Ok God, What Do You Want From Me?

Good Morning. This morning, we have 2 excellent lessons intended to guide God’s people back on track from bad mindsets. Micah 6 begins in a heavenly courtroom. All of creation, the mountains and hills, are poetically called in as a jury to witnesses God’s case against His people. Israel has lost its way in sin, following false gods. The problem is, they are relying on the sacrificial system and ceremonial codes to get them clean. But their hearts are burdened with sin.

In our epistle, we have a different people who have lost their way, the Galatians. I mentioned them briefly last week as a people tricked into piling laws on top of the Gospel. Paul is writing them after they’ve gotten caught up in a works-oriented Gospel message. Both groups of people are the People of God, but both need the answer to the question, “OK God, What do You Want From Me?” because they’re missing the mark.

After the Galatians came to faith, people came to town telling them that if they don’t keep kosher, get circumcised, etc. they’re not really Christians. This is very early in church history, and Galatians is the first letter Paul writes. Until ½ way through Galatians 5, Paul re-teaches them about grace vs. the law, and why we live under grace. Then, just before our epistle lesson begins, Paul shifts his focus to What does God Want From Me, as a Christian, in my daily life under Grace. In verse 13: You were called to freedom, brothers. (freedom from the law) Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love, serve one another. In verse 16, where our lesson began, Paul says:

“Walk in the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Paul’s setting up walking in the flesh vs. walking in the spirit. But just how do I walk in the Spirit? Should I deny anything I like, or is that pleasing since that’s the opposite of flesh? Good News! That’s not what Paul means. The guess work is taken out by a simple test: the test of producing fruit. It’s not what goes into you that makes you unclean, but what comes out. Jesus says in Matthew 7:16 “By their fruits you shall know them” – Paul says if we walk in the spirit that:

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. All these should be falling off us!

The Galatians were trying to please God by taking up all kinds of laws, laws which were burdensome. That’s why understanding grace is so important.

The question Paul wants us to ask ourselves is, am I being transformed into a person who loves God, and because I love God, I want to live in ways He finds pleasing? It’s a relationship God wants from us. I don’t do nice things for people I love because I am ticking off a Checklist to gain approval. It should be the same with God. Not obedience to laws for laws sake, but a love of following God, and as our collect of the day says, Make us to LOVE the things you command.

Micah shows us the same idea Paul was teaching 650 years. I’ll go back and reread vs. 6-7 to set up vs. 8.

6 With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

Now pause for a second…Yes, these are Rhetorical questions.

But questions which show us, once again, the Gospel, and the truth of the God of the Bible. Does God need our offerings and sacrifices? What does God do with animal blood? He made the ram your offering and can make 1000 more!

At a time where every nation surrounding Israel demanded animal sacrifices to basically feed and satisfy their gods, to fill Baal’s tummy, Micah says, “That’s Stupid.” The idea of sacrifices to calm God down after I sin is specifically stupid. God doesn’t need that. Looking at vs. 7!

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Good news is, God will give His firstborn for our transgression, but he doesn’t want your firstborn. God hates human sacrifice and condemns it throughout scripture, unlike all the other cultures surrounding Israel.

While the ceremonial law made people ritually clean, it didn’t actually clean their souls from sin’s stain. That’s why we needed Jesus and his taking up our nature to redeem humanity. That’s why the Galatians following ritual laws was pointless. Christ has already made us clean, not just ceremonially.