Latest / HBCWestminster / 5.29.22 Micah 6:8 Pastor Sam Porges

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5.29.22 Micah 6:8 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

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  Micah chapter 6 verse 8. Last week, if you were here, we began a two-week study of this one verse. We learned that the nation of Israel, led by wicked kings, had been walking in blatant covenant unfaithfulness to God. The nation's leaders had neglected the law, they had worshipped idols, and they had even sacrificed their own baby boys to false gods.
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  Because of their stubborn lack of repentance, they placed themselves under the displeasure and judgment of God. And in chapter 6, the people of Israel and Judah asked what God required of them in order for them to return into his favor. Remember from verses 6 and 7 of this chapter, they say, Lord, do we bring burnt offerings? What about thousands of rivers of oil? Will that gain us your favor?
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  What about our firstborn son? What will gain us favor with you? And Micah responds in verse 8 by stating that God had already told them what he required. And so if you would and are able, let's stand in honor of the reading of God's word. Micah 6, verse 8. 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?
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  and to walk humbly with your God. I'm going to pray for us this morning, and for my prayer, I'm taking words from Thomas Akempis, who was a monk who lived around 600 years ago, but his words are fitting for us this morning, and so let's pray. We will speak unto our Lord, who are dust and ashes. If we count ourselves more, behold, you stand against us and our iniquities.
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  bear true testimony and we cannot deny it. But if we abase ourselves and bring ourselves to nothing and shrink from all self-esteem and grind ourselves to dust, which we are, your grace will be favorable unto us and your light will be near unto our hearts and all self-esteem, how little soever it be, shall be swallowed up in the depths of our nothingness and shall perish forever. There you show us ourselves, what we are, what we were,
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  And where we have come, so foolish were we and ignorant. If we are left to ourselves, behold, we are nothing. We are all weakness. But if suddenly you look upon us, immediately we are made strong and filled with new joy. And it is great marvel that we are so suddenly lifted up and so graciously embraced by you, Lord, since we are always being carried to the deep by our own weight. Bow us low by your word today.
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  and in our lowliness lift us up to behold your beauty. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, in this short verse, Micah 6.8, Micah condenses Moses' 613 laws into three. And last week we studied the first two requirements of God, right? Do justice and love mercy. We said that
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  Because we are the people of God, we seek to align our character with God's character. Because God is both just and compassionate, we also must be a people who are just and compassionate. And so today we're going to explore the third requirement in this verse, walk humbly. And before we do, I have a story for you. The story goes that there was this big rancher in Texas who was talking to this small immigrant farmer.
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  And he really thought he'd put it in perspective for him. And so he said, Mr. Singh, how big is your farm? And Mr. Singh said, you see that lamppost down there about 50, 60 yards? And you see that lamppost over there about 50, 60 yards away? That's about how long and how wide my ranch is. And the big Texan rancher looked at him and said, you know, if you were living on my farm, on my ranch,
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  If you were to get into your car at sunrise and start driving east, and you were to drive and drive and drive and drive, about three hours later, you would reach the end of my property line. And Mr. Singh looked at him and said, you know, I used to have a car just like that as well. Humility always has a way of finding us out, doesn't it? We are faced with opportunities to be humble all the time.
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  And what's funny is we never ask for those opportunities. In fact, when I was in high school, I had a small group leader, right, who would lead us high schoolers. And he would joke with us. He would say, don't pray for humility because if God grants your prayer, it's going to hurt, right? As we will see, humility is a prerequisite to walking with God. It is a required course in the life of faith.
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  And since scripture calls us to be humble, and honestly, since humility is going to find us all anyway, we would do well to learn how to accept humility so that we can, as Micah says, walk humbly with God. The phrase that I want us to hold onto this morning is this. Humility suits a Christian. Humility suits a Christian. It suits me. It suits you.
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  This morning we're going to examine what Micah meant when he said, walk humbly with God. Then we're going to look at what one man has called double humility, right? Two types of humility that we should have, both creature humility and sinner humility. And then we're going to briefly explore the value of embracing humility. So let's start with what Micah meant when he said, walk humbly with your God. In Micah's day, both Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judah, the southern kingdom,
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  were led by men who operated out of pride, not humility. Their ambition was their main goal. They set out to realize their personal ambitions and to satisfy their own sinful impulses. They consciously neglected God and the law and sought to take matters into their own hands. And what they produced was a nation that didn't know God.
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  And because so few in the nation walked humbly, so few walked with God. And if the people were to return, Micah says that God required humility. But what exactly does that mean? You know, this verse, Micah 6, 8, is the only time in the entire Old Testament that the Hebrew word sana is used for humility. It's unique here. Sana simply means lowly.
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  or thinking modestly about your own importance. While doing justice and showing mercy have to do with action, lowliness has to do with attitude. Now, humility makes the short list of God's requirements because God is not only concerned with your outward behavior, he's also concerned with your heart. If you were to exercise justice perfectly and practice mercy perfectly,
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  but you weren't humble in heart, you would stand in opposition to God. Because, as we know well from the scriptures, he opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humility is the most fundamental God-honoring attitude that we can possess. The humble heart says to God, God, I believe what you say because you're God, and I obey what you command because you're God.
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  Humility is at home in submission to God. It's comfortable feeling gloriously small in God's presence, and it doesn't see itself as the center of the universe. Humility loves rejoicing in the strengths and victories of others, and it doesn't feel insecure when others are promoted or lifted up or recognized. Lowliness is the height of spirituality before God. I'll say that again.
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  lowliness is the height of spirituality before God. I don't know if you know this, but on this day, May 29th in the year 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from Nepal, summited Mount Everest for the first time. They were the first.
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  After a freezing and uncomfortable and sleepless night on May 28th, the two set out early in the morning on the 29th, and they reached the south summit by 9 a.m., and by 1130 in the morning, they were standing on top of the world. You know, in our pursuit of God, if we want to reach the 29,032-foot summit of God's grace, we actually need to bring ourselves low. Do you want to enjoy communion with God?
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  walk humbly with God. That is what he requires. So to reach the heights of God's grace, we need to bring ourselves low. Lowliness is the height of spirituality before God. Now, when we talk about humility, we have no greater example than Christ himself, right? No greater example. If you've got your Bibles, turn to the right to Philippians 2. Philippians 2, beginning in verse 3, Paul writes this.
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  Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
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  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Despite the fact that Christ was God, he willingly emptied himself in obedience to the Father. Christ did not consider his status as God something to be used for his personal ambition, but rather he became a servant of sinners. I mean, Christ was powerful.
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  influential, and yet he was humble. Christ was the most gifted, he was the most wise, and he was the most holy, yet he was lowly. We said last week, and talking about justice and mercy, we said that there's no better place you can see justice and mercy at work than in the cross, where sin and evil doesn't go unpunished, and yet the ones who committed those sins
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  are set free, where God bestows unbelievable mercy on us, and yet his justice is poured out on Christ himself. And so justice and mercy are seen in the cross, and the same exact thing is true of humility. What greater picture can you think of for humility than God hanging on a cross? It's like there is no better picture. The cross is the quintessence of humility.
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  In fact, we could use the words humble and Christ-like synonymously. To be Christ-like is to be humble. So humility is so fundamental to our faith. Now, if that's true, then pride, conversely, is the most fundamental sinful attitude. It was pride that caused Satan to fall from heaven.
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  And it was pride that enticed Adam and Eve away from God. Pride says to God, I think I know better than you. Your rules are outdated. I'll follow you when it's convenient for me or when it serves my purposes, but other than that, I'm going to live life on my own terms. Pride is the native language of our culture. Our world, this is really interesting. Tell me if this is true. Our world has defined this fundamental sin
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  As fundamental wisdom. Isn't that true? It's absolutely true. Our world tells us, play God. Use others to get ahead. Do what you feel. Increase your own fame. Promote your own brand. See anyone who doesn't help you in your pursuits as irrelevant. That's right. Right. Today's prevailing perspective is this. My beliefs.
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  And my feelings and my self-identification are supremely authoritative, and you don't have the right to disagree. You don't get to tell me what to do. It's about me. That is the prevailing spirit of our culture. We as a culture are steeped in pride. Now, Romans 12, verse 3 has a really interesting thing to say about pride. Paul says this.
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  Notice in this verse that the contrast Paul makes is between thinking more highly of yourself than you ought with sober judgment. Pride, sober judgment. This verse contrasts those two because
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  I think it's making the point that you can't see clearly or function rightly when you're drunk, and the same thing is true of pride. If you are operating out of pride, you cannot see God for who he is, you cannot see others for who they are, and you cannot see yourself for who you are. You are living in a false reality, and this is one of the dangers with pride, is that it entices you with this very high-maintenance false reality.
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  right? When we're operating in pride, don't we project a version of ourselves that's better than we actually are? We're more gifted. We're more smart. We look better than we actually do, right? The problem with that is if you're living in pride and you constantly want other people to think this certain thing of you that's not true, first of all, you're living a lie. Second, that requires a lot of maintenance because you're constantly going to be
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  dressing to impress other people, speaking to impress other people. You have to constantly position yourself and calculate conversations and manipulate them so that you come out on top, so that you come out looking really good. And it's a lie. It's an absolute lie. It's like spiritual drunkenness. You are not seeing reality clearly. Now, humility, on the other hand, is like spiritual sobriety. Humble people are able to see God.
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  for who he is humble people are able to look at others for who they actually are and they're able to view themselves accurately and because they can see all those things rightly they can live in actual true reality so this is what humility is right when micah says walk humbly with god he's saying get low bring yourself low before god and before others because humility
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  suits you. Now, since we've established a little bit of what humility is, we're going to look at some reasons why we should be humble. When it comes to Micah 6.8 and he says, walk humbly with God, we can kind of view Micah's perspective on humility as the confluence of two rivers that join into one. The confluence of two rivers that join into one. Now, these two rivers are creature humility and sinner humility.
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  Francis Schaeffer, who was a very well-known evangelist and apologist in the 1950s to 1980s, wrote about what he called double humility. Double humility. He said that every person has two compelling reasons to be humble, and I find that these are inarguable. First, because he is a creature. Second, because he is a sinner. Why should you be humble? Because you're a creature, and because you're a sinner. Why should I be humble? The same.
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  Creature humility is born out of the belief that there is a God and I am not him. Creature humility reminds me that there is a creator and that I am just one of his creatures. I'm sure you've heard, I know some of you in this room have heard this story before, but there's a story about Muhammad Ali and his name isn't exactly synonymous with humility, right? But there's a story about him on a plane.
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  And the plane was hitting some mild turbulence. And so the captain flips on the seatbelt sign. And so everyone in the plane complies except Muhammad Ali. And so the flight attendant comes over to him and says, sir, would you please fasten your seatbelt? And he looked at her and he said, Superman don't need no seatbelt. And she responded, well, Superman don't need no airplane neither. We are all tempted at times to think that we're greater than we actually are.
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  Isn't that true? We're all tempted. But you guys, we're just creatures. We're just creatures. If you've been following with us in the Read Scripture app, right, the year Bible reading plan, you may have noticed that we're in the end of Job, right? And today specifically, the reading is for Job chapters 38 and 39. Now these chapters, it's like 38 to 40. These chapters are probably the most famous in Job because creator God,
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  puts creature Job in his place. He's been demanding an answer from God for his suffering. And then God shows up and he tells Job, you're demanding an answer? I'm going to question you and you're going to brace yourself like a man and take it. And he begins to ask Job things like, Job, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? When all of this came to be, where were you? Where were you?
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  when I hung the stars individually in their place. Where were you when I stretched out the skies? Did you do that? Where were you when I determined the boundaries of the seas? Job, have you walked in the dark recesses of the deep? Do you know where light dwells? Are you the one who sends forth lightning and rain and snow?
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  Have you designed all the inhabitants of the animal kingdom? No, you have not. I am the creator. You are the creature. Now the same exact questions could be asked of us this morning, couldn't they? Where were you when the earth came to be? And all of us would have to give the exact same response as Job. God, I bow before you and submit myself to you.
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  I demand nothing from you because you are creator God and I am just a creature. Now, lest we sink into despair and think that our lives as creatures are meaningless nothings who have no value, we must remember that we're also made in the image of God as creatures. You possess a value.
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  unparalleled to the rest of creation because you're made in God's image, an unbelievably high value. And yet, cannot we say, nevertheless, the glory doesn't belong to us as creatures, it belongs to the creator. Humility suits us as creatures. And so we've got creature humility on one hand, right? But we've also got a second humility, sinner humility.
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  Not only are we finite and small compared to God, but we are also naturally unrighteous before him. Our hearts, in their natural state, have an appetite for sin. We are bent in upon ourselves in selfishness, self-absorption. We look out for number one, right? That's us. We are not the open, generous, giving, caring creatures that God intends for us to be. And in Romans 3, verse 10, Paul sums it up.
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  so succinctly quoting from the Psalms. He said, none is righteous, no, not one. There is no one who understands and no one seeks for God. We have all scorned God. We have spit upon his glory and rejected his rule over us. And in our hearts, you guys, we are not different from the wicked kings of Micah's day. We're the same.
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  Number one on our list is self, selfish ambition. What can we do with our lives? What impulses can I satisfy? We are just like them, and we have earned God's righteous judgment for it. And so what shall we offer God? To pay for our sins. What shall we offer God, right? Like the kingdoms in Micah, what shall we offer God? To get back into the favor of God. Money?
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  Property? Possessions? God owns everything. Righteous acts? You have none. Even our righteous acts before God were so mixed in our motivations that we dare not offer our so-called righteous acts to God because they are like filthy rags. We have nothing to offer God, and so we should sink low into the dust before the Almighty.
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  Now, lest we sink into self-absorbed despair, the lowliness of being a sinner doesn't mean we're meaningless nothings whose lives are valueless. We must remember that God has shown his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. As a sinner, God shows how much he values you because he paid such a high price to get you. It was nothing less than the blood of...
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  the very Son of God. And so, you guys, we can simultaneously believe this morning that we are unbelievably valuable as creatures and as sinners. And yet, we can say the glory does not belong to us. The glory belongs to the Creator and to the Redeemer. Humility suits us as creatures and as sinners. And so, do you guys see how this idea of double humility
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  changes the way we relate to God and to other people? Like, just start working that out in your own head. What would it be like if I walked in this every day? I like to think of this like living your life like you're at someone else's birthday party. When you go to a birthday party, you bring gifts for other people, right? And you go in with every anticipation of celebrating them, not of being celebrated. If I showed up at your birthday party,
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  And I was expecting people to give me praise and tell me how awesome I am and sing to me. Give me gifts. I like gifts, right? You'd be like, what is wrong with you? Get out of here. You know what I'm saying? And yet, that's what we do when we operate in pride. Like, man, it's all about me. Sing to me. Tell me how awesome I am. But to live your life like you're at someone else's birthday party, it's like going to God's birthday party. You're like, God, all the gifts?
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  They're for you. We're going to sing about you. We're going to talk about you. It's not about me. And it doesn't mean other people at the birthday party are like, you're nothing because it's not your birthday, right? Like, no, it's just not about you. Living your life like you're at someone else's birthday party is like, man, I want to celebrate all these other, I want to celebrate you. I don't want to celebrate me. I'm totally okay with that. I'm totally okay as a creature and a sinner not receiving the glory because the glory goes to God anyway.
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  I'm totally okay with you not thinking highly of me because I don't think highly of myself. I love this quote. It's from a guy named Jeremy Taylor. But he says this, and this is, man, it's striking. He says this, humility does not consist in criticizing yourself or wearing ragged clothes or walking around submissively wherever you go. Humility consists in a realistic opinion of yourself, namely that you are an unworthy person.
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  If it is a reality that we are creatures and sinners, valuable,
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  but just creatures and sinners, we should be okay in living our lives like we're at someone else's party. As the people of God, we have an accurate view of ourselves as creatures and sinners, and so our hearts are not lifted up. We don't seek to elevate ourselves, but we seek to lift other people up because it's not about us.
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  We are creatures, just like everybody else, and we're sinners, just like everybody else. And so certain things, Highland, should not be known among us. Pride, arrogance, bragging, rudeness, manipulation, gossip, insistence on our own way, and judgmentalism. None of those things fit with a humble, lowly people of God. None of those things fit.
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  And so we want to embrace this double humility, right? We want to be lowly, remembering the reality that we are creatures and sinners. And so to conclude, I want to provide one more thought that I hope will help us as we seek to practice humility and walk humbly with God. The most helpful practical lesson I ever learned about humility came in high school.
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  out in California at Grace Chapel, the church that we are from, and I don't remember what I was doing, but I was walking through the office, and there was a pastor there named Eric Reynolds, and he and I got to chatting a few minutes, and that day, I had a huge pimple on my face. It's one of those you can't hide, right? You're not going to, like, just show this side, like, how are you, you know? You're not going to do that.
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  It was one of those you can't hide. And as we do, sometimes when something is really embarrassing and obvious, you point it out before anyone else says anything just to put it out there. Right? Don't we do that? Like, I'm just going to acknowledge this before everybody. So as we're talking, I acknowledge that there's this huge pimple on my face. And instead of saying, oh, it happens to everybody, or it doesn't look that bad, or whatever, he just looked at me and he said, just an opportunity to embrace humility. And then walked away. And I was like, yep.
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  That lesson changed my life. That little two-minute interaction. When we are faced with an opportunity to be humble, we typically stiff-arm it, right? Because it's embarrassing. I don't like it. I don't want to be thought of as lowly, right? Everything in our flesh jumps up and says, no, get away, danger, right? But to embrace humility is to accept it, to even welcome it. And don't you know that...
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  Sometimes it's really easy to embrace humility, and then sometimes it's really, really hard. Isn't that true? A few weeks ago on Sunday, I was leading worship, and in the middle of one of the songs, my voice cracked so bad, and you all know because it was at this service, which made it worse because this is the most, like, the most people come to 930. You know what I'm saying? So it was bad. It was like...
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  Second puberty, like bad. And honestly, I'll tell you, I think in that moment, God gave me just the grace to be up here, you know, at the mic. It cracks and just to laugh and then keep singing, right? And so after that service, we all get down. I go back out there. I'm sitting with my wife and I start laughing and I go, I cannot believe that God has me preaching on humility in three weeks.
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  He's just so faithful to give you sermon illustrations at your expense, right? But it was really easy that day to just embrace it and to accept it. Now, on the other hand, last week I was leading worship and during first service, my voice cracked twice. And listen, like I know I look young compared with Danny and Nathan, right? I'm just kidding. But you guys, like I'm 28, okay?
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  It is young, but it's not puberty young. And so last week during first service, my voice cracked twice. And let me tell you, it was a lot harder for me last week to embrace it. I felt way more embarrassed. I felt angry because I felt like my voice wasn't working. And so after we got done leading worship, I got down off the stage, walked to my office, and sat in my office and was just mad with the Lord. I was like...
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  I know I'm supposed to embrace humility and I'm preaching on this next week. And it was just difficult. It was just difficult. Now, even though one time was really easy for me to embrace it and the other time was not, both events required the same thing of me. Just embrace humility and be okay with people not thinking highly of you. Just accept it. And so I would encourage you with this. When you're faced...
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  with an opportunity for humility, preach this two-word sermon to yourself. Embrace humility. Embrace humility. If we can learn to push through that urge in us to preserve our pride, to preserve our dignity, to preserve our image, if we can push through that into just embracing humility, then we will get to enjoy the blessing of walking with God. We want to embrace humility because humility suits us.
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  And so, in conclusion, this is what it means to walk humbly. Be lowly before God. Be lowly before others. Learn from Christ that lowliness is the height of spirituality before God. It's the summit. Avoid pride at all costs and walk in spiritual sobriety. Remember double humility, that you're just a creature.
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  A valuable creature, but just a creature. And a sinner, a redeemed sinner, but we're all just creatures and sinners. Have a humble attitude toward God and others. God requires this of us, and so embrace it, don't reject it. And I'll finish with this final thought. Our world right now, as we think of Micah 6.8, justice, mercy, and humility. Our world is, especially in the wake of the shooting that just happened in Texas,
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  the one that happened in Buffalo not long ago. The world is looking for people who understand what justice actually is and who understand what mercy actually is and who can handle both of those things with a humble attitude. Everyone right now is looking to the government as God. They fix everything. They're the ones who know perfect justice and mercy. But, Highland, because the government doesn't walk with God, they cannot know perfect justice and humility. And we pray for them.
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  and hope that they do well, we don't stand against them. But they can't know. And if the church doesn't stand up as the voice of justice and mercy and humility, who's going to? If we remain silent, what are we doing? We have the answers. We know what God requires, and so we can walk in those things. And so if we know what God requires, the question becomes, are we doing it?
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  Can the world look to us and find answers, find godly wisdom? God didn't just require these things of Micah's people in his day. He requires it of us today as well. And so honestly, I pray for us that we would embrace justice, mercy, and humility and would walk with God. Amen. Man, let's pray. God, we are grateful for your word, which is honest with us about
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  our shortcomings, our unholiness, our pride, and yet calls us to a holy God and a righteous standard. And we do exult this morning that in Christ, the righteous standard has been met. And so even for us as we pursue God in our stumblings, you give us grace. God, let us be a humble people who do love justice and who do show mercy, but...
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  whose attitudes are one of lowly creatures and sinners. We stand before you today humbled. Help us to be a light in the world of what true humility looks like. We ask this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.