Be Who You Are - Micah 6

[00:00:00] All right, I'm going to read the whole chapter if you guys would follow along. Micah chapter 6 verse 1 here what the Lord says. Remember I told you guys that the book of Micah is arranged in three main prophecies chapter 1 verse 2, chapter 3 verse 1 and here chapter 6 verse 1 you get the word here.

[00:00:30] You see the voice here 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.

[00:00:44] He says in verse 3, oh my people what have I done to you? How have I weirded you? Answer me. For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery.

[00:00:59] And I sent before you Moses Aaron and Miriam all my people remember what Baylik king of Moab devised and what bail him the son of Bior answered him.

[00:01:12] And what happened from and I really feel like I'm not allowed to say this word in church. What happened from shidim and I promise you I looked that up to make sure I was pronouncing it correctly and I'm sorry maybe in church I should say from crap him to Gilgal.

[00:01:36] Sorry there's a junior hire in here somewhere. That you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.

[00:01:45] Verse 6, 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 10,000s of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn?

[00:02:00] For my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul. He has told you, oh 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?

[00:02:13] Verse 9, the voice of the Lord cries to the city and it is sound wisdom to fear your name. Hear the rod of him who appointed it. Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked?

[00:02:26] 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?

[00:02:40] Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow making you desolate because of your sins you shall eat but not be satisfied.

[00:02:49] 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.

[00:02:58] You shall tread all of us but not anoint yourselves with oil. You shall tread grapes but not drink wine for you. Verse 16, have kept the statutes of omery and all the works of the house of Ahab

[00:03:12] and you have walked in their counsels that I may make you a desolation and your inhabitants are hissing so you shall bear the scorn of my people.

[00:03:23] Okay, this entire passage that we just read it's framed as a court case that God institutes or initiates between himself and his people. He's enditing his people

[00:03:43] and he calls forth some witnesses or even a jury and the witnesses he calls are the mountains and the hills and creation itself.

[00:03:54] It's kind of like God is saying, hey can anybody back me up here? And for centuries now the land saw the people of Israel neglect what they were supposed to be doing.

[00:04:07] Just to remind you of where we're at in the Bible these people that Micah is speaking to they lived about 700 years after the Exodus and they lived about 700 years before the new Exodus, before Jesus came.

[00:04:21] And after the Exodus God gave an invitation to the people of Israel to be his partners. I want you to join with me. I want you to be my kingdom of priests here on earth. You're going to make an impact.

[00:04:32] You're going to show the world who I am and they had been for many years now by the time Micah shows up failing in that mission.

[00:04:42] And so Micah comes onto the scene and he begins to speak to them because of that failure. You know instead of behaving as that kingdom of priests representing God to the world around them, they were devoting themselves to the false gods of the world around them.

[00:05:00] Instead of joining in on God's mission on earth, they were actually getting in the way of. They were frustrating God's mission on earth.

[00:05:09] And instead of being the one nation and all of human history that had God as its king, the one theocracy ever, instead they followed wicked kings who gave terrible counsel. That's what this text shows us.

[00:05:23] Because they've been guilty for so long and showed no remorse for so long, God was finally ready to sentence them to the judgment of discipline. The word maybe that carries the deepest meaning in this whole chapter would be found in verse 16 when it comes to the discipline, it says that they would become a desolation.

[00:05:41] That means that everything else that God had tried failed and now they need to be put into exile and the land needs to be vacated, it needs to become desolate.

[00:05:53] Now I want to say that there are a lot of people groups and a lot of nations on earth at the time that Micah said these things that were doing the same things that Israel was doing but Micah was not rebuking them.

[00:06:07] God was not confronting them, at least not with Micah. The discipline spoken of in this passage happened for God's people because God didn't like what he saw, not in the world in general but among his people.

[00:06:23] Their guilt was a breach of covenant and impediment to his mission and a misrepresentation of his character. And so God was bound to do something about it. Why was he bound to do something about it?

[00:06:36] Well first of all there's his nature but secondly they had made a contract or an agreement at the end of the book of Deuteronomy where the people of Israel have said yes we will live the way you've asked us to live.

[00:06:50] And if we don't for so long here's the things that will happen to us and kind of one of the last things on the list was exile. So it got into that point.

[00:07:00] Now when Micah arrived it's like he had that book of Deuteronomy in his mind and in his pocket. It was a book that Israel had agreed to follow God in. If they did they'd prosper, if they didn't he'd discipline them and so now it was time for the discipline to come.

[00:07:15] And the way that Micah said it would happen is the Assyrians are going to come first if that doesn't work then the Babylonians are going to come and they're going to take you into captivity.

[00:07:23] But what I want to point out today is that for all the doom that's found here there's an underlying assumption that I want to suspend our time on today.

[00:07:34] All the greed, all of the injustice, all the wickedness that Micah saw in Israel it was at odds with Israel's truest identity.

[00:07:45] God is saying these things to them because he saw them completely differently than the way that they were behaving.

[00:07:51] God's looking at them and he's saying you're not being who you are. I've made you something completely different.

[00:07:58] And I think that that inconsistent behavior for so long living out of step with their identity is what God is trying to address right here. He's trying to pull them out of the false identity ditch so that they could walk with him again.

[00:08:10] So I think every word out of Yahweh's mouth in this chapter is an invitation for us today if we're believers in Jesus to live according to up to an alignment with our identity in Christ.

[00:08:28] Micah has told us throughout this book that there's a shepherd king who has a will for our lives and today I think there are so many things that the shepherd king wants to say to us about our identity in him inviting us to be who we are in him.

[00:08:43] So let's look at three things following the three movements of the passage. The first movement is verse 1 through 5 and in the first movement of this oracle it seems to me that God reminds us that we are if we're believers today, God reminds us that we are His special people.

[00:09:04] I'm not trying to be overly sentimental when I say that so let me explain what I'm talking about.

[00:09:12] First of all, in verse 2 Micah said that God's indictment was against His own people and in God's opening salvo when He begins to speak in verse 3 and then in verse 5 he cries about them.

[00:09:27] He says, all my people and then after all the goodness that God had shown them over the years it appears in the opening passage that God is disoriented by Israel's behavior because he asks in verse 3 he says, what have I done to you?

[00:09:47] How have I re-read you? It's like God is thinking about His track record with Israel. He's like, I know I've been good to you. I know I've been a blessing to you. I know I've been faithful to you. I know I've been working in your life. Why are you behaving the way that you're behaving?

[00:10:03] God is acting here like a betrayed husband. Crying out his unfaithful bride and he reminds us people how special they are to him and the way that he reminds them is by recounting to them all that he done to make them His own.

[00:10:20] I mean he just kind of goes through the list. Chapter 6, verse 4, he says there was a time 700 years ago I delivered you from your slavery in Egypt. After I brought you out into the wilderness I then gave you the trio, the siblings.

[00:10:34] I gave you Moses as your leader, I gave you Aaron, his brother as your high priest. I gave you Merriam, their sister as the worship leader for Israel and then as you're wandering in the wilderness there were people that tried to attack you such as the king of Mo'lap who tried to hire a sorcerer named Balum to curse you but I made sure that the answer of Balum's mouth was full of evil.

[00:11:04] I was told by a lot of blessing over you, it's a classic story there in the book of Numbers. This wicked king Balum tries to hire this sorcerer named Balum to curse Israel and three times he tries but out of his mouth comes his blessing and King Balum is like what is going on? I'm paying you to curse them and he says look the only thing coming out of my mouth is blessing blessing for these people of God.

[00:11:27] That favor from God it lasted all the way from the city which shall not be named which was their last stop, well they wandered in the wilderness to Gilgal which was their first stop in the Promised Land.

[00:11:43] It means God is saying I was faithful to you all the way that whole time to get you to my desired destination. All these stories should have reminded them we are God's special people and I think our shepherd King wants to remind us of the same thing, we are if we're in Christ Jesus his special people.

[00:12:03] You know like ancient Israel the church has been marvelously rescued from slavery.

[00:12:12] Like ancient Israel the church has been specially blessed despite attempts to the contrary you have read the book of Acts you see all this animosity and hardship and persecution come up against the church and what happens they just flower they bloom they blossom they expand the curse turned into a blessing.

[00:12:31] And like ancient Israel the church has been miraculously protected on its journey if you really think about the behavior of the church over the last two thousand years it's like it's a miracle we're still here.

[00:12:43] That's what means is one of the biggest signs of God's grace that despite all our folly and bad doctrine and horrible decisions and all of that we're still around and that's just the grace of God.

[00:12:55] But when we neglect our identity who we are in place of lies we falter just like Israel did.

[00:13:05] I once heard the story of a notoriously contankerous church gardener and before I tell this story I just want to say it's not about anybody at this church didn't happen here so if you're like I know who he's talking about you don't know.

[00:13:21] What I heard is that this guy grew to dislike it when people visited the church property because his feeling was you guys are going to ruin my work.

[00:13:33] Like I don't want anybody to be here I created this pristine environment I don't want anybody here to be here.

[00:13:38] It got so bad that during the week people in this particular church started avoiding the church grounds because they're like he just has like a comment always or a look or whatever it's just he was an unpleasant man.

[00:13:50] Because it is possible to believe in Jesus yet still be unpleasant and that's who he was.

[00:13:57] And one day he was in a class at his church smaller group and he announced to the group he said I'm just simply a cranky old man and I've been cranky my whole life just the way I am.

[00:14:17] But the teacher pushed back in that moment and said I thought you said you're a Christian being cranky is what you do when you forget who you are.

[00:14:29] And apparently that little word just messed with him so much and he started searching out the truth of the New Testament and he realized I've been wrong to take on this false identity when I have a new identity in Christ and he began to grow and change and pretty soon people liked going to the church after that.

[00:14:46] So let's think about for a second before we move on to the second big point. Let's think for a second about how we can retrain our minds and our souls to live from that new identity in Christ because I think there's two major ways that are suggested in the first five verses of Micah 6.

[00:15:04] The first way is that well God was reminding them of their true identity. He reminded them of his past intervention in their lives right he just goes through the list I delivered you from Egypt I covered you when you were attacked I brought you all the way to Gilgal I was faithful to you I want you to remember those stories and all those stories would have been evidence would have reminded them of their position as y'all ways special people and what I want to say is I think that this helps us see that it's not a good thing.

[00:15:33] This helps us see that it's important for us today to develop our God stories of his faithfulness in our lives and have them stuck in our memory and repeated often we've got to preach them to ourselves so that we might remember how special we are in his sight.

[00:15:52] It begins with the story of the cross this is one thing that was so great about Easter week to just meditate upon the cross of Christ again that is the singular story that we need to recall and remember over and over and over again it's part of why taking communion each week has been such a blessing for us as a church but core God memories would also include your story of how he reached you how did he do that when did it happen

[00:16:21] what things did he do who did he bring into your life what circumstances did he allow moments that he guided you have you ever had something as you look back on your life you realize when I was going through that I was really upset with the direction things were taking I felt kind of trapped and disappointed but now looking back it was the best decision the best direction that could have happened in my life at that time I just didn't know it.

[00:16:51] Or stories of his faithfulness as you look back on your life ways he spoke into you over the years when you meditate on these memories it helps you recall who you are in him so I'd encourage you to do that collect these stories and have them be part of your consciousness but God also in this little passage verse 1 through 5 he reminded his people of their identity by reminding them about Moses and Aaron.

[00:17:21] Aaron and Miriam and I think when he's doing that what he's saying to them is who are your people you are the people that come from someone like Moses and in his right mind and in his holy state Aaron and in her worship and devotion and celebration of God Miriam those are the kind of people that you come from.

[00:17:49] There are thousands of moments in our lives where we have to ask ourselves the question who are my people there's one reason why being in Christian community is of utmost and vital importance.

[00:18:02] I think we grow out of the like peer pressure thing and stuff like that once we leave school and then we're like we're my own man I'll do whatever I want to do but the reality is you will so often default to your people.

[00:18:32] You are to have boldness like Moses be consecrated to God like Aaron worship like Miriam be loyal to God like Abraham be devoted like David steady like Isaiah prayerful like the solmous hopeful like the prophets take steps of faith like Peter mind the depths of God like Paul be on a mission like the early church and love like the Apostle John.

[00:19:01] Those are our people and God I think tries to get us back to our truest identity by asking that question who are your people.

[00:19:12] Alright so that's the first thing we are we are gods we're special to God okay this the second movement of the Oracle verse six through eight this is the most famous section in the book of Micah might be the only section that some of you knew when we opened up the book because it's got that level of

[00:19:29] fame attached to it but I think in the second movement of the Oracle God reminds us that we are his covenant partners that might not have been a way that you described yourself this week who are you I'm a covenant partner with God so let me explain that to you today.

[00:19:46] Once Micah or excuse me once you are way finished his accusation or at least just put it on pause Micah in verse six he's the one who starts talking and he asks this question he says with what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high.

[00:20:03] In other words Micah is asking the question what does God really want what does God really want and then Micah went on to wonder.

[00:20:12] He basically wonders does God want this long list of sacrifices and he kind of like increases them in intensity as he wonders this out loud he starts with does God want burn offerings.

[00:20:27] And then he ups it a little bit does God want thousands of rams and then he ups it a little bit and he gets all like man only a king could do this he's like does God want 10,000 rivers of oil.

[00:20:41] And then he gets most intense when he says does God want me to imitate the pagan nations around me and sacrifice my own child.

[00:20:54] Because I would God wants what does God want in order for me to be cleansed from the sin of my soul he says in verse seven.

[00:21:03] Then Micah gave a general excertation he said in verse eight here's the famous verse God has told you oh man what is good.

[00:21:12] What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God now when Micah said this I want to be careful to say he was not dogging the sacrificial system that God had authored and installed in ancient Israel he's not like you know those sacrifices are so stupid.

[00:21:32] That's not ever what God desires it's not what Micah is saying God gave them the sacrifices to help them find relief for their failure when they failed to execute the mission that God had given to them.

[00:21:47] But what he truly wanted for them was to do justice love kindness and humbly walk with God the sacrifices were meant to help them stay on track for their mission but they weren't the mission.

[00:21:59] God had invited them into a covenant with himself and now they were partners in reaching the world and they were to have that mentality about themselves what are we here on earth.

[00:22:09] We are God's covenant partners we have a purpose the people in Micah's day and the church today should say we have a purpose here on earth we are partnering with God in his work.

[00:22:21] There's that book and they made a movie about the book American sniper by Chris Kyle I really liked both but in the book he tells us a story about a formative moment in his early life.

[00:22:37] As he tells a story he's just a boy and his dad explained to him that there are three types of people in the world.

[00:22:46] There might be more than that his dad wasn't an author of scripture or anything but he saw it this way there are three types of people in the world there are sheep he said there are wolves he said and there are sheep dogs who protect the sheep from the wolves.

[00:23:02] His encouragement to his son was I want you to be a sheep dog I wanted you to be someone who takes care of and thinks about others which he said was a major reason that he wanted to serve as a sniper who watched over troops in combat.

[00:23:18] I think that every Christian every believer not just a certain group of us but every believer is called to in our truest identity a sheep dog life like ancient Israel we are God's covenant partners to reach our world and you always answered a Micah's question about what is God want is incredibly helpful because the Torah was filled with hundreds of laws.

[00:23:46] What is God really want at the end of the day. Micah boils them all down to three statements do justice love kindness and walk humbly with God it's very similar to when they came to Jesus and said what's the what's the greatest law?

[00:24:00] What's the greatest command he said love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength in the second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself you find both of those right here in Micah 6 verse 8 God wanted all his people to practice love for their neighbor and literally build fabricate do justice not feel it do it he says and he wanted them to love kindness which means be a person of loyalty and faithfulness.

[00:24:30] So what is God's kindness who helps people particularly people in their need by providing practical help and all of this was to be done from the foundation of a humble walk with God.

[00:24:41] Meaning they were to be in constant contact with God walking but also in agreement with God what's the pace? What's the destination where are we going?

[00:24:51] In other words they were to have their daily devotional life walk with God but also do good things for people in need.

[00:25:01] Okay now let's talk about this for a second because I realize in our modern world and even in the church justice has become complicated and hotly debated concept don't cancel Micah you know he's just too woke or something.

[00:25:18] Micah's got something to say to us the question we want to ask is what does justice look like today and since this excertation was given to ancient Israelites living in the only theocracy to ever exist how do we take Micah 6 a an apply it in our modern society or in the church.

[00:25:42] I know there's a lot of nuance to this I know there's all kinds of political theory behind excertations for justice but all I want to say here is that I think that God's people should not overly complicate the issue.

[00:25:55] We are too according to the old and New Testament care for those in need.

[00:26:01] We're to love widows we're to love the fatherless we're to love the parentless we're to love the impoverished we're to love the imprisoned we're to love the addicted we're to love the marginalized we're to love the forgotten.

[00:26:12] We're to love the downtrodden the oppressed the taken for granted the disabled the sick the mentally ill and the hurting people of this world that's what we're supposed to do I mean you can if you're like I don't know that the Bible teaches that well in my footnotes of my notes I just listed like 50 cross references so have at it you know just have a look at the

[00:26:30] set fun go rethold in New Testament and you'll see that we're called to this and when we do these things we're behaving just a little bit like Jesus.

[00:26:40] These acts do not save us hilarious to me how quickly someone can hear words like do good things to people who are in need and say man don't preach a lot I mean I'm not saved by my works no one saying that no one saying that at all this is not us being saved by our works they're not the sum total

[00:26:59] of our walk with God either the liberal church has done this we don't even need the gospel we're just going to be great nice people no it's not the it's we need the gospel we need the cross but they're just natural ways to express our salvation and walk with God.

[00:27:15] There are ways Christ likeness can evidence itself in our lives even Paul's simple excertation in Galatians just one line is enough to fill our lifetime when he says that the early apostles asked us to remember the poor the very thing I was eager to do.

[00:27:32] All right now this concept don't I want to say this this concept from Micah I think it explains a lot of the frustration that people sometimes experience in their relationship with God.

[00:27:42] Because what Micah is revealing here is that God has goals here what he wants is he wants his people to be instruments of his love to this world God has goals but the thing is is that we also have goals.

[00:27:59] And when there's a misalignment between or conflict with God's goals and our goals for our lives our walks with God can become very frustrating.

[00:28:12] And to be honest with you I think sometimes the same question that Micah was wrestling with what does God want this is the thing that stumbles even a lot of modern Christians we have our goals we have the things that I want there's stuff I want to have happened in my career or my family or my health or

[00:28:28] whatever I've got these desires these goals and maybe the way that I can get them is by doing some of the sacrifice things in like a new testament kind of way.

[00:28:41] So if I go to church enough or I'm serving enough in my church or I'm giving enough or I'm reading the Bible enough I do these things I offer God these sacrifices then he will help me reach my goals.

[00:28:59] But what Micah is showing us is that sometimes God's goals and our goals do not overlap entirely.

[00:29:06] And when that happens we become frustrated God is trying to work Christ like Christ's likeness in us he is trying to put us on this mission here on earth.

[00:29:17] And now we become frustrated because we're not getting from God what we expected to get but listen that's like walking into an in and out hamburger joints walking up to the counter.

[00:29:33] And instead of ordering like I order I'll give you guys my order real quick a three by three.

[00:29:40] I like the three patties the three cheeses it's a heart attack in a bun animal style hold the tomato extra pickles with if I'm feeling really good about myself animal style fries too.

[00:29:57] Instead of going up and ordering that saying I want a big Mac you're in the wrong place you're going to the wrong source for the thing that you want.

[00:30:09] And when we try to use God to fulfill our dreams and our desires we often miss what he's really trying to do through us what does he want for us to do justice love kindness and walk humbly with him now the beautiful thing is that a lot of times when we live that life some of the things that we want there isn't overlapped.

[00:30:27] There's a beautiful life that we get to live and so many of the things that we're kind of hoping for it's like a back door wave for those things to come into our lives.

[00:30:36] But we've got to you know want what the Lord wants Jonah is a good example of what I'm trying to talk about that frustration God's goal for Jonah was to preach to the people of Nineveh.

[00:30:49] So this made Jonah very unhappy really unhappy for a few days especially he had dreams he had desires that conflicted with God's dreams and desires and like surprise surprise God wasn't going to change his desires.

[00:31:06] So Jonah had to be brought into conformity with God's plan because what what what Jonah wanted God to do was in conflict with God's very nature.

[00:31:21] So I say all this because Micah's words I think should massage our perspective on what God is trying to produce in us he's trying to generate Christ likeness in us.

[00:31:33] When you see the phrase love God love others sometimes we say that like that's what Christianity is it just kind of boils down to that and we say it like real quickly that's not a trite saying when you say love God love others what I want you to think about is the ultimate time that happened Jesus died on the cross.

[00:31:50] He was loving his father submitting completely to his father and he was paying the price for the sin of the world it was a brutal thing that he did in order to love God and love others wasn't just a quick feeling it was sacrifice.

[00:32:05] And it's this Lord that we follow this brand of sacrificial life that Micah mentions to us so we are secondly God's covenant partners.

[00:32:17] Okay let's wrap it up today by looking at verse 9 through 16 and thinking about with last and third movement of the Oracle God reminds us that we are his image bearers as well.

[00:32:30] If the question of the first movement is who are your people and the question of the second movement is what is God want the question of this third movement verse 9 to 16 is which king do you reflect which king do you reflect.

[00:32:47] And what I mean is that the third section of this Oracle it's a long rebuke of the injustices that God saw in Israel followed by the statement you can look at verse 16 with me that they had kept the statutes of Omri and done all the works of the house of Ahab.

[00:33:07] What that means is that the people of Israel, people of God who should have been we just learned in verse 8 walked humbly with God instead they were walking in the councils of two of the most wicked kings in all of Israel history.

[00:33:30] They were reflecting Omri and Ahab more than they were reflecting Yahweh and the shepherd king that Micah prophesied about.

[00:33:38] Now in the first chapter of the Bible Genesis 1 we're told that humans were created to bear God's image on earth it's actually a beautiful statement filled with lots of purpose for us because at the time that the book of Genesis was written ancient kings from that era when they were

[00:33:57] had won victories over distant lands what they would do because they couldn't travel there very easily as they would install statues that looked like themselves in those foreign lands images that were to remind the distant lands populous there's a king far away and we're under his rule and reign.

[00:34:18] What Genesis tells us is that humans on earth that's what we are for God God made this little rock that spinning around the sun he put us on it and he said I might be far but you are my images here on earth.

[00:34:37] And for as much as Micah's Israel had forgotten that they were God's people and covenant partners they'd also forgotten that they were in God's image.

[00:34:44] They weren't acting like their king at all they were financially treacherous I mean there was wicked scales deceitful weights they were violent towards people it says in verse 12 they were lying running rampant and because they were made for something different made in God's image God said you're never going to experience satisfaction like that.

[00:35:05] You're going to eat but not be satisfied there's going to be hunger in you you'll put away you're going to save up but it's going to go away you won't preserve it what you preserve I will give to the sword they're going to take away all your treasure God made sure that their crops would be bearing a lot of work for no pay out he could not let their wickedness go unabated.

[00:35:25] So as we wrap it up I just want to say we are God's image bearers as well we're his covenant partners were his special people but where his image bearers as well Paul said that our citizenship is in heaven so we have a king who's far away that we're meant to reflect here on earth so what is our king like.

[00:35:44] I want sort of a basketball coach of a Christian I think it was a it was a Christian school and they were playing a game and I think he just kind of got caught up in the moment and he was watching his team kind of get pushed around by the other team.

[00:36:02] And he wanted to see his team be a little more aggressive assertive great thing for coach to want and it was like growing for a way to communicate to all these young Christians like how to step it up and assert yourself so we call the time out brought them all together and in his pep talk.

[00:36:20] And again I think this was just like a motion talking he said to them Matt do you guys think Jesus got pumped.

[00:36:28] You know that was like his thing to them like think about it and one it got all quiet everyone's like man we're not being like Jesus out there you know and then one of the kids was like well he died on the cross.

[00:36:40] He was crucified like yes he did get pumped it's kind of the point and the question is what is our king like.

[00:36:50] What is our king like.

[00:36:53] What is King Jesus like who are you imitating in other words who are your heroes in other words Omri and Ahab like people or Jesus and Jesus like people Paul said it this way in Ephesians 5 he said be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love and walk.

[00:37:09] And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

[00:37:18] But at this point in Micah it seems that even though Micah is there pleading with them and even though they bought themselves some time with some obedience as we learn from other Bible passages the die had been cast and eventually they would become as he said in verse 16 a desolation.

[00:37:36] The only way out for them was to remember their identity and begin to act like themselves God's special people God's covenant partners and God's image bearers.

[00:37:46] And that's who we are Peter said in first Peter 2 verse 9 you're a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation of people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

[00:38:01] And remember sometimes a thousand times a day who we are and then live it out by the power of his spirit.

[00:38:10] In fact I would say like this we have to remember a different court case not the one here in Micah 6 verse 1 through 5 but we have to remember when Christ died for us and the father declared us who believed in Jesus to be righteous in his sight.

[00:38:25] We have to remember that.