If you wouldn't open your Bibles
with me to the book of Micah. Book of Micah. Micah is the book
right between Jonah and Nahum. Micah chapter six, if you have
the authorized version, is page 1,156. Hear ye now what the Lord saith.
Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills
hear my voice. Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's
controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth. For the Lord hath
a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.
O my people, what have I done unto thee? And wherein have I
wearied thee? Testify against me. For I brought
thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the
house of servants. And I sent before thee Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what
Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor
answered him, from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the
righteousness of the Lord. Wherewith shall I come before
the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before
him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or 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 showed thee, O man, what is good. And what doth the Lord
require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk
humbly with thy God? We'll end our reading there.
Let's bow before our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for one more opportunity that you've given to us to be able
to meet together, to have your word open to us, to be able to
read your word, to come before you in prayer, offer our thanksgiving
and our praise, bring our cares and hurts and needs before your
throne of grace. to be able to sing the songs
of your praise. Father, how we thank you. And
Father, I pray in these next few minutes that you'd send your
spirit upon us. That Father, by the power of
your spirit, you would enable me to rightly divide the word
of truth. That you would enable me to preach
clearly and simply with a heart of compassion for sinners. And Father, that you'd give your
people a hearing ear, a heart that would believe and receive
your word, that you would enable us all to leave here this morning
rejoicing in Christ our Savior. Father, we thank you for the
many blessings of this life, how richly you've blessed us
materially and physically. Thank you for this place, Father,
where you have raised up a family of believers. Father, I pray
you'd bless us, that you continue to to bless your word as it's
preached from this place, that you would cause us all to show
our love one for another, to serve thee by serving one another.
Father, we pray for Eric and Brady as they're away preaching.
We pray you bless them as we pray you bless us. Give them
traveling mercies back home. Father, for this sick and afflicted,
those we've just mentioned, we hold them up to thee. Father,
pray for your hand of healing above all, your presence of comfort
in their hearts. And all these things we ask and
we give thanks in that name which is above every name, the name
of Christ our Savior, amen. Now I've titled the message this
morning, How Can a Sinner Come Before the Lord? My title's found
in verse six where the prophet writes, wherewith shall I come
before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Now this
is the question, how shall I come before the Lord? And this word
before doesn't mean to just come in front of, it means to meet
and to be received. How can a sinner like me come
before the high holy God and be received, to be accepted? How can I bow before the one
true God and worship him and have my worship accepted of him? You know, he said of those in
Isaiah's day, he said, all this religion you're going through,
all this, these motions of worship you're going through, he said,
they're a smoke in my nose. Those weren't accepted. How can
a sinner like me come before the Lord and worship and have
my worship be accepted? God is the high God. That's the
way Micah describes it here, the high God. I'm low down. I mean, I'm a low down, good
for nothing sinner. How can I come before the high
God and ever be accepted? And you know, the fact that the
prophet asked this question shows we all know this inherently.
Every human being inherently knows this. There's a problem
between me and God. There's a problem. And the problem
is one of our own making. It's our sin. That's the problem.
We've sinned against God. It's our sins that have separated
us from our God. Something's got to be done to
take away my sin or I can never meet God. I can never come before
him and be accepted. And that's the question all of
man's religion is trying to answer. What will take away a man's sin?
What will reduce a man's sin enough that he can come before
God and God will accept us? Well, the prophet lists here
some of man's ideas of what we can do to come before God accepted. The rest of verse six there,
how shall I bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before
him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with 10,000s of rivers
of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
Now the prophet, he's not the one asking these questions. Micah
already knows how sin's put away, doesn't he? He knows it's put
away by the blood of Christ. But these are questions that
the natural man asks. So Micah's gonna deal with them
and show us that all these ways that men come up with to try
to put away our sin, that will make us able to meet with God,
that they don't work. The prophet starts out asking
about burnt offerings. Burnt offerings of year old calves. Now will that take my sin away?
You know, people, just like we know, Inherently, there's a problem
between me and God. People just inherently know there's
got to be a burnt offering. There's got to be suffering for
sin. The fire of God's justice has
to fall on sin. Something's got to burn up that
fire of God's justice. Well, will a one-year-old calf
do it? You know, to them, one-year-old calves were very, very valuable. They considered a one-year-old
calf to be the most expensive Sacrifice that's the best sacrifice
that a man can offer because that one-year-old calf is so
valuable It's got a lot of life left in it's got a lot you can
do with it. You know, it's valuable and They offered that one-year-old
calf to God because they thought well God God's gonna accept me
now Because I offered something so valuable to him something
that was valued to me. I gave that up for God, you know
Look what I'm giving up for God Is God impressed with that sacrifice
No, he's not. Look back at 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel
chapter 15. Verse 21. Or verse 22, excuse
me. And Samuel said, You know, I'm in the wrong... Oh yeah, verse 22, yeah, I think
it was in the right place. And Samuel said, hath 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 hearken, to listen, than the fight of rams. You know, you want to come before
God accepted, you want to have something that God will accept,
Try obeying them. Try obeying them. Obeying is
better than sacrificing your best calf. Now, again, our problem
is we can't obey God, can we? Not on our own. But that's what
Samuel said. This is what God will accept,
perfect obedience. Perfect obedience. That calf's
not gonna do anything, take your sin away. Well? Then how about thousands of rams? If one of my animals isn't good
enough to sacrifice to God, how about if I offer thousands of
rams, a whole herd of rams? Will that get the job done? No,
it won't. Look over at Hebrews chapter
10. Hebrews chapter 10. It's hard to even imagine how
many millions of animal sacrifices were offered in Israel under
the Mosaic law. It's hard to imagine how many,
I mean, it was just going on all day long, all the time, millions
of animal sacrifices, and all those animal sacrifices, those
rivers of blood, didn't take away one sin. Hebrews 10, verse
one. For the law, having a shadow
of good things to come, and not the very image of the things,
can never with those sacrifices, which they offered year by year
continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would
they not cease to be offered? I mean, if an animal's sacrifice
were to put away sin, we wouldn't have to offer him more sacrifices,
would we? Because sin would be gone. Because if the worshipers
once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins. But
in those sacrifices, there's a remembrance again made of sins
every year. For it's not possible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. So even offering,
Thousands of rams. That won't take away our sin,
that won't get the job done. Well, how about 10,000 rivers
of oil? Oh, rivers of oil, 10,000 rivers
of oil. That word oil, I look it up,
it has to do with fat. It means, it represents wealth
and fruitfulness. This is what man's religion is
asking. Can I buy my way into heaven? How much of my money? How much
of my gold? How much of my silver? How much
of my possessions do I have to give to buy God's favor? But
you know, our riches and our gold, they don't impress God,
do they? Look at 1 Peter 1. Now, a believer does give. A believer ought to give. We
ought to give generously. That's what Scripture teaches
us. But now, we don't do that to buy God's favor. No, that's
giving, isn't it? That's just returning unto the
Lord a portion of what He's given us. But now don't think, don't
ever think God's impressed with our giving, all our gold that
we give. God paves His streets with gold.
I mean, that's what God thinks of gold. He paves His streets
with it. Gold is just as valuable as asphalt
to God. He's not gonna be impressed with
that. Human riches taken from a cursed world can never satisfy
a holy God, can they? Peter tells us that, 1 Peter
1 verse 18. For as much as you know, you're
not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold from
your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spire. No, all of our riches won't get
the job done. It takes the blood of Christ.
It takes the blood of Christ to put sin away. Well, every
time man's religion comes up with a way, an effort, this is
what I'm gonna offer to put my sin away, we find out it's not
valuable enough, it's not good enough, we always try to think
of something even more valuable. What about something more valuable
than that? Now that just shows you our dead nature. This is
what a spiritually dead person will do. Try to come up with
something else that I can give rather than beg for mercy. We
just will not beg for mercy until God makes us do it. We're just
gonna always keep trying to see what can we do to earn salvation
from God. So if my best animal doesn't
do it, if thousands of my animals won't take my sin away, if all
my wealth, my earthly riches, that won't take away my sin. How about one of my children? You're firstborn. You know, they
say the people who lived in that time considered the firstborn
to be the most precious child. How about one of my children?
The best one of my children. Surely God will accept me if
I sacrifice my own child. That's the most precious thing
that I have, you know? And people of all different religions
from all different ages have sacrificed their children trying
to earn God's favor, haven't they? So sad. It is so sad, but
they do that because their child, the most precious thing they
can think of, the most valuable thing that they can think of. And you're valuing our children. Us saying, oh, my child is the
most precious thing. You know what that's really saying?
It's saying how good I am, because they're the fruit of my body.
It's not just that they're good on their own. The only reason
they're any good is they're the fruit of my body. It's just exalting ourselves. We're so low down and God's the
high God, but somehow we have just got ourselves thinking we're
just something. We are so good that the fruit
of my body, my sinful, fallen, dead body will please a holy
God. We love our children, and we
should. We should love our children.
We love our children, we love our grandchildren. Tam and I
were talking about this Wednesday night. It's just a good thing
for a child to feel that love of grandparents, isn't it? It's
just good for a child. It's good for a child to be loved
by their parents. But we need to remember this.
While we're loving on our children, and we need to remember this,
God's not impressed with our children. God's impressed with
his son, with his son. This, the father said, audibly
from heaven, is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. He
never said that about my children. He never said that about your
children, but he said it about his son. The father is impressed
with his son. His son is the only person who
ever lived to please him. So nothing I have going to please
God. Nothing I have is going to give
me peace with God. Nothing I can produce will enable
me to meet with God and be accepted. Nothing. Everything we've tried,
we've got to our most valuable possession, our children. Nothing
I have can make me be able to meet God and be accepted. Was all hope lost? Is there anything? Is there any way that I can come
before God and be accepted? Yes, there is. There's one way,
but we'll never find it unless God shows it to us. Look at verse
eight. For he has showed thee, O man,
what is good. He showed thee, O man, what is
good. And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God? Now there are three
things that the Lord says we have to have in order to be accepted
of him. And these three things, are things
that the Lord has to put in us. We can't generate these things
ourselves. The Lord has to put these in our hearts by giving
us a new nature and a new birth. To do justly, to do right, to
not sin, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God. And we have to do all three of
these things perfectly or we'll never be accepted. Notice here,
the prophet says, these are the things that the Lord requires,
requires. You know, you can't, and our
problem is we can't do one of them, much less all three. So
God, in His mercy, in His grace, He puts these things in His people.
He puts them in them. And He showed us right off the
first thing, He says, the Lord showed us what is good. He showed
us the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one that's good. You
know, God's son came in the flesh to accomplish the redemption
of God's people. Everything that the Lord Jesus
did as a man on the earth, he did to earn salvation for his
people. He obeyed the law perfectly.
Now he didn't have to do that for himself, he's already holy.
He obeyed the law perfectly as a representative of his people.
So we would obey the law in him so that we would have a righteousness
because he obeyed the law for us. That's a righteousness Christ
earned for his people. Then he went to the cross. Now
he did that for his people, to purchase salvation for his people. He shed his blood to pay the
sin debt for his people. It was the sin of his people.
Christ had no sin of his own. He could never be condemned because
he had no sin of his own. So the father made him sin. So
he died for the sins of his people as their substitute. so that
they would never die. He did that for his people. If
Christ died for you, you don't ever have to fear God's punishment. You don't ever have to fear meeting
God in judgment because the Father cannot condemn you if Christ
already died for your sin. Christ did that for his people.
Now salvation has been earned for God's people. It's been earned,
purchased for God's elect. But now that salvation has to
be put in them. It has to be put in them. It's not just good
enough that it's done for us, now it has to be put in us. These
three things, this new nature that Mike is talking about, has
to be put in us. And that's what God the Holy
Spirit does. He causes a new nature to be born in God's people,
a nature that's holy, a nature that's righteous, a nature that
can never sin. And without that holiness, no
man shall see the Lord. So this new birth must be put
in God's people so they can meet with God and be accepted. You
see, God has to do it all, doesn't he? He has to do it all. The
father must purpose salvation for his elect. The son must purchase
that salvation for his elect. And God the Holy Spirit must
put it in the hearts of his people and keep them and preserve them. And that's what God does for
his people. Now the Lord showed us what's good I'll tell you
what's good, the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that what he told the rich
young ruler? When the rich young ruler came and said, good master,
what must I do? Our Lord said, why calls thou
me good? There's nothing good but God. Don't call me good unless
I'm God. Well, we can call him good. He
showed us what's good. He's God in human flesh. And this one, God Almighty in
human flesh, he's accomplished all three of these things that
are required of us so that we can meet with God and be accepted.
Now the first one is this, if we would come before God accepted,
we must do justly. That word to do means to make
and justly means justice. If we would be accepted of God,
we've got to make everything we do right. It's gotta be without
sin, it must be perfect. The Lord requires us to make
perfection if we would meet with Him and be accepted. Well, here's
our problem, we can't do it. We can't make justice, we can't
make perfection because all we are is sin. Now, the Lord doesn't
require we do our best. Even though you're a sinner,
just do your best. No, He doesn't require that. The Lord doesn't
require that we do better than most of fallen humanity. He doesn't require that. The
Lord requires perfection. He doesn't say, you do your best
and I'll do the rest. The Lord says, do perfection. Don't even just want to do perfection.
Do perfection. Well, that's a real problem for
us because I already read from scripture that God looked down
from heaven upon all the sons of men and you know what God
saw? There's none good. No, not one. There's not one
that's just. There's not one that can do perfection. Well, that just makes you want
to throw up your hands in frustration, doesn't it? God requires this
of me, but I can't do it. Yes, sir. Then how can a sinner
ever be just with God? How can a sinner ever be justified,
made to be without sin? Well, God showed you what's good.
It's by faith in Christ. It's by trusting Christ to obey
the law for you. It's by trusting Christ to be
perfect for you. To be just or to be justified
means without sin. Well, if all I am is sin, how
can I ever be made just without sin? It's by the death of Christ. The death of Christ justified
his people because his blood took away all their sins. So the father says they have
no sin. It's been washed away. It's been put away. Christ has
accomplished our justification. He accomplished the justification
of his people and we receive that justification by faith in
Christ, by trusting him. Let me show you that Romans chapter
three, by trusting Christ to do it all for me, to be everything
that I need. Romans 3 verse 23. For all have sinned to come short
of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that's in Christ Jesus. There it is. Christ earned justification
for his people whom God set forth to be a propitiation, a sin covering
through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of
him which what? Believeth. Believeth in Jesus. Do you want to do justly? Do
you want to do perfect? Tell you how you do it. Trust
Christ. Don't trust Christ plus your
morality. Don't trust Christ plus your religion. Trust Christ. That was our lesson this morning.
Only believe. Only believe. Trust Christ to
be everything that God requires of you. And you'll do justly. Now that's the best news a sinner
ever heard. I was going over these notes,
writing out my notes this week, and I just thought, how can a person not love that?
Christ has done it all. He's already done it. Now you
just trust Him. Isn't that good news? Just rest
in Christ. He's already taken care of everything
God requires of you. Now trust him. All right, number
two. If we would come before God and
be accepted, we must love mercy. God requires this, that we love
mercy. Now here's another way of saying
this. If we would come before God accepted, here's how we have
to come. As a sinner. As a sinner, not trying to hide
any of our sin, I'm not trying to make any excuse for any of
our sin. We have to come before God in all of our sin. You know
why I say that? Because only a sinner can love
mercy. An innocent man doesn't love mercy. He doesn't need it.
But a guilty man loves mercy because he needs it. Sinners
love mercy. A sinner has no other plea but
mercy. And it pleases God if we come
before Him Pleading mercy. Pleading mercy for Christ's sake.
Now mercy is God giving us what we do not deserve. What we deserve
is damnation for our sin, isn't it? What we do not deserve is
eternal life. What we do not deserve is redemption.
Now God showed you what's good. He showed you. It's Christ. God
showed Christ to you. So if you want to find mercy,
look to Christ. It's in Him. It's in Him. God
gives mercy to His people for Christ's sake. Because of what
Christ has done. Because of what Christ has accomplished
for His people. Do you know why God does not
damn His people? Because He condemned His Son
in our place. And God gives His people what
Christ deserves. What Christ earned. That's mercy. The Father can only give mercy
if Christ put away our sins. The father slaughtered his son
so that he could be merciful to his people, so he could give
eternal life to his people, so he could accept his people in
his presence. Now, if you're a sinner, you
love that. I mean, I love that. I love getting
to say that week after week after week. God shows mercy to his
people because his son was slaughtered in our place. I can't think of
anything more glorious than that. This is the way the father gets
glory to his name. He slaughtered his son so he
could show mercy to the likes of you and me. Now sinners love
that. We love mercy. And if you love
mercy, the father will accept you because you're loving mercy
that glorifies God. And which is what God told Moses
is his greatest glory. I'll show mercy to him I will
show mercy, my sovereign mercy. You're trusting the thing that
gives God the most glory, loving mercy for Christ's sake. And
you know, if you love mercy, it will make this life easier. It really will. If you love mercy,
you'll love to show mercy to others. Now showing mercy to
others makes this life more enjoyable, makes it easier to get through
because being merciful putting down strife and putting down
anger, putting down, just by being merciful. That's a whole
lot easier than fighting all the time, isn't it? God's people
love mercy. All right, here's the third thing. If we would come before God accepted,
we must walk humbly with our God. And one of the best definitions
of humility that I've ever heard is this. is for us to have a
right view of ourselves. Now that word humbly that Micah
uses there means to be lowly. To be lowly. Now there's nothing
that should come more naturally to sinners like you and me than
to be lowly. There's nothing that should come
more natural to you and me than to be humble before our God.
There's nothing that should come more naturally to you and me
than being humble before each other. Is there? Because we don't have anything
to be proud of. We have nothing to be proud of. Our sin nature
and the sin that we commit should make us ashamed. Ashamed, be
humbled before our God and to be humbled before each other.
You know, I can't. I can't look down on you and
say, oh, I'm so much better than you when I know the sin that
I am. My sin should just make me so
ashamed and humble me. But boy, our nature is the opposite
of everything that we should be. We're so filled with pride. We're just filled with pride
about ourselves. We're filled with pride about
what we can do. It's just shameful because we've
got nothing to be proud of. We are so full of pride. And
when God gave the list of things he hated, number one on the list
is a proud look. And that's what we're, even a
believer, even a believer that knows this is what I am, I'm
a sinner, I'm undone, I'm filthy, I'm vile, I know my sin and if
I'm saved, I'm saved by grace. And this will put our nature
in its proper light, the nature of a believer. This is what your
pastor says, I think it's hilarious. He said, I know I'm a sinner,
but you call me a sinner, I'm gonna be mad at you. Isn't that
us? It's pride. It's pride. So if we're going to be humbled,
God's going to have to humble us, isn't He? And you know how
God humbles His people? It's not by just smashing us
with the rod of the law or taking His mighty hand and just smashing
us to smithereens. Our God humbles His people simply
by revealing Christ to me. He is so tender. Nothing humbles
a believer more than seeing Christ. Oh, when I get some glimpse of
Christ and His perfection, well, I'm humbled. I'm humbled. Now,
I get a pretty good glimpse of truly how sinful I am when I
see myself in the light of Christ's holiness. And when I hear the
message of Christ and Him crucified, I'm humbled. Every time I'm humbled. Christ crucified. Now that's
the message of the gospel. Christ crucified. Not just that
Christ died on the cross, but why did He die on the cross?
What did He accomplish on the cross? Christ died on the cross
because He was made sin for His people. Because He took the sin
of His people away from them and took it into His own body
on the tree. And by his death, he put that sin away. Now in
a nutshell, that's the message of Christ crucified. You know
why that humbles me? Because that message tells me
my sin is so bad. It's so vile. It's so wicked. It's so deep seated in me that
the only way my sin can be put away is if the son of God dies
in my place. My sin debt is so astronomical,
the only thing valuable enough to pay for it is the blood of
God himself. Now that humbles me, because
that shows me what a sinner I am. And that shows me just how much
I need Christ. I need him. That humbles me before
him. Well, how do I walk humbly with
God? You know, our walk is our conduct
as we go through this life. The way we conduct ourselves,
that's our walk. Well, how does a believer walk humbly with God? How do we do that? The same way
Enoch did, by faith. Enoch walked with God by faith. By faith, by trusting Christ. When I put all my faith, all
my hope, all my confidence, any expectation I have of eternal
life, When I put it in Christ alone, this is what I'm saying.
I'm nothing. I got nothing. I can't produce
anything. I'm a low down, good for nothing
sinner. There's nothing for me to be
proud of. There's nothing I can do to contribute, to give anything
to God that God will ever accept. The only hope I possibly have
is Christ alone. That faith pleases the Father.
That faith pleases Him, makes us accepted with Him. Your acceptance
with God, it's all because of who Christ is, what he's done,
what he's accomplished. That's the only way a sinner
can ever meet with God and be accepted in the beloved or accepted
in the beloved. Everything that God requires
of his people. Now, this is what God said. He
said, this is required of you to do justly, to love mercy,
to walk humbly with thy God. That's required of you. You can't
produce it. So God provided it for you. God
provided it for you in the person of his son. So that he would
accept you so he could be both just and the justifier of the
ungodly. Now that is the sweetest. The
gospel is the sweetest story a sinner's ever heard. And it's
the most comforting story, isn't it? Doesn't that comfort your
heart? Doesn't that just comfort your heart, calm your heart,
Oh, what we've gone through this week. We can all. Just settle down. Look to Christ. Rest in him. He has provided everything God
requires of us. Aren't we thankful? All right.
Oh, Lord, bless that to you. Give us the faith to believe
it. Let's bow together. Our father, how we thank you
for your word. clear instruction in your word,
pointing us to Christ. We never could have figured out
on our own how pleased that you would be with us because of your
son. In your son, oh how we thank
you. How we thank you that it pleased you to reveal this to
us. You put it in your word, we still wouldn't have understood
it unless you'd been pleased to reveal it to us and point
us to Christ. How we thank you for the simplicity
of the gospel. So simple to believe, so simple
to understand because of the singularity of the gospel. It's
all Christ. Just look to Him, just believe
Him. Father, I beg of you that you give each of us here this
morning that faith to believe in and trust Christ, to be found
in Him and Him alone. Father, I know I ask a great
Great blessing for the salvation of sinners. But we know you're able. We know
that you're able. And Father, would you get glory
to your name in saving sinners like us, preserving us and keeping
us and presenting us one day faultless before your throne.
Would you do it so that you get all the glory for it, we pray.
Father, it's in Christ's name, for his sake and his glory, we
pray, amen. All right, Sean.