole communities
in places like the Middle East
are coming to God.
And turning to God
and repenting of their sins
and putting their trust in Jesus
because the word of the God
is going out
in incredible ways
to these corners of the world
that Micah didn't even know about.
And it's incredible.
But,
I want to tell you a story
about the nations
coming to God
where
it looks
like exactly the opposite.
some of you might know
that I spent some time
this summer
in China
and North Korea.
Pyongyang
was called
the Jerusalem of the East
kind of early
20th century.
There was revival.
Welsh missionaries
had gone there
and others.
And,
there were so many churches there
that it was called
the Jerusalem of the East.
And now the government
has been stamping out
any trace of Christianity
there for 70 years.
It is,
it is really incredible
to see how totally
they've
imposed this ideology
on a country
in just 70 years.
You'd think that kind of thing
would take 300 years
but
70 years.
Indoctrinating people
and forcing people
to report on each other
and inform on each other.
You don't know
who you can trust.
You can't trust your neighbor.
Limiting people's access
to anything outside
of North Korea.
I kid you not,
when you go in,
your bags are searched,
every piece of printed
material you have
is catalogued
and it's got to go out again.
Every electronic device
is searched
and catalogued
and it's got to go out again.
You can take the Bible
in English
but it's got to go out again.
They go to
the most extreme lengths
you can imagine
to stop anybody
from finding out
about Christianity.
But here's the thing.
Despite that
total control
that they're
exerting over
people's thinking
from the moment
they can put
two words together
and despite the fact
that people can go
to prison camps
if they're caught out
if they're fortunate
there are Christians
in North Korea
and people are coming
to faith
as we speak.
Christians who go there
have to find other reasons
to go in.
You can't go in
as a missionary.
I'm not going to get
a missionary visa
to go to North Korea.
So,
some places in the country
allow foreign investment
like in the north
there's a zone
where people can invest.
So,
that's what missionaries do.
You find yourself
running
a factory.
you know,
you go to seminary
and you end up
running a shoe factory
or something like that.
But that's how you
get in long term
and have sustained
contact
with North Korean people.
And if they get to
know you well enough
and you can build up
and have trust with them
that they know
you're not going
to report them
and they're not going
to report you
if you have a gospel
conversation,
those conversations
happen.
And people are
coming to faith.
Even though it looks
like this is a country,
this is the country
where God's glory
is nowhere to be seen.
And someone I spoke to
who works there
finally managed to
speak to one of their
employees alone
after many years
outside
because the buildings
are bugged
and the government
listens in to everything.
And it's an employee
who was terminally ill
and she told him
well it's important now,
you have to make
a decision.
Jesus is the only way
to get to heaven.
You have to make a choice
and there is no other way.
And he looked at her
and he smiled
and he said,
don't worry,
Jane or whatever
her name is,
I'm already on that train.
Now that sounds odd
but it turns out
there's an old
Korean hymn about
being on the train
to heaven.
And where did he
hear the gospel?
I don't know.
Some people
have reports
from Muslim countries
about people
seeing visions
of Jesus,
the word
coming to them.
They could be
having dreams
or visions.
but I think
in many cases
more likely
it is that people
are literally
risking their lives
to tell their children
about God.
To tell their children
about Jesus.
Anybody who knows
children,
you don't have to have
your own,
even though children
can say
unfortunate things
at unfortunate times.
It is a risk
to tell your child
about Jesus there.
And it's just
incredible to me
that here
people don't want
to take their
children to church
because they don't
want to risk
them being upset
and they want them
to discover it
for themselves.
Psalm 48
that we read
at the beginning
talks about how
we tell our
children about
the faith.
And these people
are risking their
lives to do that.
And I dare say
there might be
more glory given
to God
on that last day
for people
from places
like North Korea
who have come
to that heavenly
Zion with us
than we can think.
Here's the point.
God is never
going to allow
His glory
to be limited
or diminished
or destroyed
by our human sin
or even just
our inability
to see past
our limited
circumstances.
Not Israel's sin.
Not the North
Korean regime's sin.
Not your sin
or my sin.
The Westminster
Shorter
Catechism starts
with
what's the chief
end of man?
And the answer
is
glorify God
and enjoy Him
forever.
Isn't it?
The world we live
in don't think so.
You ask someone
on the street
what's our main
reason for
existing.
You might get
some strange
looks first.
And if you get
an answer it
might be
something like
make money
enjoy yourself
or even
be a good
person.
But it's not
going to be
to glorify God
and enjoy Him
forever.
But God's
concern for His
glory means
He's so gracious
that He involves
you and me
and calls us
His people
so we can
bring glory
to Him.
It's certainly
incredible.
It really is.
But God is
asking you and me
tonight,
do you believe
that?
How often
have you and
I this week
thought to
give glory
to God?
From the
most mundane
things in
our life
everything we
have is from
Him
to praying
that He's
glorified by
doing the
impossible
that He's
glorified by
the nations
coming to
faith and
streaming to
Him like
we have.
Tonight
after the
service when
we pray for
Holiday Bible
Club we can
pray that
God's
glorified by
bringing
people to
us next
week who
otherwise might
never have
come to Him.
Do we
realize that
we need
nothing more
than for
God to be
glorified?
I think we
can be so
easily
complacent.
We can be
so focused
on the
state of
affairs in
the here and
now that we
settle for
less than we
could.
God, it's
good and
right to
be praying
for the
world we
live in and
for big
things like
peace and
the people
we love and
for our
daily needs
and everything
that is
happening in
our week to
come.
But we
can become so
used, I
think, to
God having
done this
incredible
miracle in
our own
lives and
what He's
doing all
over the
world right
now, even
in places
like North
Korea, but
we think it's
all about us
and not all
about Him.
And in
some ways
it's a bit
like C.S.
Lewis who
said about
us being
satisfied with
building mud
pies because
we can't
imagine what
a holiday
by the sea
looks like.
And I
think we
should all
be more
permanently
like deer
caught in
the headlights,
astonished at
God's glory
and what He's
doing in the
world to
glorify Himself.
God's answer
to Israel
at this
absolute
low point
in their
history, when
the temple
is about to
be destroyed
and they're
about to
go into
exile is
when I
am glorified
by doing
more than
you're asking
for and
more than
you can
imagine and
more than
you can
conceive of,
then you
will be
strong and
restored.
Just look
up and see
what I'm
doing.
God's glory
is greater
than the
predicament of
our sin
and it
means He's
more gracious
than our
sin
deserves.
For Israel
it was
hard to
take this
message on
board in
some ways.
They had
the exile to
look forward
to and hope
was a distant
promise.
But here's
what we
have.
We've seen
that glory
of God
lifted up.
We've seen
that glory of
God lifted up
on the cross,
haven't we?
And Hebrews
12 tells us
how this vision
that Micah
has was
fulfilled even
more in
these latter
days in
our time.
Hebrews 12
22 says
But you've
come to
Mount Zion
and to the
city of
the living
God, the
heavenly
Jerusalem, and
to innumerable
angels in
festal gathering,
and to the
assembly of
the firstborn
who are
enrolled in
heaven, and
to God, the
judge of all, and
to the spirits
of the righteous,
made perfect.
You have
come to
Mount Zion.
That's where
we are when
we come to
God in
worship.
And it
gets even
better than
that.
We won't
say that
way, that
the Mount
Zion is a
heavenly place
while we're
on earth, the
heavenly
Jerusalem.
See, just
like heaven
came to
earth when
Jesus was
born, this
heavenly
Jerusalem will
come to
earth again.
Revelation 21
tells us there
will be a new
heaven and a
new earth and
the holy
city, the
new Jerusalem,
and it
will come
down out of
heaven from
God, and
God's dwelling
place will be
with his
people, and
he'll be with
us himself, and
we, all
these nations,
will be his
people.
I think
Micah 4 calls
us to pray
for what Paul
prays for the
Ephesians in
his letter.
I'll end
with that in
Ephesians 1.
See, I pray
that the eyes
of your heart
may be
enlightened in
order that you
may know the
hope to which
he has called
you.
Christ from
the dead, and
seated him at
his right hand
in the heavenly
realms, far
above all rule
and authority,
power and
dominion, and
every name that
is invoked, not
only in the
present age, but
also in the
one to come.
Amen.
Thank you.