Sermon for Wellspring Missionary Church – Missions Month Launch – What Does God Want from You?
I’m really pleased to be able to share with you today from the Word of God. I have some history with Wellspring. I’ve led worship here a few times, my ordination was formalized here. My son was baptised here.
I’ve always considered Wellspring the ‘mothership’ of the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada. As a church you are in a unique position to impact this city for the gospel. When Wellspring starts talking about mission, good things are going to happen, because…the world is at your doorstep.
I know you have leadership here that is passionate about the gospel being lived and expressed in this community. The harvest is great, my friends. And God is preparing this body to bring the fragrance of the knowledge of Jesus to the hurting world around you.
God is preparing you, through worship, through teaching and through your fellowship to love the community to Jesus, one person at a time.
Now I love the prophets in the Old Testament. You’ve got your major prophets [play major chord arpeggio on piano] and you’ve got your minor prophets [play minor arpeggio on piano]. Your major ones are Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah. Closely connected in spirit, you’ve got Micah. Micah writes like Isaiah. Micah is referred to by Jeremiah as having radically altered, through his prophesy, the direction of God’s people from a bad direction to a good one.
What you get with Micah is what with get with all of the Old Testament prophets. You get a lot of passion, you get a lot of stark contrasts. You get a lot of dark and a lot of light. You get a blunt assessment, not at all candy-coated, of the human condition.
If you’ve read through the book of Micah it is one huge rollercoaster experience. I read it in one sitting as I was preparing this week for this message, and after reading it I needed a day just to let it sit in my spirit.
Now Micah’s world was very different from our own world. Let’s give Micah his due by setting him in his historical context.
A lot was going on in the bigger world around the time he wrote this. In fact, Micah was writing in the period of the founding of Rome. It was around the time that the first Olympics were held (776 BC). Homer’s Iliad was news, fresh off the press. The Mayan dynasties were being founded.
Those are some of the things that we know were happening in the broader world around the time of Micah.
Closer to home, Micah, who was active about 300 years after King David, during the reigns of Uzziah king of Judah and Jeroboam II, king of Israel; closer to home Micah was watching the communities around him with a close eye, a razor-sharp mind, and a deep devotion to God.
Micah was watching during a time when a period of relative peace and prosperity was beginning to wane. This was largely due to the rise of the nation of Assyria. Assyria’s growing power was a huge threat to the kingdoms of Judah and Israel.
At the same time, trade and commerce had been flourishing, BUT, this was done largely at the expense of small landowners and peasants, who lost their land to the greed of the wealthy classes.
Rich landowners bribed judges to look the other was OR to look favorably on illegal land acquisitions, which resulted in a rapid disappearance of small farmers.
Those who lost their land, lost everything, and they drifted from the countryside to the cities, which led to overcrowding in the major population centers.
Micah began to speak out against the fact that Israel had abandoned many aspects of the Old Testament covenant in favor of Baal-worship and other Pagan practices. They tried to blend the worship of the one true God with idolatry. That’s never a good idea.
The prophet Jeremiah, writing about 140 after Micah wrote his book speaks in Jeremiah 26:18–20 of Micah’s effect on the king, and that he and the king not only were able to meet, but also that Micah’s message was able to bring the king to repentance.
So we know that Micah wasn’t a reed blowing in the wind. He wasn’t a misfit on a rant. He was a prophet. He spoke the Words of God. He was a fellow with the gift of prophesy and with a profound love for and concern for and identification with the nation of Israel.
And out of that love and concern he spoke. Numbering himself among the people, he spoke and wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and so he spoke and wrote God’s words to the people.
Today’s passage begins with God’s charge against His people, His case against His people. And this is framed somewhat in legal language. Using very beautiful and startling language, God sets creation as jury.
The mountains and the hills are the ones called to render judgment.
V. 2 Hear, O mountains, the Lord's accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth. For the LORD has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel.
It begins that way, using loaded legal language. We might expect a long litany of offenses to follow. A list of grievances, an argument of accumulating accusations. But no. V.3 is more like the statement of a husband or wife who has been betrayed.
3 "My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me.
And like a betrayed spouse might continue, God through Micah expresses His history of faithfulness to His people. He has been their deliverer, out of the hands of Egypt, out of slavery. He has rescued his people time and time again from those who planned evil against them.
Yet, despite the rich history of God’s faithfulness to His people, they have not returned His kindness.
V 10 outlines some of God’s grievances. And God’s grievances are not SO much to do with failed religious observance, failed acts of piety.
It’s not so much that the people are falling short of obedience to their religious duties. They are more or less ‘doing church on Sundays’ just fine. It’s what’s happening Monday to Saturday, in the marketplace, that is exposing the lie in the people’s faith.
We find in verses 10-12 that God is grieved by unjust economic practices…dishonest scales, ill-gotten treasures.
People who are poor are being exploited, those who are already suffering in poverty are being taken, power is being exerted and imposed upon the poor and weak for selfish ends.
The Message paraphrase of vv10-16 puts it well: "Do you expect me to overlook obscene wealth you've piled up by cheating and fraud? Do you think I'll tolerate shady deals and shifty scheming? I'm tired of the violent rich bullying their way with bluffs and lies”.
There is a terrible disconnect here. God’s people, those blessed through Him, those released from lives of bondage and futility, have themselves become oppressors. The rescued now need to have people rescued from them because they have become like their former oppressors.
We’ve been jumping around here a bit to frame the context of our key verses. But now we get God’s complaint. We get His terrible sadness and sense of betrayal at the behaviour of His people. We get how His people are not showing the kindness they have been shown to others and are instead using their freedom to oppress others.
In verse 6 Micah puts himself in the middle of the problem, closely identifying with God’s people who have done wrong.
He’s positioned himself among them, he is now one among his people coming to worship God, the exalted God. He speaks of the sacrifices he might offer to atone for his sins. He asks:
6:6 With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? 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 thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
We need to remember here that the system of sacrifices referred to here was established by God. It was established to, in fact, atone for sins. Micah is in no way dissing sacrifices.
But he is wondering aloud if the solution to his sins, the sins of his people, is to keep sinning and then keep offering sacrifices. Is that what God wants? Is that the best that life has to offer?
Is God pleased with the best of sacrifices? Is what God really wants - a whole lot of sacrifices? Does He want us to offer, as Jacob did, to make the ultimate of sacrifices…that which is most precious to us – our children? No. Mercifully, we come to verse 8:
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. 1 Sam 15:22 says: “"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams”.
These three things are what God wants from His people.
What does it mean to act justly? It means to act with a concern for justice, for what is right. It means to not say and do things with an eye to gaining for ourselves at the expense of another.
Jesus rephrased this statement into the Golden Rule: Treat others the way you wish to be treated. Don’t take advantage of others. Don’t view others as stepping stones to what you want. Have one standard instead of two.
If you have the opportunity for personal gain by cheating or twisting the truth, don’t take it. What God is looking for in men and women is quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour.
Story of acting justly.
What does it mean to love mercy? It means to be compassionate in your love. James 2:12-13 says: “12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!”
That means that when you have the opportunity to judge harshly, when someone is deserving of harsh treatment, treat them kindly instead.
Notice it doesn’t just say: ‘Do mercy!’. It says: “Love mercy”. We can do all kinds of things, even things that don’t come easily and are unnatural to us, if we have to. So it’s not a call to ‘do’ mercy. It’s a call to LOVE mercy. To embrace and be committed to mercy.
At Yonge Street Mission we have some truly extraordinary people. Your own Bill Ryan, who has been with us for about 28 years, is pastor to well over 100 staff members and does an amazing job caring for mission staff.
At Church at the Mission, our Community Outreach Pastor is Jan Rothenburger. Her ministry is like no other in the city, because it flows out of who she is. And Jan is an extraordinarily compassionate woman with very strong mercy gifts. That’s who she is.
And because of who she is Jan has been able to reach in to the lives of hundreds and hundreds of street youth and addicts and prostitutes with the love of God.
She’s completely non-judgmental. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know right from wrong. It doesn’t mean she soft-soaps sin, it doesn’t mean that she’s a push-over.
It just means that Jan knows that what people need in order to find God, in order to carve out a better life, is not criticism and judgment and any kind of heavy-handed approach. Youth and women and men in trouble with drugs and addict and the law need love.
Jan LOVES mercy. She exudes mercy. It’s at her core, and the fruit is literally hundreds of lives that have been changed, people who have come to faith in Jesus, people who have left lives of degradation and addiction and prostitution and now live lives that they are not ashamed of.
They can now dream again. Many are living much better lives. The gospel touches people through the mercy and love of God’s people.
Finally God wants us to walk humbly. A pastor I knew, Winston Nunes, was very well known as a Bible teacher and evangelist and, really, a pastor to pastors. He accomplished much in his life, and yet he was very humble.
When people would comment on how humble he was, he would always say: “I’m not humble. I’m accurate”.
I think that’s a good definition of humility – to have a truly accurate idea of who you are and to know, to really KNOW who God is.
To be humble is to be able to look in the eyes of people of high and low status and to see yourself in their eyes, to hear yourself in their stories, to identify with their struggles.
I’m so glad that Wellspring Worship Centre is concentrating on missions this month. It is so important to think about the mission of the church. It is so important to support missions around the world.
But you know, the first mission of this church is to its community, its neighbourhood. That’s true of all churches. That’s true of Church at the Mission where I pastor.
I tell our people that CATM does not exist for itself. We are not where we are for the benefit of us. We exist to bless the community, we exist for the benefit of the person who happens by any day of the week needing support and encouragement.
We exist for the orphan and the widow, the addict and the prostitute. The young mom struggling to raise her son on her own. The young dad struggling to raise his daughter on his own.
On any given Sunday at CATM you’ll find young families, seniors, professionals, students, addicts, prostitutes, gays, transgendered, English, Tamil, Caribbean, Russian, First Nations. You’ll find Hindu seekers and Muslim people who have just wandered in off the streets.
You’ll find agnostics and atheists curious about what they’ve seen and heard at the mission, coming to check out what the buzz is about, trying to figure out why we have the food bank and senior’s clubs and tons of youth ministry and ESL and job training and advocacy and addictions counselling etc. You’ll find people of any and every nation on planet earth.
And I know it’s just the same in this community. I have always considered myself a missionary. In 1984 I received a clear call from God to be a missionary. That meant going overseas, so I made plans to go to Liberia and Ivory Coast.
A friend who thought I was crazy told me about the summer missionary program at Evergreen, Yonge Street Mission. I joined the team there and was shocked to find out that the entire world was at our doorstep. I didn’t need to go overseas to be a missionary.
To be a missionary is to be mission-minded. To be passionate about sharing the blessings you’ve received with others, friends and strangers.
It is to love the Gospel, the story of God’s amazing grace expressed in the coming of Jesus Christ into the world to save people like me…sinners. People like you…all of us in need of God.
What an amazing opportunity Wellspring has…to reach out to this neighbourhood with the love of Jesus. Part of being a church that truly connects with the community around it is finding the willingness to be changed by those who may come.
Of course it’s not about people coming in to the church and conforming to the way we’ve always done things. That’s a recipe for a dying church. That’s why so many churches are in decline.
What it’s about is being so passionately committed to mission, the mission of the church to go and make disciples, that we’re willing to let God change us as people join us.
We’re not a social club seeking new members who look like us. We’re agents of reconciliation. We’re on a mission to bring the knowledge of God’s great love to a terribly busted-up world.
We’re on a mission to love that world to Jesus one person at a time. That means as a growing church our complexion will change. Our accents will change. Our clothing will change. Our fellowship meals will be a lot more international in flavour.
We’ll become a gathering place for the nations, a place where style matters so much less than the quality and substance of the Kingdom relationships that will grow in and out of this place.
May the call to loving people in this community resound in our hearts. May the biblical call to act justly, to LOVE mercy and to walk humbly be the WAY forward, the lifestyle we lead. The harvest is great, my friends. And God is preparing this body to bring the fragrance of the knowledge of Jesus to the hurting world around you.
May God strengthen you by His Holy Spirit, and may you embrace the deep joy you will find in opening your lives and opening your doors to the community around you.
Let’s pray. God, in Jesus’ name we thank you for all your good gifts. We thank you that each one here is here by Your purpose and design. We thank you that
You have called Wellspring into being, and that you have great plans for bless the nations through Your servants who gather here to worship, to pray and to learn of You. Empower each one by Your Spirit.
May courage and vision and passion for Jesus define this place. And may Your gracious and loving will be accomplished here. This we pray in the peerless and perfect name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
