Good morning, church. Today a scripture selection will
be from the book of Micah. If you're using the Bibles we
provided under your seats, you can find the first reading that
we'll start off with on page 729.
All right, this is Micah chapter 3 starting at verse 1.
And I said, hear your heads, and of Jacob and rulers of the House
of Israel. Is it not for you to know
justice, you who hate the good and love the evil, whose tear
the skins from my from off my people and their flesh from off
their bones? Who eat the flesh of my people,
and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in
pieces, and chop them up like meat in a pot, like a flesh in a
Calderon. Then they will cry to the Lord,
but He will not answer them. He will hide his face from them
at the time, because they have made their deeds evil.
Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people
astray. Who cry peace when they have
something to eat, but declare war against Him, but put nothing
into their mouth. Therefore it shall be night to
you without vision, and darkness to you without divination.
The the sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be
black over them. The seer shall be disgraced, and
the diviners put to shame. They shall all cover their lips,
for there is no answer from God. But As for me, I'm filled with
power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might
to declare to Jacob his transgressions, and to Israel
his sin. Hear this you heads of the House
of Jacob, and rulers of the House of Israel, who detest
justice and make crooked all the all that is straight, who built
Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.
It's heads give judgement for a bribe.
It's priests teach for a price, it's profits practice divination
for money. Yet they lean on the Lord and
say, is it not the Lord in the midst of us?
No disaster shall come upon us. Therefore, because of you, Zion
shall be plowed as a field. Jerusalem shall become a heap of
ruins in the mountains of the house, a wooded height going
into Micah. Chapter 4, verse one through 5.
It shall come to pass in the later days that the mountain of
House of the Lord shall be established as the highest of
the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and
people shall flow to it. And many nations shall come and
say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the
House of the God of Jacob, and that that he may teach us his
ways, and that we may walk in his past.
For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the
Lord. From Jerusalem He shall judge
between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong
nations. Far away they shall beat their
swords into plowshares, and their Spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war anymore, but they shall sit every man under his
vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
For all the people walk each in the name of its God, but we walk
in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.
Going into Micah chapter 5, verse 2 through 5.
But you, O Bethlehem Ephratha, who are too little to be among
the clans of Judah, for you shall come forth for me, one who
is to be the ruler in Israel. Who's who's coming forth is from
of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up
until the time when she who is in labor has given birth.
Then the rest of his brother shall return to the people of
Israel, and he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the
strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name, the Lord
his God, Lord his God, And they shall dwell secure.
For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall
be their peace. Going into Micah chapter 6,
verse one through 8, here's what the Lord says.
Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills
hear your voice. Hear you mountains the
indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the
earth. For the Lord has an indictment
against his people, and he will contend with Israel.
O my people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me, for I brought you
from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the House of
slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people, remember what black king of Moab devised, and what
Balaam the son of Bior answered him, And what happened to
Shidam, to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the
Lord. With what shall I come before
the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a
year old, with the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams,
with 10 thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first born for my transgressions, the fruit of
my body for the sins of my soul? He has told, he has told you, oh
man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but do
justice and love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.
And then finishing off with Micah Chapter 7, verse 18
through 20, who is God like you, pardoning iniquity, passing over
transgressions for the remnant of his inheritance.
He does not retain his anger forever because He delights in
steadfast love. He will continue compassion on
us. He will tread our iniquities
under foot. You will cast all of our sins
into the depths of the sea. You show will show faithfulness
to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as you have sworn to our
fathers from the days of the old.
This is the word of the Lord. What's going on port city family
and friends how we doing good. It's good to be with you.
Some of y'all might know I came to faith in college praise God
at 18 years old. Maybe that's your story or maybe
you grew up kind of around the church, but but things started
popping in that kind of 18 to 22 year range.
And what's really cool when you come to faith in that time
period, there's different advantages of different times,
but the summers are super strategic because you're kind of
a free agent. You know, you got to get an
internship, you're trying to make like $100 or whatever, but
then you come back in the fall. And so God just used a lot of
what I, I kind of think of like gospel greenhouse environments
to grow me quickly. He just puts you around strong
believers during the summer and just turns up the the faucet a
little bit of how quickly you can grow.
And this year, praise God, we are launching our first ever
city life initiative for our college students here at Port
City. Can we give the Lord a round of
applause for that? OK, if you don't know what city
life is, basically you get to experience adulthood for the
summer with us. OK, You get to learn how to live
in Norfolk, not on a campus, which I have told you is a
resort, but you get to just be a normal kind of adult, get an
internship or a job, make some money, and we'll teach you how
to walk with Jesus and love on a city and be a member of a church
during the summer and just invest in you.
So if you're a college student or you know somebody who needs
to apply for that, you've got like a week.
And if you want to talk to somebody or guy Isaac back here
in the doorway, talk to him before you leave today.
If you're like, I want to hear more about city life, Isaac will
get you the info, application, all that good stuff.
So what I want to do right now is pray because Micah is dope
and we got to dive into it. OK, so let's let's pray and
we'll dive in. Our Father, we're so grateful
you saved so many people in so many ways, so many times, Some
young, some old, some in college.
God, we pray you would continue by Your word to save people, by
the Son of God through the Spirit, applying the word to our
hearts, cutting us, giving us faith.
Lord, would you do it again? Your word says it always
accomplishes that for which you send it out.
We pray on this rainy morning in our great city, You would do the
same thing, that as the rain goes out and accomplishes its
purposes, Your Word would do that now.
So what we know not right now. Would You teach us what we have
not? Would You give us and who we are
not? Would You please make us let the
words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
acceptable in Your sight? And everybody who agree with
that said Amen. I remember one time I was like
11 and I was at this thing where my parents and another family
were hanging out. I didn't know these people, but
I got assigned watch the seven-year old and I was 11.
Mind you, this 7 year old was in AY phase.
You know what I'm talking about. Well, no matter what I told his
brother, you know what he said back to me?
Why? And I was like, eventually you
get to where you're like, because I said so little boy,
you know, but what's so interesting about that?
Why question is it just gets existential really quick.
Why, why, why was I born to this family?
You know, like you're just like, I I don't know what your parents
have told you, man. Like, so it's it's just the
question. Why gets really deep really
quick. It only takes like 3, you know,
to get to like, but why? OK.
And today's book is Micah. Micah is in the middle of the 12
prophets. He's a contemporary of Isaiah.
Some have called him the little Isaiah.
He's also contemporary of Amos. So a lot of this sermon, you
need to have Pastor John's sermon, Don't pass go, don't
collect 200. Just go listen to that sermon.
I'm assuming a lot of that is backdrop to this from a few
weeks ago. You can check that on our
podcast. And Micah is ministering lower
down in Judah, but the topic is justice.
Somebody say justice, and the question why just has to be
asked, because if I'm you, you probably agree that being good
is good, that doing justice is good.
The question becomes why though? But why though?
Is morality some sort of sheet of paper standard that exists in
the universe? Is karma governing things and
some abstract energy with this sheet of paper and somehow, or
is it because we agree that things are good, that they're
good or in some kind of way when injustice, when murder or
something happens, you're like, not only is that wrong, but it
should not happen and should means like we are obligated to
do good in some kind of way. And if you agree with that, what
I invite you to consider today is that the Bible presents an
extremely compelling reason for why we should do justice.
And that is because God envisions justice happening on
the earth, because it's been happening in heaven.
Actually, the Bible presents at the center of all things is not
a sheet of paper. It's not an energy.
It's a person. His Father, Son, Spirit is God
himself from whom love flows. Love doesn't govern God.
Justice doesn't govern God. It's not even side hustle to
God. It flows from His very essence,
His own operations within himself.
Father, Son, and Spirit have always been loving and just and
good. And we who are in Christ are the
ones who have agreed with God that that is.
So we get justified by God because actually we are unjust.
We are not aligned with God. So the first justice that's got
to happen is between you and him.
And then once that happens, you get to live in alignment with
God and everything can become a means of administering his story
and walking in your purpose. So moving forward in this
sermon, I'm going to assume you want to be a good person.
I'm going to assume you care about justice.
I'm going to assume that this matters to you.
And what I want going through your mind is just that that
little 7 year old of like why though?
And is it possible the Bible presents a more compelling case
than than what is just dripping in our culture and in the the
shows we watch and all these things.
Are you with me? And my prayer for the church in
here is that we walk out of here living a Christ filled Micah 68.
We would do justice, love, kindness and walk humbly with
our God. Amen.
To get there, we're going to look at the indictment, the
restoration and the king. The indictment, the restoration
and the king. If you are ready, let me hear
you say I'm ready. Point #1 the indictment calling
out injustice. We're going to start in chapter
6, chapter 6, verses 1 and 2. That's what it, that's what it
says. Hear what the Lord says.
Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills
hear your voice. Hear you mountains.
The indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the
earth. For the Lord has an indictment
against His people, and He will contend with Israel.
Here's what you got to understand about the prophets.
OK, I've said this over and over and over, but it's just good for
us to hear it, OK? They live alongside things that
are happening in history. The prophets are God's
interpretive communication of what God feels as that stuff's
going on. OK, so the people of God are
going into exile. 722 Assyria takes them over.
Micah prophesied from like 760 until 680.
So he's going to see Israel fall.
And the, the, the idea here is that God has an indictment
against his people. Somebody say indictment, you
should be thinking like a law room, like a courtroom, OK.
And the idea is if you are an Israelite, your life's getting
hard, OK? We're talking physical violence,
gruel stuff like stuff is starting to go down.
Other nations are taking you over.
And it's real simple to just be like God is not for us, like he
said he was, because if he was, this wouldn't be happened to us.
I thought he was a God full of compassion.
And so the Lord is like, let me let me take you all to court
right quick. Let me roll out my indictment.
And the indictments are a series of how God is going to say I did
everything I said I would do. I chose you and he's just going
to layout his case for why Judgment doesn't mean he's done
with you, but it is part of his faithfulness to you.
And if you will turn your hearts, we will keep walking
this thing out together. Does that make sense?
He wants to make sure, let nobody.
I'm telling y'all before I send you to exile.
I'm sending you and I'm still good to you.
Are you with me? That's the idea.
So there's four indictments. I want to walk you through them.
Let's look at verse 30. My people, What have I done to
you? How have I wearied you?
Answer me, for I brought you from the land of Egypt, circle
that, and redeemed you from the House of slavery, and I sent
before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised, and what
Balaam the son of Beor answered him.
And what happened from Shateem circle that to Gilgal circle
that, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.
So he gives 3 locations and all of it makes up 1 indictment.
Here's the first indictment. You forgot what I've done.
You know what Egypt means?
Slavery. When I bought you, you were a
slave to sin. When I bought you, Pharaoh ran
you and you did what he said. I got you out of there
miraculously through the templates with Moses and all
these jokers. I I saved you then I wish I
could go into it. If you came to a quit we would
have walked through it. It was dope.
From Shatim to Gilgal, just write these down.
Shatim is numbers 25. Arguably the lowest moment is
your light history OK? They once rescued from Egypt
they go out into the desert and start tripping and
intermarrying. Just doing some crazy sexual
religious practices with another nation, aligning themselves with
them just years after God did the templagues and split the sea
and all the stuff, right? That's their lowest moment in
history. Now, Gilgal, you can write down
Joshua chapter 4, the moment they get through the Jordan
River, if you remember this, OK, they get through the Jordan
River. They're now in the promised land
and God says get 12 memorial stones, one for each tribe.
And where they're standing when that happens is Gilgal.
So look what God's doing. Egypt, slavery, Shateem, your
lowest moment, Gilgal, your highest moment in the promised
land. I've been faithful every step of
the way even though y'all been doing what you did.
And Shateem are y'all with me? So let me point out your worst
moment is my most faithful moment.
So let us not get it twisted that the next chapter where you
go into exile means I'm against you.
It's my new mode of being for you.
If you would listen to me, are y'all with me?
But y'all before we, it's so easy to throw rocks at at people
in the Bible before we the second your life starts going
hard. Do you not think God's not good?
This is happening the second it happens.
And just imagine in some kind of way God is faithful to
everything he said he was going to do.
We just can't see it. So our lesson here is to see
God's heart pleading with his people through the indictment.
Are you with me? God's heart, because he's so
frustrated with how unjust they've been and just so
oppressive to the poor. We're going to get into some of
that stuff and just how awful they've been.
They're not embodying his law at all.
So he's going to say do justice. But behind that, the heart of
the indictment is a broken heart that you forgot how good I am.
Y'all remember in Lion King when Rafiki brings Simba over to the
water, he's like, come with Rafiki.
He show you to it and then they run through with the beat and
stuff and then they get there and he's like, it's just my
reflection. He's like look and his finger is
like the whole length of the screen.
Then he looks down and Mufasa comes out and he goes, Simba,
you have forgotten me. No, never.
You've forgotten who you are and thus you have forgotten me.
You are more than what you've become.
That's what's happening right here.
Are y'all with me? That's kind of the idea is you
have forgotten me. Verses 7 and 8 say this.
Verses 7 and 8, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams,
with 10 thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of
my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, old 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?
Here's the second indictment. You don't know what I want.
You've forgotten what I've done,
and you don't even know what I want.
Like you're out here like, what does the Lord want?
Does he want sacrifices? Does they even hypothetically
were asking, does he want us to sacrifice our own kids to him to
prove we love him? And he's like, you've lost it.
You're out your minds. I've told you what I want.
And he walks through this threefold pattern of what he
wants for his covenant people to do while in relationship with
him. And the first one is do justice.
Somebody say do justice. Y'all do justice means make
things right and we could get this can look real big like when
injustices are done and y'all it could be all the way down to
aligning things with reality, picking up the trash.
In a weird way, it's it's setting things to right.
The question becomes again, why what is right?
The ultimate right is who God is.
It's aligning yourself with his story, with his character, and
it's living with him. So what God envisions for the
New Testament people of God is that we would, because we've
been made right with God, not through our own.
But through the actions of Jesus Christ, we now live with Him in
faithfulness, doing justice not to get His favor.
We don't do justice to get God to love us.
We do it because He already did. We do it because we love Him.
And now I don't pick up the trash like you.
See that, Lord? We do everything we do with God
so that He can look good and all things can have their proper
place and enjoy the alignment with God.
Are you with me? So that's the idea of do justice
#2 love, kindness. Somebody say love.
Don't you love this shift from do to love?
Don't you love that? Do this and like I can do that.
Lest we think we could do without loving.
I love this one, you know. Love, kindness, love it.
That speaks to virtue. Become the kind of soul for whom
the loving response is your default, which is sort of what
the Sermon on the Mount is all about.
It's it's shifting from a world where you're like, I'm not
supposed to X to where your soul can't fathom the type of
behavior where that would even be a thing.
Are you with me? So like thou shall not murder.
I've never murdered nobody. Becoming the type of soul for
whom you want peace with people so bad for them to see how good
God is. You can't even fathom calling
somebody an idiot. You know what I'm saying?
That's what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount.
Become that type of person who so loves kindness.
And y'all, I just got to say this in 2026.
What has captured your imagination like mine?
We're obsessed with efficient lives.
What loving kindness about is living a beautiful life.
It's living your life in such a way that you love the virtue in
the essence of what things are and what they mean about who God
is and how it makes Him look. You don't value how it turns
out. Are you with me?
You parent the way you do because it's beautiful.
You don't know what's going to happen with those kids.
Amen, somebody OK, you teach the way you do, you lead the way you
do, you give money the way you do, you share Christ the way you
do and have no guarantee of any result.
But if you love efficiency, you'll just become a gold chase
in podcast hacking habit chase in person who feels like loving
kindness is sort of keeping you from being on the top of the
mountain and having as much money as you could and all.
Are you with me? If what's captured your
imagination is efficiency, beauty will feel inefficient.
Are you with me? But if we fall in love with a
life that just makes God look good, there's this old phrase be
good for goodness sake. Y'all ever heard that?
I felt like I used to be getting cussed at when my parents said
be good for goodness sake, you know, like almost like goodness
sake, son. And now I'm like, think about
that phrase. It's the idea that something is
good just because it's good, which again, should ask us to
lead, to ask the question, why? What is good?
And all those existential questions point us back to who
God is, what Christ has done, the Spirit, and we walk with
them. But we've kind of removed that.
And it's like just hustle for hustling's sake.
You're somebody if you've got some ground, you've earned.
And I'm just telling you that's not what the Bible envisions #3
walk humbly with your God. If you're kind of in the
headspace that just being a good person, it doesn't matter who
cares, Bible, whatever path to be good number.
This third part's going to challenge you because you were
created by God, who is the center of all things to do
justice and love kindness and to do it with him.
And for all the believers in the room, just a reminder, you live
with God, not for God, Amen. Like I live for the glory of
God, but I'm living with them, man.
And that just that's way easier than get through the end of your
day. And look what I did for you
today. Lord, No, like the goal is that
you'll just be human sized. You're just a human.
That's what it means to walk humbly with God.
You got limits, you got to sleep, you get sick, you're
just, you're all you can do is what you can do, but you do it
humbly with your God. Be a humble, human sized, owned
by God person. That's what the Bible envisions.
OK, to get the other two indictments, we got to go back
to chapter 3. We're going to be in verse 9,
starting in verse 9. Hear this you heads of the House
of Jacob and rulers of the House of Israel, who detest justice
and make crooked all that is straight, who builds Zion with
blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.
It's heads give judgement for a bribe.
It's priests teach for a price. It's profits, practice
divination for money. Yet they lean on the Lord and
say, is not the Lord in the midst of us?
No disaster shall come upon us, y'all.
The third indictment is you leaders don't know justice.
You don't know it, ignorant of it, don't get it.
You preach for money, you teach for money, you do what is good,
not for goodness sake, but for money's sake.
You know it's only when it pays off for you and you've built
your your lives on the backs of the poor.
And y'all, this breaks God's heart.
Y'all power. The everybody has power.
By the way, even little kids have power.
They have dominion over the little toys you've given them,
which is scary when one of the arms is broken and the eyes,
eyes are plugged out and I'm just playing.
But the idea is all of us have power and authority.
All of us. You are authoring something in
your life. You're exercising authority over
something. And the idea is with power, the,
the goal of it is to bring about the flourishing of that which
you have power over of the doll, right?
So there's nothing quite like a leader who isn't doing justice
because they're taking their power and leveraging it for
their own comfort, right? It's the idea that like the
people under their authority are pawns.
They're not people. And that's what sin pushes us to
is it's just to use people. You become my pawn.
You are no longer a person. You're a pawn in my game.
Are you with me? That's what sin corrupts power
to do. Jesus would later say in Mark
chapter 10, he would say the the leaders of the day, the
Gentiles, they, they take their power and Lord it over you.
They take it and hold it over you and leverage it for their
own game. And he says, but it will not be
so among you. For the greatest among you will
not be the one who can hold things over.
People will be the one who serves the greatest of all, will
be the servant of all, for the Son of Man came to give his life
as a ransom for many. You know, we live in a day of
scandal, and scandal has been normalized.
And some of that is just our access to the amount of scandal
there probably has always been. I fully understand that.
What we've got to be careful of is that scandal doesn't become
sport. Y'all with me or we're scandal
chasing. There's a new a little trend
where people make a post seem like a scandal and then make fun
of you for looking at it. Have y'all seen any of these?
I know because it's happened to me.
It'll be like, do you want to know what happened on this day?
And you look at it like shame on you because on Sunday and
they're using almost as like an inviter thing.
But it's, I mean, scandal is sport a little bit.
And I think the point when you see a scandal, I think it should
sober us to self analysis of how we're using our power, you know,
and yes, we need to look into what what things are going on
out there and how that's impacting things.
But y'all, the point is like, where am I treating people like
pawns? You know, like where am I taking
my authority? Where am I just irritated if
people just get in line with me? Lest we think if you were in
that seat, you wouldn't do the same, you know what I mean?
Like the point is, let's all eat some humble pie.
It's not just that the leaders had an issue in Israel, it's
that as go the leaders kind of so goes everybody.
You know, that's sort of the idea.
OK, look with me at verse 5 and verse 8.
Last, last indictment here. OK.
Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people
astray, who cry peace when they have something to eat, but
declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths.
Verse 8. But As for me, I am filled with
power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might
to declare to Jacob's transgression into Israel his
sin. Here's the 4th indictment.
You prophets don't tell the truth.
Remember, there's no they're, they're, they're all just saying
what's happening and interpreting it for the people.
And some of them are saying we're good, God loves us, peace,
all is well. And you got guys like Mike,
Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, others over the years going not well.
Look at how these people are doing.
Look at how they're eating good and they're not.
Look at this. This is reality, friends, I'm
telling y'all. And so the people get put in
this position of picking sides. Who do we believe, right?
Which I think is a very fair question in 2026.
OK, who do we believe? Anybody could teach a compelling
word. You just got to tell a joke.
There's a formula to it. Tell a joke, do this, tell some
half truths. They were saying things like
we're the people of God. Was that not true?
It's true. It's half true, right.
So as we, I want to give you a diet of discernment here in 2026
of how to discern what you're listening to.
Before I do that, we just have to agree that we're susceptible
to following false teaching, lest we think you couldn't.
And maybe you have at some point in your life.
There is no shame in that. OK, Like black guys, Grace,
hopefully you know you're not now.
But y'all, we all are susceptible to it because what
the New Testament calls itching ears, there's something in us
that wanted back then to hear peace.
All is peace. So the reason we're listening to
them say it is I want there to be peace.
Does that make sense? So it's not just the mouthpiece
that is held accountable. It is also those who wanted to
hear peace when there is no peace.
Are you with me? So there's a dual relationship
here. Can I give you just a little bit
of history of how dope this is just real quick.
And then I'll give you the diet of determine for 2026.
Just real quick right now. Jeremiah 26 y'all this is dope
write down Isaiah 36 to 39 go read it later.
This is what was happening is Jeremiah hundreds of years
later, said the the people listening to Jeremiah go have a
conversation of should we believe Jeremiah that we're
about to go to Babylon a couple 100 years later and they're
like, yo, remember Micah prophesied that it was about to
go down for the Syrians with Israel and Hezekiah listened to
Micah and changed his heart and then LED to reform.
And that's why Judah didn't fall to Assyria.
So amongst themselves, they're like, yo, Micah was right.
So we should listen to Jeremiah. So they discerned they were
well, actually the person who said that they didn't listen to
because they threw Jeremiah in a hole and said, stop listening to
him. OK, Jeremiah didn't go super
well for but they were trying to discern who do we listen to?
Right? And they leveraged Micah was
right because it happened. And then even once they knew it
happened and said Jeremiah's the same.
We should listen now. And they don't.
Are you with me? It's pretty crazy.
So here is kind of what I would give you as a diet.
First things first, hopefully most of the teaching you're
hearing is highly local. Stay local, start local, stay
local, OK? That doesn't just mean me.
It doesn't just mean the ministry of the word here.
It even means in community as you do life here.
Hopefully the people who have the green light to call out sin
in your life, you know them like you know them really well.
You trust them. This is book of Proverbs,
abundance of counselors. We're so prone to listen to a
preacher 300 miles away. I'll never meet.
Then the 300 people one mile away that know you, right?
They know you and they're bringing you the word and you
don't listen. But that dude had a dope word.
300 miles way, you know, and you listen to everything they say
until it ain't right. Then you find another one.
So let's not be those people. Are you with me?
Let's start local, stay local. But there's some dope Christian
teaching on the Internet. I hope you're listening to some
great stuff. Many of them are better
communicators than I'll ever be, and that's great.
So I'm going to give you some discernment of how you process
that. Here's three questions to ask
yourself. Number one, what is their
source? Just real point blank basic.
Is it the Bible? And are they teaching the Bible,
the historical pieces of the Bible?
Are they pulling the Bible out? Or is it just immediate, like,
let me grab that word and then just rants, nothing but stories
and rants and, and almost like they're just getting to what
they can. Now let me tell you what I
really want to tell you. Or is it teaching what the Bible
says #2 what is its gospel? What is like, what is the person
of Jesus's life, death, ministry, resurrection, pushing
you towards, you know, the gospel is that God is the prize,
and Christ died for you so that you could know him and live with
him. Irregardless of how your life
goes, you get God. Amen.
But there's all kinds of stuff out there that takes the work of
Jesus and mascots him on some other gospel.
A mascot can't speak. It just represents, right?
So there's the political gospel that Jesus represents my side
left, right or middle. We know that Jesus ain't in a
camp, OK? He's over it all.
He's not left, He's not right. And let's not glorify the
middle. He just is, OK?
The second is a purpose gospel. A purpose gospel is when the the
personal work of Christ unleashes your purpose so that
you can thrive. And again, that's half true,
right? All of these are rooted in, does
God care about politics? Yes.
Does God want you to have purpose?
Absolutely right. But it it hijacks the work of
Christ and makes it subservient to you as the main agent of of
life with God and purpose #3 prosperity gospel.
If you do right by God, God will do right by you.
You do your part, He'll do his part.
Believe it enough, name it, claim it.
Breakthrough becomes all that the ministry is about over time
and #4 there's an experienced gospel where what is wanted for
you isn't to intimately know God and in Christ and man, that is
experiential. Half true.
I want you to have experience as you do that, but it leverages
the work of Christ to make your experience of worship and
feeling with God usually under the ministry that you're sitting
under feel elevated to anything else.
OK, and I would just say watch out for all that stuff.
And lastly, does the ministry, does the teaching, does it
slowly make people feel like neighbors or enemies?
Does everybody around you become an enemy or do they become a
neighbor to love? You know, there's tons of
ideology that's against the gospel of Jesus Christ, right?
Tons. All kinds of stuff that we push
back on all the time. But the people embodying that
ideology, we still got to find a way to love, even when it's,
yeah, truth and love all the stuff.
I'm not talking about caving on truth.
But I am saying if the tone of the ministry is just like, if
this type of person cease to exist, we'd be better off.
It's like, that's tough. You know, that's tough.
Hopefully that's helpful for you.
Let's get into restoration. Some dope stuff here.
Restoration. Let's envision the future of
justice. So we've called it out.
We've indicted. Let's talk about the future.
Chapter 4. Verses 1 and 2.
It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of
the House of the Lord shall be established as the highest of
the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and
people shall flow to it. And many nations shall come and
say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the
House of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his way, and
that we may walk in his past. For out of Zion shall go forth
the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
All right, here's the first image.
The nations will flow to the Lord for His teaching,
literally, people flocking for teaching, literally like
sprinting to get in on the action that is God's law.
The flow in the passage is up to Jerusalem.
We're literally just coming to get what we can't get anywhere
else. This flow to God's lifted uphill
and then what's flowing out of it is teaching and teaching.
Because without teaching, all there is is darkness.
That's kind of the idea is that God's law, his ways is just
illumination flowing from his very essence, not from a sheet
of paper. Amen.
Somebody if you think of the even something like the 10
commandments, just as tablets, you're missing something.
It flow from a God who is OK and so they're coming to get him,
not it the instruction flows from him.
OK, how many y'all seen Wreck it Ralph?
One of the greats, OK, in Wreck It Ralph, there's these bugs
that are eating everything in their path and they're, they're
destroying everything. But then when a beacon of light
shot up in the sky, they would and they would all like go to
the light. Y'all remember this?
OK, That's sort of the idea of what God's word is.
It is the beacon without which people don't know their right
hand from their left. They're just kind of doing
whatever. Are you with me?
So the word which flows from who God is, again, the word is not
adjacent to God, it's flowing from him, from the person of
Christ, from the Spirit, and it's imagining that the nations
are literally sprinting to get there because it's that good.
Y'all, we take soul for granted some teaching of God in our
culture. We do y'all.
Do you know the Romans used to write letters to each other
being like, these Christians are crazy.
Y'all, there would be a sickness and the Romans are dying by
thousands and they're like, get out of town now because their
Pagan idolatry LED them to believe every man for themself.
Watch your back, cover yourself. Get out of here.
But the Christians were flocking to the sickness.
They were flocking to help those dying.
They were risking their own lives into a Roman worldview
that made no sense. They literally were like, get a
load of these guys. We take for granted something as
basic as caring for the vulnerable, the oppressed, human
rights, y'all. These concepts are the air we
breathe in our culture. But they they, they, they, they
really, the game really changed when this dude named Jesus came
on the scene. Are you with me?
And had he not? We take for granted some of
those shifts that now we we we see as normative.
Are you with me? And here's kind of the the New
Testament twist on the flowing to the beacon, the wreck it
Ralph. The New Testament twist is that
when Jesus came, instead of that being located in Jerusalem, when
Jesus comes, he is the temple. He is not a building.
He himself is the temple and those who follow him.
If the Spirit indwells you, you're the temple.
So now the idea is that God has scattered the beacons.
Are you with me? What once had to happen there
and everybody kind of came like a long journey.
The New Testament sends out, it's no longer come to the
beacon. It's like, let me scatter
beacons everywhere and the nations will be reached for
Christ. Are you with me?
OK, look at Micah 4 verse three. He shall judge between many
peoples and shall decide for nations far away, and they shall
beat their swords into plowshares and their Spears into
pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
Here's the second image. Conflict will be replaced by
peace. Y'all when the word comes, When
the beacon comes. When the nations flow, they go
back home and they're like, what do we do with swords now?
Now that we got God's word, we don't need this anymore.
Now that we know this Yahweh this, this God who is so kind
and good and we've been reconciled to him, maybe we
could use this to farm or something.
You know what I'm saying? Like imagine people taking a
bunch of swords and then beating them down so that they can no
longer do destruction but can be used to till up the ground
y'all. The image is that when God is
having his way, what once made us against each other makes us
together. What once led to war now we use
to work what once was an end. Like death is a new beginning.
Are you with me? The idea is let's work together
and church. I will just say we've got a
dream of where that could happen in our community.
Where does gang violence look like people working together?
Where does sibling rivalry, hey somebody become like peace in a
home? Where does the teammate that
you're so filled with resentment and irritation and jealousy of
or the Co worker that stabs you in the back behind your back?
What does it look like to dream of peace where there's conflict
and once you dream it, now you enter see that it might happen.
Does that make sense? You live in the peaceful future
now, and that's what makes you different than everybody.
Are you with me? That's what gives you belief,
even when there's still ongoing conflict.
Are you with me? That's the idea.
Jesus in him and him alone, hostility can become
hospitality. Let's talk about how we get
there. So we got the future vision.
We've got the indictments. What's the path point #3
inauguration, the path to justice?
Some of y'all probably picked up on it when guy all read from
chapter 5 verse 2. Check this out.
But you, O Bethlehem Apaphritha, who are too little to be among
the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who
is to be ruler in Israel, who from whose coming forth is from
of old from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up
until the time when she was in labor has given birth.
And the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of
Israel, and he shall stand and shepherd his flock, and the
strength of the Lord and the majesty of the name of the Lord
his God. In Matthew chapter 2, Yallah,
y'all know Matthew quotes this about who?
Jesus, because he was born where?
In Bethlehem, y'all, the idea is that the inauguration of Jesus
is sort of the bridge between these two realities, between the
indictment in which they're standing in the future that God
envisions. There is this king who will
come. There's this king who is a
different type of leader. Did you notice the verb noun
pair that describes what this king will do?
Starts with an S. What's he going to be?
What's he going to do? He's going to be a save it That
was incredible yes, he will and this Savior will SH yes shepherd
his flock come on. So when you think of this king
coming and again y'all we're talking about leaders that
preach for money for the people of God in exile to hear there's
somebody coming who will shepherd his flock who will care
for them. Y'all.
I don't know what you think of of God's primary verbs of what
he wants to do for you. He wants to shepherd you, which
means you were sheep, which means you can't do nothing.
You got no arms. All you can do is and just you
can't do nothing. Sheep are cute, but dumb.
They're they're silly. And God wants to shepherd you.
He wants to take care of you and although the text doesn't make
the link between chapter 4 and this coming one from Bethlehem
one to one of that will bring that what we know from the
ministry of Jesus, from his inauguration, from his death on
the cross. This is exactly what he came to
do was bring this world where conflict is no more, which means
we live now in a time known as the already not yet where we
don't yet see the peace. We don't yet see everybody being
shepherded, but it's coming. OK he came once dropped a lot of
miracles, doubt in everybody's place and he said I'm coming
back and we live in that in between I want to point out one
last dope thing and won't be done.
Is that OK? If you're still in it, let me
hear you say I'm in it and if you've checked out do a few head
circles and check back in. Here we go all right, verse 4
they shall dwell secure for now. He shall be great to the ends of
the earth and he shall be their peace.
Let's say that one together, he shall be their peace.
Y'all, this verse is crazy. It says that the Shepherd King
will be their peace. I don't know about you, but I
just need to hear sometimes. Your tax return ain't going to
bring you peace. Amen.
Somebody might bring you some more Grubhub.
OK, I got some spots you could try out.
Y'all? Gambling becoming more normal
than water around here has not brought our country peace.
We being legalized has not brought our country peace.
Shocker. OK, peace comes y'all not even
y'all watch this. This is it doesn't even come
just from a person. Peace is a person.
The text says he will be their peace.
Doesn't say he will give them peace.
He says it will. He will be their peace.
Some of us operate, even the believers in the room.
We operate like God gives peace. God is peace.
Does He give it? Yes, more than He gives it.
He is it. And some of us are living the
believers in the room. I'm going to talk to you first.
We're living in the gap between He gives it and He is it.
And God is just asking you to move closer and closer and
closer to who He is, not just what He gives.
If you continue to live in a world where God gives peace and
you know the gospel, you know what Christ has done, you're
going to get to the end of your life and be nothing but
disappointed. You're going to get to the end
of your life and be like, he didn't give what I thought he
would give. And y'all, I've got
disappointments. Let me be clear, but it's part
of how God, God uses disappointment to move you from
gives to is. Does that make sense?
He's trying to get you to a place where it's you and him and
his path to do that for each of us is different, but for all of
us, it's from gives to is because God is peace.
He doesn't just give peace and until you get there, God is
genuinely, truly, this is hard. He is subservient to something
you want to be given. That's hard.
That's really hard. It's true of me.
But we need to hear God does give peace, but even more than
that, He is peace. And if you are not a believer
here today, I don't know where you're going for peace.
I don't know if it's gambling, I don't know if it's the dopamine
through that or weed or whatever.
I'm not judging you, OK? I'm just telling you, you are
looking for peace, which makes you a human.
But the Bible is all about sin. We we talk about sin a lot sin
that we're not we're not ever trying to make you feel like a
bad person. We're trying to say sin is going
to the wrong thing, going for the right thing for the the
wrong. So are you with me.
You're going to the you're help me.
You're going to get the right thing from the wrong thing.
There we go wrong source right thing.
Everybody wants peace. Me too.
The question is, where are you going?
And as you enter into a space where the Word of God is taught,
don't hear us saying God gives peace.
He does, but He is peace. What we offer you is a person
who himself is the Prince of Peace.
We offer you God himself. So let's close out looking at
Chapter 7, verses 18 through 20. We'll be done.
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over
transgression for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in
steadfast love. He will again have compassion on
us. He will tread our iniquities
under foot. You will cast all our sins into
the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to
Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as you have sworn to our
fathers from the days of old. If you're not a believer here
today, maybe the the seven-year old.
Why, why, why question? Why can Micah say that?
Who gets to say that? Who gets to say God will have
compassion on us? Again, that's pretty.
Who are you to say God will have compassion on you and not
somebody else? Who, who, how can he say this?
Who gets to say this with confidence?
Because that's some dope stuff. I want compassion.
I want my iniquity passed over. I want him to not be angry with
me. I want him to delight and
steadfast love to me. You know what the Bible presents
is that this person, Jesus, has come at the perfect time, born
of a virgin under the Roman Empire's thumb.
He came and lived a life of peace.
He was justice embodied. He walked in it at all times.
And this king, this Prince of Peace, this just God lived a
just life and at the end of his life died an unjust death, so
that unjust rebels like you and me can trade places with him.
Y'all the Bible story is not you better start being just and then
you could say Chapter 7, verses 18 through 20 with confidence.
What the Bible presents is that Jesus is the perfect spotless
lamb, just in all his ways. He is peace.
And he died. He was thrown in the sea, He was
killed, He was unjustly murdered so that the unjust ones could
put our trust in Him and his death.
His perfection accounts to you, and he takes your death, you get
his life. That's the gospel.
The good news of the Bible, y'all, is that the reason our
sins can be thrown in the sea is because Christ died for them.
That's what the Bible teaches, that our confidence comes not
from what we do, but from what He did.
And ironically, you'll be more just if the just one has died
for you and you receive it as a gift.
Then you could ever live justly out of fear or trying to prove
something. If you actually see what he's
done for you at great cost to himself, free to you.
When you do that, your life just unlocks.
And believer, you need to hear today your sins are in the
depths of the sea as far as the east is from the West.
So far has he removed your sin from you.
That's crazy. Some of us only know, and I
resonate with this, we only know how to relate to God about our
sin. It's almost like we bring it to
him just over and over and over and somewhat what the Bible
presents. This is crazy is that he removes
the sin so he can know you. There is a you that is not your
sin. That's what he's after.
That's the 1. He wants to walk with him
humbly, are you with me? So it's getting to a place like
Micah where the scene is still bad, right?
Like we still live in a broken, sinful age and there's still sin
in us, but we don't approach the Lord wondering how he feels
about us. We could say you will have
steadfast love on us. You'll have, if Micah could say
this, how much more can we who know Christ, how much more can
we be confident that we stand in the, the faithfulness shown to
Jacob and Abraham and all, not because I'm a somebody, but
because Christ died for me and I'm sealed with the Spirit and
we have peace in him. We don't even have to beat
ourselves up for where we're going, for the wrong place for
peace. We just get to be reminded again
that he is our peace, not those things.
He is our peace. He is our peace, He is our
peace, He is our peace. So we chase after God knowing
he's for you. We don't chase him with a spirit
of fear. Y'all.
It just unleashes like an unhurried, just inviting tone
where you chase down the God who has bought you to himself at the
cost of his own Son. And if you don't know Jesus here
today, I believe you want to live a just life.
The question is why and in what power and who gets the glory
from it? That's other question.
Part of why God set it up this way is that we can just stand
back and all say, you know, God did all of that.
All things are from him and through him and to him.
I didn't get rid of my sin. I didn't think of justice.
I didn't think of that. I didn't make me right with you.
I didn't this. You did that.
You gave me that power. You did that.
And as we do it with Him, we get the joy, He gets the glory and
the earth gets the good. Are you with me?
I'm at peace with God. Have we considered what the cost
to be made right with my Father? Jesus had to take the cross.
Now he has taken my sins and thrown them into the sea.
When God looks at you, believer, He sees a child set free.
Now we walk humbly with Him, loving kindness as justice flows
from God to us to neighbor. Justice is the story of God, the
story of the world, and it's all empowered by our Savior.
Our God is love, beauty, and justice.
To Him be the glory both now and forever.
Can you imagine the future of justice with Jesus?
It just keeps on getting better. Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we love you. Thank you for your word.
Thank you that you made things right with us.
Got to pray for my friends who are looking for peace in all the
wrong places. God, may they not feel shame,
but may they feel invited to lay those things down and to find
you. Who is our peace.
I pray for the believers in that gap between you give peace and
you are our peace. God, would you take us further?
Would you bring us to where we can genuinely say you God are
our peace, get the glory for the rest of our time we pray in
Jesus name, Amen.