What God Requires

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The following message by Alistair  Begg is made available by Truth For   Life  for more information visit  us online at truthforlife.org. We’re going to read from the Old Testament, in the  book of Micah and chapter 6. And if you are able   to turn to it in your Bible, wherever you are,  let me encourage you to do that. Micah chapter   6 and reading from verse 1: Hear what the LORD says:  Arise, plead your case before the mountains,  and let the hills hear your voice.  Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the LORD,  and you enduring foundations of the earth,  for the LORD has an indictment against his people,  and he will contend with Israel.   “O my people, what have I done to you?  How have I wearied you? Answer me!  For I brought you up from the land of Egypt  and redeemed you from the house of slavery,  and I sent before you Moses,  Aaron, and Miriam.  O my people, remember what  Balak king of Moab devised,   and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,   that you may know the  righteous acts of the LORD.” “With what shall I come before the LORD,  and bow myself before God on high?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,  with calves a year old?  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,  with ten thousands of rivers of oil?  Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,  the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”  He has told you, O man, what is good;  and what does the LORD require of you  but to do justice, and to love kindness,  and to walk humbly with your God?  Amen. Father, as we turn now to the Bible,   we ask for your help both in speaking and in  hearing, in understanding and in believing,   obeying, living in the light of its truth. No  mere man could ever accomplish any or all of this,   but we look to the work of the Holy Spirit,  whose amazing coming we celebrated last Sunday.   Come now, Holy Spirit, we pray, and do for us  what each of us needs. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.  Well, if we have a text for this morning—and I  suppose we do—it would be the eighth verse of the   passage that we read: “He has told you, O man,  what is good; and what does the LORD require of   you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and  to walk humbly with your God?” I should say that   I’m going to take quite a while to get there.  I hope I won’t frustrate you along the journey.  But let me begin in this way, by asking a  question: Do orchestras really need conductors?   Franz Welser-Möst would surely answer yes to  that question—but after all, he is the conductor   of the Cleveland Symphony. And I would imagine,  although I haven’t checked, that along with him,   all the members of that orchestra would agree.  If the conductor were to be deposed by them in   some kind of coup and the members decided  that what they were going to do was simply   go with their feelings—play whatever they felt  at any particular time and whatever volume they   chose and so on—well, of course, clearly the end  product would be chaotic and would be unappealing.   All of the harmony that was potentially there  in submitting to the orchestra score and in   bowing under the baton and the beady eye of the  conductor would, of course, have been forfeited.  Now, let me ask a second question: How are we to  account for the absence of harmony in our world?   And one way of answering that—and it is the  Bible way of answering that—is to acknowledge   that we have deposed the conductor; that the Bible  tells us we have been created by God and for God,   and yet we have been separated from God, and we  have been scattered in the imagination of our   hearts. And so, that is why you find people  saying—and you may say this yourself—“Well,   who needs a score? We can make the plays up as we  go along. We can just play whatever tune we like,   and whatever it is to me is what is important,  and what it means to somebody else will just   have to find its place.” And furthermore, people  might say the idea of a conductor—the idea of   one who oversees us and so on—is just so far  away from all that we now hold to and affirm.  Now, in this you may not agree, and you may  find that the metaphor is far too clichéd   for you. But there are few people that I meet  at the moment who would be prepared to deny   the fact that our world is out of kilter. It  is, as our friend Melanie Phillips suggests,   a “world turned upside down.” It is a world that  is not only fractured, but it is fearful. It’s a   fearful place inhabited by people who are  themselves increasingly filled with fear.  And that fear has a basis. There is a foundation  for the fearfulness. And we’re dealing, actually,   at the moment, it would seem,  with a three-headed monster.  We’re dealing with it pandemically. Our lives  have been completely changed as a result of   this virus which has swept the world. And every  morning that we awake, there are new statistics,   there are conflicting solutions, varied attempts  to restrain the virus, the constant and obvious   search for a vaccine, and in the middle of  all of that, the novel and somewhat dreadful   experience of being continually isolated from one  another, and not least of all in the experience   of illness and in the sadness of death. Who  would ever have planned for a virtual funeral?  Not only pandemically but also economically. It’s  not for me to give any kind of instruction in this   regard. I, like you, just simply read what I find  day to day. But it would seem obvious that we have   been confronted now by levels of unemployment,  by mountains of debt, that we are told will   take more than time to relieve or to repay. And then, racially. Pandemically, economically,   and racially. Our nation now has been fractured,  and its brokenness has been highlighted in the   demonstrations that have come in the aftermath  of the unspeakably brutal and cruel death of   George Floyd. And again, fear grips the nation.  Which is the worst of the viruses, we would find   ourselves saying: that which threatens us  pandemically or economically or racially?   What is the antidote to racial prejudice? It’s almost impossible to come to Micah   6:8 without, certainly in these days,  saying something along these lines.  Two observations. One: I have chosen to use  the more old-fashioned term racial prejudice,   or racial discrimination. And the reason for that  is because language is now so abused. For example,   a term like fascist, which has a real  meaning and a real origin, is used at   all kinds of times and in different ways and  with different people—or Nazi in the same way,   and also now the word racist. The word racist has  now been so abused that it has virtually lost its   meaning. So I say, the issue we deal with is  racial prejudice. It’s just one observation.  The second observation is this: that  with the events of the last few days,   objective morality has now made a reappearance.  What do I mean by that? Well, matters now are   immediately identified as being either right  or wrong. So right and wrong is now back on the   agenda—which is quite surprising, because Western  culture, certainly over the last fifty years,   has increasingly come to regard ethics as a matter  of personal taste. After all, with no conductor,   we can play any tune we want, with the only caveat  being “as long as it doesn’t bother anybody else.”   But even that doesn’t play much of a part. As I  drove here this morning, one of the signs read,   “Racism is wrong”—which, of course, it is, however  you want to define it. We know what we’re talking   about today. But the thought that occurred to  me was, “Isn’t it interesting that it doesn’t   say something like ‘Racism is a bad idea’ or  ‘My personal view is that it is this’?” No. It   simply says, “It is wrong.” Because every honest  person knows that it is wrong, and from a biblical   perspective clearly so. Because when we turn to  the Bible, we realize that the Bible says there is   only one God, and there is only one reality, which  is that man has been made—men and women made—in   the image of divinity, in the image of God. And  as a result of that, there is only one morality,   and that that morality emerges from God himself.  Therefore, God is a God who says, “I’ll tell you   what’s right, and I’ll tell you what is wrong.” Now, people react to that today, but they’ve   reacted to it in every day. Listen to how Paul  gave an address along these lines when he was   asked to speak to a group of people in Athens.  And this is how he began; I’ve shortened it in   order that the impact may help us. This is Paul  speaking to the gathered group: he says to them,  God who made the world and everything in it …  made from one man every nation of mankind to live   on … the face of the earth, having determined  allotted periods and the boundaries of their   dwelling place, that they should seek God,  and perhaps feel their way toward him and find   him. … But now he commands all people everywhere  to repent, because he has fixed a day [when] he   will judge the world in righteousness by a man  whom he has appointed; and of this he has given   assurance to all by raising him from the dead. Now, in light of that, it is impossible to say   nothing matters. What Paul is affirming is what  the Bible declares: that we do not live in a   random universe; we are not here by chance; we are  not sustaining ourselves by our own endeavors. We   were intricately put together in our mother’s  womb, and all the days of our lives have been   written in his book before one of them came to  be. To say nothing matters is ridiculous. It   all matters. It matters far more than we know,  because it matters to the Creator, it matters   to the Lawgiver. And for this reason, black  lives matter. It is impossible to be otherwise.  In fact—and this we will not delve into this  morning—these issues of such brutality and   murder matter far more than our culture is  prepared to accept. The sanctity of human   life—the sanctity of human life—is bound up in  the fact that man was made in the image of God,   that he is not a random collection of molecules  held in suspension. He is not the product of   time plus matter plus chance. He was put together  purposefully. His genetic code was written by the   Creator himself. And that is why the Bible says  that if you take a man’s life, you forfeit your   own life. And the recognition of the sanctity  of life is revealed not only in the way we care   for those in the fragile elements of life but in  the way that we are prepared to acknowledge that   capital punishment for such murder is not  only legitimate, it is divinely ordained.  You think we care about life? We don’t  care about life enough. God cares. God   made us. God loves those who have been so  tragically bereaved. And our great need,   as we have been reminding ourselves through these  days of COVID chaos—our great need in all of these   discussions is to have a solid dose of theological  realism. All of us have emotional attachments.   All of us have backgrounds that are unique to  ourselves and so on. But the real question is:   Are we going to gain an understanding of things by  looking to the Scriptures themselves? My opinion   is as valid as the next person’s opinion, perhaps,  if it’s true, if it’s good, but by and large,   we all are in need of being taught by the one  who knows the answers to all the questions.  And that is essentially the role of the prophet.  And the Minor Prophets—Micah is one of the Minor   Prophets. That doesn’t mean that, you know, you  have, like, grade-A prophets and then grade-B   prophets and that he’s basically a B. It just has  to do with the amount of the material. He just has   seven chapters; Isaiah has a ton of chapters. So  he would be Major in terms of length, and Micah   and the others—in fact, there were twelve of  them all together in a scroll for a long while.  What is Micah the prophet saying? What  is he providing for the people? Well,   he’s not talking about his own ideas.  Look at how the chapter begins:   “Hear what the LORD says.” This is the role of  the prophet. This is the role of the preacher   of the Bible—not for me or for anybody  else to stand up and give you our views,   but to stand up and say, “Listen! Listen, now.  Listen to God.” And that’s why we constantly say,   “You are sensible people. Examine the  Scriptures to see if these things are so.”  Now, you will notice… And we can only go  at a high altitude over this material.   There was a lovely plane flying over our  home yesterday evening, and I thought,   “That’s how I’m going to have to go over Micah  chapter 6, at about that elevation.” Notice that   he is speaking to his people; it is God here who  is speaking, and he is speaking to his people. And   he has reason to contend with them, to indict  them. And the reason for that is because, if   you work your way back through the text, you will  see that they have been “devis[ing] wickedness”;   they have been “work[ing] evil on their beds”;  they can’t wait to get up in the morning to   “perform it,” and “it is in the power of their  hand” to do. That’s the beginning of chapter 2.  Further on in chapter 2, in  verse 8, “Lately,” says God,      my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those   who pass by trustingly  with no thought of war.  The women of my people you drive out  from their delightful houses;  from their young children you take away  my splendor forever.  Arise and go,  for this is no place to rest,  because of uncleanness that destroys  with a grievous destruction.  And so it goes on. And so, he  is addressing them, and he is   addressing them with reason for contention. Also, you will notice that in addressing them,   his tone is one of entreaty. Twice in verses  3–5 you have the opening phrase “O my people.”   “O my people.” That sense of tenderness: “O…”  It’s a bit like, “Oh, come on.” “O my people.”  Now, what he then does is he reminds them of his  righteous acts. You will see that down in verse 5:   “the righteous acts of the LORD.” Now, he’s just  giving them essentially a little reminder of   history: the redemption that he has brought about  in verse 4, in bringing them safely out of Egypt;   the leadership that he then gave to them so that  they might make progress, in Moses and Aaron and   Miriam; the way in which, in the events of Balak  and Balaam, God in his great providence turned   curses to blessing. And in the encounter from  Shittim to Gilgal, he’s simply reminding them of   the events that were there when they crossed the  Jordan. You remember, if you recall that story,   how it was in full spate—not a good time to try  and cross the river. And yet, when the priests   put their feet in the water, the waters were held  back, and the people walked through on dry ground   as another reminder to them that the God of the  exodus was the God who was looking after them.  These, he says, are “the righteous acts of  the LORD.” And notice: “that you may know the   righteous acts of the LORD.” It doesn’t mean  that you might be able to rehearse them, that   you could write them down like if you had an exam  at school, a history exam—“When was the Battle of   Hastings? When was the end of the second World  War?”—that you might be able to do that: “When   did they cross the Jordan?”; you know, “Where was  that in the book of Numbers?” or whatever. No. No,   the knowledge that he’s speaking about here  is a life-transforming knowledge: “that you   [might] know the righteous acts of the LORD”—that  when you think about what God has done for you,   it might be transformative. In other words,  that the knowledge of God’s righteous acts   stir them up—stir them up and also steer them  in where they should be going. Knowledge of the   truth of God is the basis, then, for making sure  that our emotions and our feelings are both given   full effect and at the same time held in check. Incidentally and in passing, this caused me to   pause for a moment and go back to the hymn “It Is  Well with My Soul.” Because I have always—until I   got here in 1983, I always sang, “You have taught  me to know it is well with my soul.” And yet, now,   for the last thirty-seven years, I have been  singing, “You have taught me to say,” and I’ve   never liked it. And so I said to myself yesterday,  “I gotta find out what the original was.” And of   course—and I can hardly suppress the smile—the  original was “You have taught me to know.”   Because if you think about it, it is one thing  to say it. And you can say it without knowing it.  And so he says, “I want you to know the  righteous acts of God. I don’t want you just   to be able to say, ‘This is what happened,  and this is what happened,’ and so on. No,   that you may know. That’s the real question: Do  you know God?” His people had completely lost   sight of all that God had done for them. That’s  why he says to them, “What have I done to you?   How have I wearied you? Answer me!” It had all  become tedious. It had become tiresome. They’re   saying, “Oh, it’s the same old material.” It was  routine. It became irrelevant. It was dangerous.  And so we call… And there’s actually a court  scene here, really. We might set it in that   way. “Plead your case”; that’s in verse 1. And  now, in verse 6, let us call the counsel, then,   for the defense. What is the response of the  would-be worshipper? Well, you have here it in   verses 6 and 7. And we can read these verses,  where you have this progression of expressions   of devotion: “burnt offerings, with calves a year  old.” Whoa! A year old! That would cost more than   just giving one up in its infancy. Uh-huh?  Well, what about “thousands of rams,” “ten   thousands of rivers of oil.” What if I was like  Abraham and offered up my son in an expression   of my desire to have my sin dealt with? Now, the way we need to understand this,   of course, is in light of what Scripture tells us.  We have an illustration of it when we studied in   1 Samuel many moons ago, if you will remember.  And Samuel the prophet confronts Saul, you will   recall, and he says to him, “Has the LORD … great  delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices”—does   he have as great delight in burnt offerings  and sacrifices—“as in obeying the voice of   the LORD?” And, of course, that’s the point. He’s  not saying that the sacrifices were irrelevant or   the expressions of devotion are irrelevant,  but what God is looking for is obedience.  You have it in a parallel passage in Amos,  which, when I read it in Peterson’s paraphrase,   struck me forcibly. And this is a similar context  where the prophet Amos is taking on the same   issue. The people are saying, “Well, we could come  before God, and this is what we’ll be able to say.   We’ve done a wonderful job on sacrifices. We’ve  been very self-giving. We have been prepared even   to go to the extremities of it.” And God says, I can’t stand your religious meetings.   I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects,   your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,   your public relations and image making. I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.   When was the last time you sang to me? Do you [want to] know what I want?   I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it.   That’s what I want. That’s all I want. “Well,” we say, “that’s fine. Because we   haven’t been doing anything with calves or  sacrifices or anything at all.” But what is   our plea? You see, Israel was thinking, “God  wants to see evidence of my commitment. And so   I will show him evidence of my commitment in these  things,” with an ever, if you like, intensifying   sense of duty and engagement of activity. So what would be parallel? I don’t know.   People always say, “And, now, what programs  do you have at your church? How many Bible   conferences do you have? Marriage seminars?  College events? Prison ministry? Prayer times?   Soccer leagues?” And on and on it goes,  ever-ascending expressions of the fact,   “God, you know we’re really into this. We’re very  committed.” Ralph Davis says, “But why do we think   we have to be so frantic? Why do we have this  hypertensive view of the Christian life? Why do   we think God wants us to organize more Christian  things to do?” That’s what their answer was. God   says through his prophet, “What are you guys up  to?” They say, “Oh no, we’ve got it covered.”  Finally, the prophet responds, and in  verse 8. Now, this eighth verse is,   of course, quoted frequently. I’m sure you  will have turned to it in the past few days,   and understandably so. Interestingly, Newton, the  hymnwriter and the pastor, commenting on this,   said, “There is hardly any one passage in  [Scripture] more generally misunderstood.”  Now, you’ve read it, and I have read it.  And you may find yourselves saying, “Well,   it seems pretty straightforward to me.”  There’s essentially only three points.  Number one, “to do justly” —that is, to act in  such a way that is the reversal of all that was   taking place; that it means doing justly in accord  with the will and purpose of God as he has both   manifested it and as he has revealed it to us  in Scripture. So, for example, in Deuteronomy,   Moses says God “executes justice for the  fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner,   giving him food and clothing.” So, within the  framework of God’s revelation of himself, we want   to take seriously these things—perhaps far more  seriously than we have been giving credence to,   to this point. But taking that seriously is not  the same, I suggest to you, as this commentator’s   explanation of “what doing justice according  to the Bible really means”: “It is,” he writes,   “creating a situation and a society where  everything is right, a society where every   last person in it, including the most vulnerable  and the weakest, can flourish and thrive.” It’s   not my purpose to interact with that for now,  but it is to set it out before you so that you,   like me, can be thinking along these lines. “To do justly,” “to love mercy.” A heart attitude.   If doing justly is the action, then loving mercy,  or loving kindness, is the attitude of the heart.   Warm-hearted compassion—these actions taking place  not as a performance of some demanded duty but as   a glad and spontaneous action. It’s not gonna be  possible for us to really believe that “Father,   your love is a faithful love” and then for us  to be faithless in our expressions of love.  And then, thirdly, to “walk humbly.” To “walk  humbly.” In other words, to walk in submission   to God’s will. In New Testament terms, it’s  Romans 12:[1]: to offer your body as a living   sacrifice that is an acceptable form of worship  to him. Humility means that I don’t take myself   too seriously, that I don’t cherish exaggerated  ideas of my own importance, that I don’t assume   that I have everything buttoned down and know how  it should be—which is, of course, one’s tendency.  “Well,” you say, “that’s fairly comprehensive,  and it’s fairly clear. Why did Newton say,   ‘There’s hardly a passage in Scripture  more generally misunderstood’?” Well,   he’s not here to answer the question, but I think  at least this would be true of what he meant.  Number one, because of how this verse is attempted  without the gospel. How it is attempted without   the gospel. And then it becomes just a display  of natural virtue. Then it becomes the sort of   normal, nice religion of virtuous life. A person  says, “How can I come before the Lord?”—verse 6.   An answer: “I’m going to come before the Lord; the  way I do it is by doing justly, loving mercy, and   walking humbly.” It’s just another version of “A  good God, if he exists, will reward nice people if   they do their best,” and part of the way of doing  your best involves justice, it involves mercy,   and it involves being humble about it. I think  Newton must have had that in mind: how easy it   is for us to attempt this without the gospel. Also, how easy it is for pastors to proclaim   it in place of the gospel. In place of the  gospel. You see, this is a very easy slide.   Men and women by nature are keen to contribute to  their standing before God—to contribute to it on   account of their own endeavors. And so, if the  message that comes across is “Why don’t you go   out and have a really good week and do justly,  love mercy, and walk humbly with God?” they say,   “I’d be able to take a stab at that.” But you see  the inherent danger. Am I wrong in suggesting to   my friend that he ought at least to be wary of  explaining Micah 6:8 as “creating a situation   and a society where everything is right”? That is called the new heaven and the new   earth. We’ve got to read the Prophets in light  of the apostles. We’ve gotta interpret the Old   Testament in light of the New. You’ve gotta  ask yourself of that kind of explanation   how it fits within the Epistles of the New  Testament and the emphasis of the apostles,   who themselves had a prophetic ministry. But our time is gone, so let me just tell   you the third reason that I think it is one of  the misunderstood passages: because of how it is   attempted without the gospel, because of how  it may be proclaimed in place of the gospel,   and because it needs to be understood that it  is only possible by the gospel. By the gospel.   Micah is not here charting a path as a means to  acceptance with God. And I, for one, am really   thankful. And if you are a believer today, you  ought to be as well. If God were—on the day that   he has fixed, which we read of in Acts 17—if  God were on that day to judge me by this text,   I would have no basis for appeal. Because if I  even do my own assessment, I’m not even getting   an F on justice and kindness and humility. And I’m  talking about just myself on my bed! I’m not even   talking about the people who know me. I don’t want  their assessment. I can’t imagine how bad it is.  So what is the answer? Well, you see, the answer  is not in our righteous acts but in “the righteous   acts of the LORD”—verse 5. “He has [shown] you, O  man, what is good.” Jesus is good! If your Bible   is open, you just go back a page and you’d find  yourself in the Christmas narrative: “But you,   O Bethlehem Ephrathah, [though you] are too little  to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall   come forth for me one who is to be [the] ruler in  Israel,” you read it all the way down. And verse   5: “And he shall be their peace.” “He shall be  their peace.” “Therefore being justified by faith,   we have peace with God.” Or as we have it in  Titus, “For the grace of God has appeared,   bringing salvation [to] all people.” When Newton preached on this passage,   he entitled his sermon on this verse “No Access  to God but by the Gospel of Christ.” “No Access   to God but by the Gospel of Christ.” And I’m  pretty sure that is what he meant when he said   this is so misunderstood: so taught or received  in such a way as to say, “You know, this is the   missing link. This is the key.” But what the  passage is saying is, “Would you come before   God? Then come in the name of Jesus. You’ll find  acceptance.” Because, remember, before Jesus left,   he said, “Whoever comes to me, I won’t cast out.”  And if we don’t come by way of that entrance,   there is no other way. And if we’re worried  about what kind of response we will receive,   go to the end of the chapter; go to the closing  verses of the chapter, where the prophet says,   “Who’s a pardoning God like you? Who pardons sins  like you? Who forgives iniquities? Who cleanses   us? Who fits us for your presence? You do.” What you essentially have in verse 8 are   the credentials of our justification—not the  things that contribute to our justification   but the evidences of our justification.  And I find myself saying, “You know,   I think my credentials could do with a bit of a  polish.” He said here, “O my people… O my people…   O Alistair… O Parkside… O American Christianity…” Well, loved ones, we can’t fix the world. But with   God’s help, we can make a pledge to one another  to declare our willingness to live the gospel in   expressions of justice and kindness and humility.  And as strange as it will sound to an onlooking   world, God has provided in the local church  the genetic blueprint of a broken world remade.  Does an orchestra need a conductor? Surely.  Do we need a Savior? Surely. To him we look.  Gracious God, we have not served you as we  ought. Alas, the duties we’ve left undone!   So much of ourselves and our selfishness  have taken hold of the way in which we   adjudicate on things and seek to chart our  course. So we pray that you will help us not   to get on the wrong side of Newton’s most  misunderstood text. God grant that we may   not attempt it without the gospel, that we  may not proclaim it instead of the gospel,   but that we may live it by the gospel.  For in Christ’s name we pray. Amen. This message was brought to you from Truth For  Life where the learning is for living to learn   more about truth for life with Alistair  Begg visit us online at truthforlife.org
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Channel: Alistair Begg
Views: 75,840
Rating: 4.8330803 out of 5
Keywords: Christian Living, Conviction of Sin, Justice, Loving Others, Mercy, Truth For Life, Alistair Begg
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Length: 38min 9sec (2289 seconds)
Published: Mon Jun 08 2020
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