Would you turn back to the sixth
chapter of the book of Micah? I had, uh, prepared another message
for tonight and two or three days ago, this passage
of scripture, uh, came into my mind. I thought about it. I thought
I'm going to preach on that sometime soon. And then the next day it
came again and I thought, Hmm. I'm going to preach on that.
And then when it came to the third day and I was thinking about
it, I thought maybe I ought to be preaching on that. So, um,
I've entitled this message. What does God require of me? What a question. What does the
living God require of me? The word require means what is
necessary for me to do in order for him
to accept me. Now that question almost makes
me nervous, but I want to know the truth. Well, in this passage
of scripture, he gives us three things. What does God require
of thee or what does the Lord require of thee? but to do justly. Now notice he doesn't say to
do your best. He says to do justly. And he says to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. And that's what the Lord requires.
Do I meet those requirements? I hope every one of us will ask
this question to ourself, and I ask that God gives us grace
to deal honestly. Do I do justly? Do I love mercy? Do I walk with God in genuine
humility. Now in verse six of Micah chapter
six, Micah asks a question that I believe everybody has asked
at one time or the other. He says, wherewith, what shall
I bring? How shall I come before the Lord
and bow myself before the most high God? How can I come before
the Lord and worship him? Now, he says, shall I come before
him with a burnt offering and with calves of a year old? Will
the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with tens of thousands
of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Now, everybody knows that they
can't come into God's presence without a sacrifice. Even someone
who's never heard the gospel. They have some kind of intuitive
knowledge that they can't come into God's presence without some
kind of sacrifice. They can't come on their own.
Cain and Abel understood this. They brought different sacrifices.
Abel brought the blood of the lamb saying, there's no way I
can come into your presence apart from the blood. of the coming
lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. Abel believed
the gospel. Don't think he didn't. He knew
exactly what he was doing. Cain brought the fruit of the
ground. He brought his best. He brought
his greatest efforts. God had respect to Abel and his
offering. Now something is very impressive
for God to respect it. And the reason he had respect
for Abel and his offering is he had respect for the blood
of his son. But the scripture says, God had
no respect to Cain and the offering that he brought. Now, There are all kinds of sacrifices
men bring that they hope God will accept. I've done this.
I've done that. I've sacrificed this. I've started
doing that. And the reason they believe that
is they've never understood what the Lord meant when he said,
I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. Now, Micah says, shall I come
with burnt offerings with calves of a year old? Shall I come with
all these animal sacrifices? Verse seven, will the Lord be
pleased with thousands of rams or with tens of thousands of
rivers of oil? He multiplies everything now.
And he talks about how costly it would be. Thousands of rivers
of oil, thousands of ramp. Look what this would cost me.
Would God be pleased if I brought sacrifices at such great cost
to myself? And look what he says in verse
seven, the latter part, shall I give my firstborn, my child
for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul. And I've got one daughter. What would you all think of me?
If in order to make up for my sin, I had her sacrificed. You
wouldn't think very well of me, would you? I think it's amazing
that men have had such warped views of God that they think
God would be pleased if they offered up their children as
sacrifice. Why, that's warped. What kind
of God do you have that would make you think something like
that? But Micah, I believe, is bringing out the ridiculousness
of the men's sacrifices that they think they can bring. No,
the Lord wouldn't be pleased with anything like that. He's
holy. That's not something we would bring God. Now look what
he says in verse eight. He says, he hath showed thee,
O man, what is good. You know, the only way we know
what is good is because of what he shows. We're completely dependent
upon his revelation. If he doesn't show us, we will
not know. He has showed thee, oh man, what
is good. Thank God he has shown us what
is good, what is acceptable, what is well pleasing to him. Now, let me give you a hint. When he says he showed thee what
is good, It doesn't have anything to do with anything me or you
do. Not that God can be pleased with.
I couldn't help but think of the rich young ruler coming up
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, good master, what
good things shall I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord corrected
him. He said, why callest thou me
good? Now the Lord Jesus is good. He knew that, but he knew that
man was coming to him simply as a good teacher, as a great
man. And he said, good man, good master. What good thing can I do to bring
myself up to your level of goodness? And the Lord said, why are you
calling me good? There's none good, but God. I think of what
Paul said in Romans chapter seven, verse 18, he said, I know That
in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. He showed the old man what's
good and it's not in you. Listen to this scripture from
Romans chapter three, verses 10 through 12. It says, as it
is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that
understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. There's not one man who has initiated
truly seeking after God. Not once. It hadn't happened
once. Oh, he might've been religious, but he didn't seek the living
God. There's none that understandeth. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together, become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Now that's the testimony of holy
scriptures. He has shown the old man what
is good and it's not in me or you. Turn with me to Exodus chapter
33 for just a moment. Now the setting of this is shortly
after the children of Israel had crossed through the Red Sea
and Moses went up on the mount. to receive the law from God,
and he was gone 40 days. And while he was gone, the children
of Israel made two golden calves and bowed down and worshiped
them. After all they had seen, the
Lord do for them. After Moses has gone 40 days,
how quickly they forget, and they bow down and make golden
calves and worship them and say, these be thy gods, O Israel,
that have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. How evil. And don't think for a second
you wouldn't have been right there with them. Now Moses is praying for him
at this time. He says in chapter 32, they've
sinned a great sin. I have mercy on us. They've sinned a great sin. And
then he says, if you don't have mercy on them, blot me out of
a book you're writing. What love Moses demonstrated
at that time. But during the course of this
time, he's praying to the Lord. Remember, we're wanting to know
what he shows us is goodness. So during the course of this
prayer in Exodus 33 verse 18, Moses says, I beseech thee, show
me thy glory. Now, Moses had seen a lot. He'd
seen the parting of the Red Sea, he'd seen the 10 plagues, but
he said, I've not seen that which you call your glory. I beseech
you, show me your glory. You know, I remember one time
when I was in school and I remember praying this prayer. And I didn't
even know what I was asking for. I was waiting for the room to
light up and start shining and some kind of glorious manifestation.
I don't know what I was asking, but I remember asking that show
me your glory. And look at the way the Lord
answers this. And he said, I'll make all a
double L all. my goodness to pass before thee. You know what the Lord's goodness
is? It's his capacity to save somebody like that bunch and
somebody like us. That's the Lord's goodness. It's
his capacity to save. He says, I'll proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee. I'll proclaim who I am. You see
who the Lord is, is seen in how he saves somebody like me or
you. You know, if the Lord saves me, you know what he demonstrates
about himself? He's utterly sovereign. He's
gracious. He's absolutely just. He's completely
merciful. All of his attributes, all that
God is, is demonstrated in saving somebody like me. And I'll be
a trophy of his grace. An absolute, he did it all. And you know that. I'll proclaim
my name before you. And look what he says next. He
says, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. Moses
said, save all these people. He says, I will be gracious,
but I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I'll
show mercy to whom I will show mercy. You see, his mercy is
sovereign mercy. It's not something you or I can
merit. It's not something I can say, I did this now save me.
No, his mercy is sovereign mercy. That's the only kind of mercy.
That's the only kind of grace there is. So he has shown me
what is good, oh man. His goodness. his capacity to
save people that are that evil in a way in which he showcases
who he is and he saves whom he will. Now, what does he require
of thee? What do I have to do or be for
him to accept me? What does God demand of me? What do I need and cannot be
lacking in what is necessary to the extent that if I don't
have it, I will be denied entrance into the kingdom of heaven. What
does the Lord require of thee? Now, if there were no gospel,
I would have no hope. If I read this passage of scripture
and didn't understand the gospel, it would drive me to despair. May the Lord enable us to understand
this in light of the gospel of his son. But as I said, if there
were no gospel, I would have no hope of meeting any of these
requirements. I've already failed in all three. To do justly. To perform an act in a way that
God could be pleased with it. To do justly, not to do justly. You do the right thing and you
have the right motive and it's perfect before God. It's something
God can accept to do justly. Have you ever done anything justly
that God would say, yes, that's just, I can accept that. I failed
that. And what about to love mercy?
To love mercy, to not only loving the mercy of God, but loving
to be merciful. How many times have you turned
your head towards someone when you should have been merciful
to them, but you turned your head away so you wouldn't have
to? How many times have you done
on that one? Have you loved mercy? And what about walking humbly
with God? How many times have you complained with this province?
How many times have you complained this winter about this winter?
I've done it a lot. When we were driving over here,
I was thinking, man, we're getting hammered. Is there any lead up? Well, what that is, is complaining
with the Lord. He's the one who sent the weather. And we've walked
plenty in pride and self-righteousness and haughtiness, but to walk
humbly, to walk with God in faith and submission and humility. How have you and I done in those
three areas? Flunked. Flunked. Ain't nobody in here that's done
justly. There's nobody in here that's loved mercy. There's nobody
in here that has really walked humbly with God. But let's consider these things
in light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does
God require of you? To do justly. Now, we ought to always do the
right thing, shouldn't we? Under all circumstances, we ought
to always do the right thing. I remember there's a movie that
came out 20 years ago entitled, Do the Right Thing. We ought to do the right thing. But the fact of the matter is
we haven't. We've sinned. We certainly are not doing justly.
If we don't confess this before God, we're doing unjustly. We're being dishonest. You and
I have not done justly, not something that God could accept, but this
is still God's requirement to do justly. And God will not lower
or compromise his requirement. He's not going to do it. He's
not going to compromise. He's not going to negotiate with sinners.
He has this requirement to do justly. Here's the gospel. To him, Romans chapter four,
verse five, to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness, absolute justice. God justifies the ungodly. Now, because of that, I have
done justly. Because of what Jesus Christ
did in my behalf, I personally have done justly. That's how
real justification is. A holy God looks me over and
this is his testimony of me, not my testimony. My testimony
be false. Whatever I'd say, you could shoot
holes through it. But this is God's testimony of every believer. He has done justly. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. And if God has justified me through
the work of Christ on the cross, my sin became the sin of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He became guilty of it. He was
punished for it. He put it away. His perfect obedience
is given to me. And I stand before God as one
who has always done that, which is right and have never done
anything that is wrong. It's called justification. To
do justly. Look with me for a moment at
Psalm 24. This is the great Ascension Psalm. Verse three of Psalm 24, who
shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in
his holy place? Who's going to send up from earth
into heaven? Well, he answers that question. He that hath clean hands. And
a pure heart who has not lifted up his soul into vanity nor sworn
deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and
righteousness from the God of his salvation. Now, I have clean
hands. I've got a pure heart. I've never
sworn deceitfully, not once, because the righteousness and
merits of Jesus Christ are mine and I have done justly. Not just that I'm counted just
or viewed as just, but I have actually done justly. That is
the reality of the justified work of Christ. Every believer
has done justly. I'm justified, I've never sinned.
I have the first requirement. This is more than me knowing
I ought to do the right thing or even trying to do the right thing.
This is me doing justly. What does God require of thee
to absolutely to do justly? Now, if you knew that you'd done
justly, that you'd never sinned, that you'd never done anything
wrong, you'd always done that which was right, if you knew
that, You wouldn't be afraid of dying, would you? You wouldn't
be afraid of standing before God in judgment. He wouldn't
have any reason to condemn you. Now that is the heritage of every
single believer. We have done justly. All the stuff that you feel guilty
about, it's washed away. It's blotted out. It is no more. You have done justly. You see, the most just thing
you could ever do is believe the gospel. Paul said, do we
make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish
the law. What does God require of you?
Number one, to do justly. I've got that requirement. I've
done justly. That is how real the work of
Christ is for the believer. I wonder if any of us really
believe that. It's hard to get a hold of, isn't it? It's hard,
but it's so. We have done justly. Now the
next requirement is to love mercy, to love mercy, not just to be
able to give a proper textbook definition of it, not to be able
to define it, but to love mercy. I've said this before, trying
to define mercy according to the scriptures. What is mercy?
Well, Grace is God giving a man what he does not deserve. He
gives it to him. It's kind of like that illustration
I used this morning in Bible study. If you go to a restaurant
and the waiter treats you rude and is very slow in giving the
food to you and brings you out real cold food that doesn't taste
good. The cook has been rude, and the restaurant has just,
it's been dirty, and the table's messy, and there's food all over
the floor, and you think, I'm gonna, if you give them a tip,
the reason it's not in them, isn't that so? It's absolutely
not in them. The reason you give them tips
is because you're gracious. And if you gave them a big tip,
it's because you're bigly gracious. Well, the Lord, His grace is
Him giving us. Giving us. what we absolutely
positively do not deserve. And mercy is God not giving me
what I actually deserve. What do I deserve? You know, when Brian read that
passage of scripture about Israel, Israel, what they did there in
Hosea chapter two, I thought that's me. going after other
lovers. Such a sad, sad testimony concerning
believers doing that. And what would happen if the
Lord gave me what I deserve? You know, he'd cut me off. He'd
cut me off. He'd say, let him alone. I've had it with him. No more.
And I can see why the Lord would cut me off. And you can see why
the Lord would cut you off. But mercy is God not giving you
what you deserve. And it's more than that. You
and mercy. God's Grace is God because of His graciousness,
because of the graciousness of His heart, because He delights
in grace. He gives grace to those who don't
deserve it. But when He's merciful, His mercy
has something to do with Him being moved to pity by the misery
that your sin has brought on you. And He's moved to pity by
it. And He delights in showing mercy. That is God's mercy. Now, let me tell you two things
that are always true about God's mercy. God's mercy is always
sovereign. And it's always saving. God's mercy, first of all, is
always sovereign. What that means is, is God doesn't
give his mercy to you in response to you He did it simply because
he will. He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I will have mercy. Nobody has any claim on God's
mercy. I can't say, well, he has to have mercy on me because
I did this or I did that. No, I've got no claim on God's
mercy. If God was pleased to save everybody
in this room, but me. And let me go to hell. Could
I say he's unjust? No. His mercy is sovereign mercy. I'll be merciful to whom I will
be merciful. And his mercy is always saving
mercy. If he gives you mercy, you're
saved. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace,
are you saved? Now, when will you love mercy? When will I love mercy? I just
gave the scriptural definition of God's mercy, and I have no
doubt what I said is so, but he doesn't say knowing what mercy
means. That person What does God require
of you to love mercy? To love mercy. When will you love mercy? When
you have no merit. When you are guilty. When you're not a victim, but
you're a criminal and it is all your fault when you are totally
depraved. Not just that you know the doctrine
of total depravity, but you see that you yourself are totally
depraved, unable to do anything good. Everything you do is bad, totally
depraved. Do you believe that about yourself?
I tell you what, if you do, You love mercy because it's the only
way you can be saved. And you love mercy. You are a genuine lover of the
mercy of God. When God looks at you, he sees
someone who actually positively loves mercy. And you will happen to you if
you ever, or if I ever come to love mercy. We will love being merciful. If we ever experience the mercy
of God, here's the evidence that we've experienced it. We love
being merciful. I'm not talking, and I'm talking
about that, I love that scripture in Romans 12 where it says, he
that showeth mercy with cheerful. with cheerfulness, not begrudgingly,
not because it's a duty, but because it's a privilege to be
merciful to that one who positively, absolutely does not deserve mercy. You know, that's the way you
are and you want to be merciful. Blessed are the merciful for
they shall obtain mercy. Now, what does God require of
you? He requires of you to do justly.
That's justification. And he requires of you to love
mercy, to love the mercy of God and to love being merciful. And you know, that describes
every believer. There's not a believer alive
who does not love to be merciful. Now they want to be more merciful.
I want to be more merciful. I want to, I want to be someone
who is a merciful person having experienced the mercy of God. And the third requirement found
in our text in verses eight, he has showed the old man what
is good and what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly. and to love mercy. Now those
first two I have. I've got them. I do justly because
Christ is my righteousness before God and the very justice of God
demands my salvation. This isn't make-believe. This
is real. Just as truly as he bore my sin and was made sin
in my place and bore the curse and wrath of God, just as truly
as he was made sin, I made the very righteousness. Every believer
has made the very righteousness of God in him. And we do in fact,
love mercy. We love how God saves by sovereign
mercy. I never will forget hearing one
preacher. Uh, he was preaching on the sovereign mercy of God.
And he said, somebody says, well, I don't like that. He said, well,
I do. And you know, I do too. I do too. I love the mercy of
God. Now here's the third requirement and to walk humble. with thy God. Now the life of
faith is walking with God. It's walking with God. Now I
realize that you and I, particularly, because I can remember, I've
got the blessing now of my job is to read the Bible and pray
and seek the Lord and to bring out messages for you all And
so there's not very many days where I go all day not even thinking
about the Lord. I remember when I worked in a
job, I don't know how many times I would lay my head down on my
bed and realize I hadn't even thought of the Lord that day.
And that's a horrible thing when you think that. You think, what's
wrong with me? Well, you've got this thing called the flesh.
That's what's wrong with you. It's just, it's awful. It's awful. And you realize, you think, have
I even walked with the Lord at all today? Well, did Christ walk
with the Lord? You did. And the fact of the
matter is also we do walk with the Lord, even when we're not
thinking about him, we believe him, we love him, we want to
honor him, we want to please him, we want to be pleasing to
him, we really do, we love him. And we want to walk with the
Lord. I want to be somebody, I want to be like Enoch. Enoch
walked with God. And he did so by faith. The scripture
says, if you believe the gospel, You're someone who walks with
the living God. You live before God and you walk
with him. And when we see our justification,
how it's holy, I mean, it's just something the Lord did, isn't
it? You know, you had no hand in this. It's something he did
for you. And when you see his mercy toward
you, You know what it does? It humbles you, doesn't it? You
walk humbly with your God. There isn't any other way to
walk with Him than to do so in humility. Remember, God resists
the proud. And He gives grace to the humble. Now, walking with God humbles
a man. You can't walk with God and not
do so in humility. He's altogether glorious. You're a sinner saved by grace.
You can't be anything but humble in walking with God. Sin humbles a man. You think of your sin against
him. We're humble before him and we're humble before his providence
when the Lord gives us grace, we're humble before his prophets.
Now, I realize I said we always complain about the weather or
something like that, but really, the scripture says, in everything,
give thanks. Doesn't matter what it is. In
everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God and Christ
Jesus concerning you. Whatever's going on with you
right now, it's God's will for you, for his glory and for your
good. And you really believe that.
And you believe whatever He sends your way is right. You're like
David. When Shimei is cursing David
and throwing stuff at him, and Abishai says, you want me to
come take his head off? He said, no. The Lord said, curse David.
Whatever comes your way, you know it's the Lord that brought
it to you. Like Eli. When Samuel says, God's
going to kill your two boys, Eli said, it's the Lord. Let
him do what seemeth him good. Whatever the Lord does is right.
You really believe that? Now that's walking in humility
before God. Whatever he does is right. Now
here's humility. Here's the greatest statement
regarding humility, I think, in all the gospel. Paul the Apostle. Now Paul wasn't the... He knew
God blessed him. He called himself the wise master
builder that the Lord had used to Expound the gospel. He was used by God to expand
the gospel more than any other human being. He wrote the New
Testament. What was his testimony concerning
himself? He said, by the grace of God, I am what I am. First of all, I'm a sinner. And
I know the only reason I know that is because the grace of
God has taught me that. I'm justified. and I'm justified
by the grace of God. I'm called and he called me by
his grace. I'm somebody that walks with
God and that is by the grace of God. Now here is what folks
who walk humbly with God believe. They believe salvation's of the
Lord. They believe everything they are is by the grace of God. They wouldn't dare give their
works, their flesh, any of the credit. They believe salvation
by grace. And before God, how can I be
anything but lowly? And you know, this is not something
I'm gonna be telling you about. You know, I'm really humble. Oh, no. If I'm really humble before God,
it will be seen in how I treat you. It really will. If I walk in humility before
the Lord, It will be seen in me walking in humility before
you. And if that's not there, it's
just all talk. So what does God require of you? May the Lord
burn this in our hearts to do justly. Now, when it talks about
doing justly, don't think about all the things you need to do
that would be just. You remember Christ Jesus did just say, His
doing of justice is what you do. It's what you do. It's what God requires of you.
What does God require of you? To love mercy. Do you love mercy? I'll tell
you what I do. I love being saved by the mercy of God. And what
I want to be more than anything else is a merciful man, a pitiful
man, someone who's merciful. And my great desire is to walk
with God, to walk with him, and to do so in humility. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. Now, God requires these three
things, and every believer has them.