GOT LIFE?
Pastor Allan H. Kircher Associate Pastor Shell Point Baptist Church
NARRATIVE COPY Delivered 2/15/09
How do we really see ourselves? And what do we do to observe ourselves as others see us? Don’t we usually look in a mirror? Have you ever considered that everything we see in the mirror is actually backwards?
But those around us see us as we really are and, most often, when we cannot see ourselves.
The only way we are ever going to be able to see ourselves as God and the rest of the world truly see us, is to train ourselves to step back from ourselves and our pride, and see ourselves as we really are.
In other words, we have to begin to see ourselves honestly, with our good points as well as with our bad points. It is only from this vantage point that we can begin to answer the question, "What is the most valuable component of my life?"
MICAH 6:8
He has shown you, O Man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.
All those years of biker rally’s in my previous life and I ran by biker’s partying and having a good life. I used to think that that was the good life. …..I didn’t even ponder to think about what that life was like……I immediately thought of what Jesus had done for me.
Now I know what is truly the good life... the life of Micah 6:8.
I. The life required of us is the life that is good for us
A. Jesus came to give us abundant life (John 10:10) He wants us to live the good life.
Our text shows us that God has revealed to us the character of the good life—it is one marked by humble dependence upon Him and by a lifestyle of sharing His passion for justice and mercy.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full……………………..
There is such sweet serenity when we are in unity, true unity with Jesus Christ.
B. This good life is not the same as “the good life” offered by U.S. culture. The media assail us with pictures of the consumerist lifestyle and label that “good.” But it’s an empty lifestyle. God wants something better for us—a life of substance, a life that matters.
Not a life of old of biker rallies and such, but a life of Christ.
II. These are the Marks of the 6:8 lifestyle..are you in it today?
……………..at the end of my three mile jog, I just happened to finish the run at the VA hospital and at the precise moment of sunset…evening colors…. And it was also directly in front of a crowded bus stop. I immediately stopped running when I heard the first note of colors….faced the American flag….and stood stiff at attention for the duration….when the music stopped I began on my way…as I glanced back behind me a lady stared at me with a bewildered awkward look….
Today as humans we humble ourselves before our country and stop for things like taps. (at least the military). Sometimes it may be in an embarrassing place…where some do not understand….
Why can’t we do that with our ever living God? Perhaps get on our knees at a waiting room and pray? Are we ashamed of who might see? Look what God has done for you. Or better yet, feel what God has done for you from your heart.
A. Deep intimacy with Him (“walking humbly”)
I do believe that the more grace a man has the more he feels his deficiency of grace.
The best of men are but men at the best, and the brightest saints are still sinners. it is the very clothing of such a character, as Peter puts it, "Be clothed with humility,"
Be clothed with humility towards one another.
You can get to be as big as you like if you get away from God; but coming near to the Lord you rightly sing,—
"The more God’s glories strike my eyes, The humbler I shall be."
1. This is foundation for a lifestyle of mercy and justice – apart from Jesus, we can’t live that way! (John 15)
The vines and the branches…..love each other……the world hates the disciples…..
Someone has offered this penetrating comparison of the difference between revenge, justice, and grace.
If someone brutally murders your son and you take things into your own hands, that’s revenge.
If you’re content to allow the law and the courts to arrest and punish the offender, that’s justice.
But if you pardon the murderer, adopt him, and take him home to live with you as your son, that’s grace!
Wow! This would be difficult. Are you this humble in the eyes of God?
2. Such dependency and humility reminds us of God’s mercy toward us and our need to extend that mercy to others.
Tell the story of Elijah and the woman 1 Kings 17:7
….Elijah prophet of the northern kingdom Ahab and Ahaziah
Awaken Israelites to their apostasy and call them back to the God of Israel.
Restorer and refiner that sought to reestablish the covenant.
God withheld the rain for three and a half years. Dt. 11:13-17.
God sent Elijah to a pagan territory after the brook dried up.
God provided for Elijah through a poor widow. V. 9.
The needs and misery of a poor widow were not insignificant to God:
He sent Elijah to strengthen her faith and give material blessings at a time when she felt all was lost. V. 12.
The widow’s faith in God and his word through the prophet Elijah led her to exchange the certain for the uncertain…….. The seen for the unseen….vv. 13-16.
The believing widow not only received from God’s prophet a material blessing, but also a spiritual blessing.
.
Intimacy with God should lead not only to an imitation of His character, but also to a sharing of His passions – caring deeply for what He cares about.
Two of His most central passions are His heart for the poor and His passion for justice.
Our new life gives us a passion for social justice (“do justly”)
1. Injustice in the Bible is most often associated with the strong oppressing the weak and taking from them life, possessions, freedom, or reputation (Psalm 10, Amos 2:6-7, Jer. 22:13)
General Robert E. Lee was asked what he thought of a fellow officer in the Confederate Army who had made some derogatory remarks about him.
Lee rated him as being very satisfactory. The person who asked the question seemed perplexed.
"General," he said, "I guess you don’t know what he’s been saying about you."
"I know," answered Lee. "But I was asked my opinion of him, not his opinion of me!"
2. God is a God who acts justly on behalf of the oppressed…He is attentive to the groaning of the oppressed and afflicted (Ex. 2:23-25) and He “rescues the poor from those too strong for them” (Psalm 35:10)
Our new life gives us compassionate, personal engagement with individuals (“love mercy”).
1. Jesus wants mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6; Mat 9:13)
Acknowledgement of God, not sacrifices.
2. Jesus teaches that there is no real love without compassion.
and the early church taught this emphatically (1 John 3:17-18)
Tithing with no love of God is nothing.
3. This kind of compassion gets “up close and personal.” the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we do not see the good Samaritan standing across the road throwing canned goods and a religious tract at the wounded traveler. He crosses the street, tears his own garments for bandages, gets his hands dirty cleaning up the man, and his wallet lightened by paying for his lodging at the Inn.
III. Jesus Modeled Perfectly the Micah 6:8 Lifestyle, shouldn’t we?
A. His inaugural address in Luke 4 is essentially a restatement of Micah 6:8, in that it makes clear Jesus’ threefold mission of preaching good news to the poor (encouraging faith, the opportunity to “walk humbly with God”); setting at liberty the prisoners/oppressed (“do justice”); and restoring sight to the blind (being engaged in compassion/healing as part of “loving mercy”).
B. Jesus not only taught about the 6:8 lifestyle, He lived it.
1. He modeled intense dependency and intimacy upon His heavenly Father
2. He preached justice and worked justice (ex., the second Temple cleansing in Luke 19:45-46)
3. He was active in works of mercy, with innumerable healings and compassionate care for the whole person (e.g., feeding the hungry, offering physical and emotional healing for the woman with the issue of blood, touching and healing the lepers who were outcasts)
IV. We are called to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and live the 6:8 life
Walk humbly with God under great trials.
When you are brought very low, do not kick against the trails. When wave after wave comes, do not begin to complain.
That is pride; murmur not, but bow low. Say, "Lord, if you chasten me, I deserve more than what you lay upon me.
And next, walk humbly with God in your devotions, between yourself and God in your room.
Do you read the word of God? Read humbly.
Do you pray in God’s spirit? Pray humbly.
Do you sing praises to his name? Sing joyfully, but sing humbly.
Take notice, when your God and you are together, that there you show to God your humble heart, with deep humility that it is no more humble than it is.
Depend upon your love for God.
It is a kind of weather-gauge as to your communion, whether you are proud or humble.
If you are going up, God is going down in your esteem. "He must increase," said John the Baptist of the Lord Jesus; "but I must decrease."
The two things go together; if this scale rises, that scale must go down. "Walk humbly with your God."
Yearn to keep with God, yearn to have him as your daily Friend, be bold enough to come to him who is within the veil, talk with him, walk with him, as a man walks; with his familiar friend; but walk humbly with him.
You must learn, not only to be humble in the closet of communion, and to be humble with your Bible before you, but to be humble in preaching, to be humble in teaching, to be humble in ruling, to be humble in everything that you do.
Isaiah 57:15
Be contrite and lowly in Spirit.
Contrite refers to any who are oppressed by the burden of sin and want to find freedom from its enslavement.
Lowly in Spirit refers to those who are brokenhearted because of life’s clamities and afflictions.
God comes to live with such people in order to revive their spirits, give new life and provide the comfort of his presence.
Do you want his comfort, his spirit, his reviving life breathed in you?
Then come to him in a humble and contrite heart.
Illustration: remember your previous life.
CLOSING
Brothers and sisters, the Lord helps us to walk humbly with God! This will keep us right. True humility is thinking rightly of yourself, not meanly.
When you have found out what you really are, you will be humble, for you are nothing to boast of.
To be humble will make you safe. To be humble will make you happy.
To be humble will make music in your heart when you go to bed.
To be humble here will make you wake up in the likeness of your Master by-and-by.
To be humble is living a Micah 6:8 life.
