Sunday
Morning Bible Study
May
18, 2014
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid
to die? Does it speak to the broken
hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision
Is the church loved? Regular: 2900
words Communion: 2500 words
No more YouVersion – instead download the notes
from the website…
Micah’s ministry was roughly from the years 750-700 BC.
Micah lived in the southern kingdom
of Judah and had messages for both the northern and southern kingdoms.
Micah gives three messages, and
they all start with the words “Hear now”.
Chapters 1-2 were the first message, chapters 3-5 are the second
message, and chapters 6-7 are the third message.
Micah gives three messages, and they all start with the words “Hear now”.
Chapter 6 begins the third and final message.
This third message begins in the courtroom in the case of …
The language is like what a
prosecutor would use in his case against the defendant.
But this is a case even more
important than Brown v. Board of Education.
This is a case we could call…
6:1-8 God v. Israel
:1 Hear now what the Lord says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, And
let the hills hear your voice.
:1 plead your case – riyb – to strive,
contend; to conduct a case or suit (legal), sue; to make complaint
The courtroom is set. God has a
lawsuit against Israel. The mountains
and hills are the jury, called upon to listen to the case.
:2 Hear, O you mountains, the Lord’s complaint, And you strong
foundations of the earth; For the Lord
has a complaint against His people, And He will contend with Israel.
:2 complaint – riyb – strife, controversy, dispute;
dispute, controversy, case at law
:2 contend – yakach – to prove, decide, judge, rebuke,
reprove, correct, be right
:3 “O My people, what have I done to you? And how
have I wearied you? Testify against Me.
:3 Testify – ‘anah
– to answer, respond to; to testify, respond as a witness
:3 how have I wearied you?
wearied – la’ah
– be grieved, be offended; exhaust
This seems to be Israel’s complaint
against God.
They claim that God has “wearied”
them.
They’re “tired” of following God.
:4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, I
redeemed you from the house of bondage; And I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and
Miriam.
God used Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to lead Israel out of their slavery in
Egypt.
:5 O My people, remember now What Balak king of
Moab counseled, And what Balaam the son of Beor
answered him, From Acacia Grove to Gilgal, That you
may know the righteousness of the Lord.”
:5 remember now
God asks the people to remember some things that happened after they came
out of Egypt (Num. 22-25).
Balak was the Moabite king who hired the prophet Balaam
to curse the Israelites as they were camped on his doorstep at Acacia Grove.
Instead of cursing the Israelites, Balaam came up with a plan that drew the
Israelites into immorality and idolatry.
The point to all this?
While God delivered Israel from Egypt, Israel returned the favor by turning
from God.
Balak was the king of Moab.
He had an illegal immigration
problem with a couple million Israelites having crossed into his borders.
Balak decided the best thing he
could do was to hire a prophet to bring a curse on the Israelites.
Balaam was the prophet that Balak
hired to curse Israel.
Yet when Balaam tried to pronounce
a curse, he couldn’t because Israel was living in purity, dedicated to God.
(Num. 23:8-9)
(Numbers 23:8–9 NKJV) —8 “How
shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how
shall I denounce whom the Lord
has not denounced? 9 For from
the top of the rocks I see him, And from
the hills I behold him; There! A
people dwelling alone, Not
reckoning itself among the nations.
Balaam couldn’t
curse Israel because Israel was living in purity, not living like the other
nations.
Balaam would eventually hatch a
plan to bring trouble to Israel by having the young Moabite women entice the
Israelite men into sexual immorality and worshipping their idols. (Num. 31:16)
(Numbers 31:16 NKJV) —16 Look,
these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of
Balaam, to trespass against the Lord
in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
Acacia Grove was where the
Israelites were camping in the land of Moab when they committed immorality and
idolatry with the women of Moab at the counsel of Balaam.
(Numbers 25:1 NKJV) Now
Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with
the women of Moab.
It wasn’t until they had purged the
sin from Israel that they would come across the Jordan into the Promised Land.
It was from Acacia Grove that the
spies were sent to Jericho before the campaign of conquest began.
(Joshua 2:1 NKJV) Now
Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly,
saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab,
and lodged there.
Gilgal was where they first stopped
after crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land.
(Joshua 4:19 NKJV) Now the
people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and
they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho.
Disobedience to God’s ways only
gets you into trouble.
:6 With what shall I come before the Lord, And bow myself before the
High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With
calves a year old?
:7 Will the Lord
be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my
firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my
body for the sin of my soul?
:7 rivers of oil
Don’t think of “crude” oil, but
olive oil.
The oil of ancient days was
processed from crushed olives.
This is what burned in the oil
lamps.
:6 With what shall I come
These are all descriptions of sacrifice.
Lesson
Better than sacrifice
God was the one who invented the concept of sacrifice
God’s ultimate plan of salvation was to have Jesus die on a cross, paying
for our sins by being a sacrifice.
You see it as early as Adam and Eve
being covered with animal skins provided by God, requiring an animal to die for
them to be covered.
You see it explained more fully in
the Levitical Law
You see it ultimately being
fulfilled with Jesus dying on a cross, paying for our sins by dying in our
place.
If you are a person without Jesus in your life, then you are a person who
has not found God’s forgiveness because your sins haven’t been paid for.
God wants to forgive you, but forgiveness is only found by
accepting Jesus’ death on the cross for you.
But God doesn’t want us abusing the idea of sacrifice by thinking that if
we go ahead and sin, we’ll just make it up later by asking for forgiveness and putting
a quarter in the offering bag.
God wants us to get out of the business of continual, unrepentant sin.
Illustration
I’ve known people through the years who are functional
alcoholics. They have somehow learned
how to drink and stay just functional enough to keep their job.
What is better for that person? To be a functional drunk, or
to stop drinking?
God doesn’t want to just forgive my
sin, He wants me to stop my sin.
Saul had been asked by God to bring His judgment on the wicked
Amalekites. When Saul didn’t
do all that God had asked him, Saul told the prophet Samuel that he had been
planning on offering God a huge sacrifice.
Samuel responded,
(1
Samuel 15:22 NKJV) So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as
great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in
obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to
obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.
Obedience is better than sacrifice.
David knew this concept.
David had committed adultery with
Bathsheba and had her husband killed. He
tried to hide his sin, but was finally confronted over his sin and he repented.
David wrote,
(Psalm 51:16–17 NKJV) —16 For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You
do not delight in burnt offering. 17 The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.
God would prefer a
heart broken over sin than just dropping money in the offering bag.
David wrote,
(Psalm
40:6–8 NKJV) —6 Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears
You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did
not require. 7
Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is
written of me.
8 I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your
law is within my heart.”
To “open the ear” was to pierce the ear and put a ring in
it.
In ancient days an earring meant that you were a willing obedient
servant of another.
David is saying that God prefers that we “delight to do His
will” instead of always making sacrifices.
Jesus was serious enough about your sin to die for you.
He wants you to be serious enough to change.
:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of
you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?
We will come back to this verse at the end…
6:9-16 Sin and Consequences
:9 The Lord’s
voice cries to the city— Wisdom shall see Your name: “Hear the rod! Who has
appointed it?
:9 Hear the rod!
The rod was the shepherd’s tool to
bring discipline to his flock, like giving a bad sheep a quick smack in the
butt.
God wants Israel to pay attention
to His discipline.
:10 Are there yet the treasures of wickedness In
the house of the wicked, And the short measure that is an abomination?
:10 the short measure
The “measure” was the standard for measuring out things bought in the
marketplace.
The “short” measure meant that the merchant wasn’t giving you your money’s
worth.
For example, you might buy “two
measures” of wheat for a shekel.
If a merchant had a smaller
“measure” than normal, then he is cheating his customers by giving them less
for their shekel than the merchant in the booth next to him.
This was how some merchants got
wealthy, by cheating others.
(Micah 6:10 NLT) What shall I say
about the homes of the wicked filled with treasures gained by cheating? What
about the disgusting practice of measuring out grain with dishonest measures?
:11 Shall I count pure those with the
wicked scales, And with the bag of deceitful weights?
:11 Shall I count pure
pure – zakah
– to be clean, be pure, to be clear, be justified
How can God call a merchant who makes a sacrifice “pure” when he is still
cheating his customers?
:12 For her rich men are full of violence, Her
inhabitants have spoken lies, And their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
:12 her rich men are full of violence
This is the same concept that Asaph had trouble with in Psalm 73
(Psalm 73:2–3 NKJV) —2 But as
for me, my feet had almost stumbled; My steps had nearly
slipped. 3 For I was
envious of the boastful, When I saw the
prosperity of the wicked.
Asaph struggled with the concept of wicked people
living such lives of luxury until…
(Psalm 73:16–17 NKJV) —16 When I
thought how to understand this, It was
too painful for me— 17 Until I went into the
sanctuary of God; Then I understood their end.
It was coming into God’s house,
into God’s presence, looking at things from God’s perspective,
that caused Asaph to see what was coming for
the wicked.
They may have luxury now, but there
will be a day of reckoning.
:13 “Therefore I will also make you sick by
striking you, By making you desolate because of your sins.
:14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied; Hunger shall
be in your midst. You may carry some away, but shall not save them;
And what you do rescue I will give over to the sword.
:15 “You shall sow, but not reap; You shall tread
the olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; And make sweet wine, but
not drink wine.
:13 I will also make you sick by
striking you
God promises that one day there will be judgment.
They will not find satisfaction in living a life of sin.
We don’t know when that judgment
will take place.
It could take place in a person’s
life.
Madoff
It could take place after a person
dies.
(Hebrews 9:27 NKJV) And as
it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
But judgment will come.
:16 For the statutes of Omri
are kept; All the works of Ahab’s house are done; And you walk in their
counsels, That I may make you a desolation, And your inhabitants a hissing.
Therefore you shall bear the reproach of My people.”
:16 Omri …
Ahab
Omri was the dad, Ahab was the son.
Together they were considered the most evil kings of Israel because of the
idolatry they brought into Israel.
The wickedness came when Omri had
his son Ahab marry a Phoenician gal named Jezebel.
Jezebel was a worshipper of Baal
and Asherah.
Ahab and Jezebel not only brought
the worship of these foreign gods into the northern kingdom, but when they had
their daughter Athaliah marry the son of Jehoshaphat, king of the southern
kingdom of Judah, their idolatry came into Judah as well.
The people were still following after this wickedness, so there would be
judgment.
back to…
:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of
you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?
So what does God want of me? Micah
gives us three things.
:8 do justly
justly – mishpat
– judgment, justice, ordinance
The word is used to describe the
prophet Samuel’s sons who did not follow the Lord –
(1 Samuel 8:3 NKJV) But his
sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside after dishonest gain, took
bribes, and perverted justice.
It’s doing the right thing.
It’s the opposite of these merchants who ripped people off.
It’s the opposite of rulers who
abused their people.
(Micah 3:9 NKJV) Now hear this, You
heads of the house of Jacob And
rulers of the house of Israel, Who
abhor justice And pervert all
equity,
Lesson
Do the right thing
Micah has been pointing out the things that Israel had been doing poorly.
They had been cheating others.
They had been following other gods.
Now it’s time to turn around.
We’ve pointed out that King Hezekiah of the southern kingdom took Micah’s
warnings seriously.
He brought change to the nation of Judah.
He started with changes at the Temple and literally “cleaned house”.
You can read about Hezekiah’s extensive reforms to the nation in
2Chronicles 29-31.
This is not just an “Old Testament principle”.
This is a whole Bible principle.
Paul wrote Titus
that there are people who claim to be believers who need to be rebuked for
their ungodly lives:
(Titus 1:16 NKJV) They
profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient,
and disqualified for every good work.
Paul wrote Titus about the importance of good works in the
life of a believer:
(Titus
3:8 NKJV) This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm
constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain
good works. These things are good and profitable to men.
This is not about earning your salvation.
We aren’t saved by our good works.
But if we are saved, then it’s time to get serious about cleaning house.
:8 love mercy
Lesson
Love being gracious
mercy – checed
– goodness, kindness, faithfulness
Hosea used the same word “mercy”:
(Hosea 6:6a NKJV)
For I desire mercy and not sacrifice…
Jesus used the prophet Hosea’s words and painted a picture of how “mercy” applies
to our lives.
Twice.
(Matthew 9:10–13
NKJV) —10 Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that
behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His
disciples. 11 And when
the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher
eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well
have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and
learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to
repentance.”
The Pharisees are the people in the New Testament who
tried very hard to obey the Law of Moses.
The Pharisees would say to Micah, “We do justly”. They worked very hard at doing the right
thing.
When the Pharisees saw Jesus hanging out with “sinners”,
people who DO NOT DO JUSTLY, they were upset with Jesus.
Jesus tells the Pharisees that they need to learn what it
means to “desire mercy”.
Jesus is not demonstrating co-dependence with the sinners.
Jesus wasn’t hanging out with sinners just to be kind and
accepting of them.
He was showing them love so He could call them to repent,
to change.
(Matthew 12:1–8 NKJV) —1 At that time Jesus
went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His
disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2
And when the Pharisees saw it,
they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on
the Sabbath!”
The Pharisees
accused the disciples of breaking the Law, but what they were breaking was the
traditions handed down by the strict religious sects, not the actual Law of
Moses.
3 But He said to them, “Have you not read
what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4
how he entered the house of God and ate
the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with
him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have
you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane
the Sabbath, and are blameless? 6 Yet I
say to you that in this place there is One
greater than the temple.
Jesus gives two
examples where individuals didn’t follow the strictest interpretations of the
Law, and yet were not condemned for their actions.
Sometimes the
strictest interpretations of the Law aren’t the most accurate.
7 But if you had known what this
means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned
the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man
is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Jesus wasn’t
encouraging the Pharisees to be gracious to “sinners” (like Matt. 9), but here
it was other believers, people who were trying to follow God but did things
differently than they did.
Prodigal son
Sometimes we’re like the older
brother in the story of the Prodigal Son.
We work hard for our Father while
other people screw up their lives.
When they turn around and find
forgiveness, we get resentful.
We ought to be gracious.
God wants us to love being gracious
to others.
Illustration
“THE AGNES STORY” BY TONY CAMPOLO
Jetlag can be brutal, and Tony Campolo had just
arrived in Hawaii; he was hungry and he couldn’t sleep. It was 3:00 a.m.,
though, and the only place open was a grungy dive in an alley in downtown
Waikiki. As Tony sat there at the counter munching on his donut and sipping his
coffee, in walked eight or nine prostitutes just finished with their night’s
work. They all sat down at the counter and Tony found himself uncomfortably
surrounded by a whole group of smoking, swearing hookers, recounting their
night on the street. He was finishing up his coffee, planning to make a quick
getaway, when he heard the woman next to him say to her friend, “You know what?
Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m gonna be 39.” Her friend
replied nastily: “So what do you want from me? A birthday party?
Huh? You want me to get a cake, and sing happy birthday to you?” The first
woman said, “Aw, come on, why do you have to be so
mean? Why do you have to put me down? I’m just saying it’s my birthday. I don’t
want anything from you. I mean, why should I have a birthday party? I’ve never
had a birthday party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?”
Tony suddenly had an idea. Instead of running off, he sat and waited until
the women left, and then he asked the guy at the counter, “Do they come in here
every night?” ”Yeah,” he answered. ”The one right next to me,” he asked, “she
comes in every night?” ”Yeah,” he said, “that’s Agnes. Yeah, she’s here every
night. She’s been coming here for years. Why do you want to know?” ”Because she
just said that tomorrow is her birthday. What do you think? Do you think we
could maybe throw a little birthday party for her right here in the diner?” A
smile crept over the man’s face. “That’s great,” he says, “yeah, that’s great.
I like it.”
So they made their plans. Tony said he’d be back at 2:30 the next morning
with some decorations and the man, whose name was Harry, said he’d make a cake.
At 2:30 the next morning, Tony returned with crepe paper and other decorations
and a sign made of big pieces of cardboard that said, “Happy Birthday, Agnes!”
Together, they decorated the diner from one end to the other and it looked
great. Harry had gotten the word out on the streets about the party and by 3:15
it seemed that every prostitute in Honolulu was in the place. At 3:30 on the
dot, the door swung open and in walked Agnes and her friend. Everybody yelled
together: “Happy Birthday, Agnes!” Agnes was absolutely flabbergasted. Her
mouth fell open, her knees started to buckle, she almost fell over. And then
the birthday cake with all the candles was carried out, and that’s when she
totally lost it and began weeping. Harry, who was not used to
seeing a prostitute cry, gruffly mumbled, “Blow out the candles, Agnes.
Cut the cake.” So Agnes pulled herself together and blew them out. Everyone
cheered and yelled, “Cut the cake, Agnes, cut the cake!”
But Agnes looked at the cake and, without taking her eyes off it, slowly
said, “Look, Harry, is it all right with you if...I mean, if I don’t...I mean,
what I want to ask, is it OK if I keep the cake a little while? Is it all right
if we don’t eat it right away?” Harry didn’t know what to say so he shrugged
and said, “Sure, if that’s what you want to do. Keep the cake. Take it home if
you want.” Agnes got off her stool, picked up the cake, and carried it high in
front of her like it was the Holy Grail. Everybody watched in stunned silence
and when the door closed behind her, nobody seemed to know what to do. They
look at each other. They look at Tony.
So Tony got up on a chair and said, “What do you say that we pray?” And
there they were in a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon, half the prostitutes in
Honolulu, at 3:30 a.m. listening to Tony Campolo as
he prayed for Agnes. When he finished, Harry leaned over, and with a trace of
hostility in his voice, he said, “Hey, you never told me you were a preacher.
What kind of church do you belong to anyway?” It was one of those moments when
just the right words came. Tony replied, “I belong to a church that throws
birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.” Harry thought for a
moment, and in a mocking way said, “No you don’t. There’s no church like that.
If there was, I’d join it. Yep, I’d join a church like that.” Tony then said,
“There is a church like that, Harry - started by a man who did just that. Let
me tell you about Jesus…”
Love being gracious my friends.
:8 walk humbly
humbly – tsana–
to be humble, be modest, be lowly
The only other place this word is
found is in:
(Proverbs 11:2 NKJV) When
pride comes, then comes shame; But with
the humble is wisdom.
Lesson
Cultivate humility
Humility isn’t something we achieve and check off on our “to do” list.
It’s something we need to cultivate for our entire lives.
A trap we can fall into when we start “doing justly” and “loving mercy” is
that we can become proud over our awesome spiritual accomplishments.
Sometimes I am so proud of myself that I start to compare myself to others,
but only others that are not as “awesome” as I am. My pride swells even more and I think I feel pretty
good about myself.
When the game of life is all about who is bigger and
better, you’re going to lose.
There is always going to be someone bigger and someone
better.
You can feel like you’re having a measuring contest to see
who’s taller, and you keep getting up on taller and taller stilts.
The taller the stilts, the farther you’ll fall.
The word “humility” often is related to the word “lowly”. What does that look like?
Let me put a picture in your head…
Jesus related the concept of humility with children.
(Matthew
18:2–4 NKJV) —2 Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of
them, 3 and said,
“Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little
children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore
whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven.
Video: Cute Husky Dogs Crawling
The huskies weren’t on stilts,
they were crawling like the baby.
Here’s another picture…
At the very pinnacle of His ministry, look at how Jesus conducted Himself.
(John
13:1–5 NKJV) —1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour
had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His
own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 2 And supper
being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot,
Simon’s son, to betray Him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands,
and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from
supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that,
He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe
them with the towel with which He was girded.
Washing feet was something reserved for servants, children,
or the low man on the totem pole.
Jesus didn’t sit at the table bragging about all the
things He’d accomplished that week.
He also didn’t sit around and mope about what was coming
up ahead.
He simply humbled Himself and served others.
We cultivate humility by taking the time to serve other
people.
As a believer in Jesus, don’t be focusing your life on sacrifice, be thinking
about what God want you to do – to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with
Him.