Micah 6:8 and Sticky Fingers

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

"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." Micah 6:8

Micah 6 and Sticky Fingers
This morning, when I grabbed a mug from the cupboard and my fingers stuck to the outside of it, I immediately thought, "Lixi washed the inside but didn't bother with the outside."

Lixi is our helper, a Sister who has been with us over 20 years. She's part of the family by now; we help each other, and learn from each other. I even wrote an article about her, "Half the Sky," which was published in "Women of China". But sometimes, like today, I get frustrated with her. But I kept my peace and said nothing, consoling myself with "everybody makes mistakes." I put the sticky mug in the sink and grabbed another one--and it was sticky too. This was too much. Fortunately, before I confronted her, I realized that it was my hands, not the cups, that were sticky.

How often do I blame others when the fault is mine, or try to pull a splinter out of others' eyes when I have a plank in my own? In Matthew 7:5, Jesus said, "You hypocrite! [tactful, eh?] First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck out of your brother's eye."

Micah 6:8 is an amazing verse, with 4 key points:
1) " He has showed you, O man, what is good." C.S. Lewis' central argument in "Mere Christianity" for the existence of God is the undeniable existence of a "moral law" that all peoples follow. Some deny the existence of right or wrong, but if you treat them unfairly they'll not hesitate to scream "unfair!" Yet if we are nothing but the product of amoral evolution, there is no fair or unfair, right or wrong--only survival of the fittest (similar to Darwinian driving in China, or, "survival of the fastest").

2) "And what does the Lord require of you?" The Jews were very religious, but throughout most of the Old Testament they worshiped not God but idols, even while cowering at the foot of smoking Mt. Sinai! They even offered up their own children to Molech and Baal, hence God's repeated reminders that He preferred obedience over sacrifice.

What God Wants? Micah 6:6,7 asks, "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? 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?" And in Micah 6:8 God replies that people know what is right, and that the Lord requires not sacrifice but obedience.

3)"To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Act justly: throughout the entire Bible, God calls us to justice, to treat others as ourselves, fairly, to protect the poor, widows, and orphans. Jesus said that the sum of the law and prophets was to Love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and our neighbor as ourselves. And who was our neighbor? Anyone in need.

Love mercy: our family, friends and neighbors make mistakes, but so do we. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus' first request was for daily bread but the second was "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Luke 6:37."Judge not, and you will not be judges, condemn not, and you wont' be condemned; forgive, and you shall be forgiven."

Walk Humbly: we are who we are, and have what we have, only by the grace of God. I cannot guarantee my own next breath or heartbeat. Proverbs 27:1 "Do not boast about tomorrow, because you do not know what another day will bring forth."

I am weak and faulty, but that is okay, because my weakness is transformed into strenth--if I obey Micah 6:8's last 3 words:

With your God: I am to walk humbly not on my own, for then my very humility can become pride (proud of being humble), but with my God. If I walk with God, and not ahead of Him, behind Him, or even for Him, He works as I walk. He works on me, changing my heart, and He works through me, using me for his purposes. Ephesians 2:10 "For we are his workmanship [masterpiece], created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God prepared long ago to be our way of life."

Though weak, if we are humble, and walk with God, our very weakness, and total surrender, allows our Father to work through us more freely and unhindered.
In Hebrews 11:32-34, Paul wrote that "I do not not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised....whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle..."

Our Heavenly Father does not want religious people; He wants obedient children who act justly, show mercy, and walk humbly. Only such as these will see "his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

F.B. Meyer, in "Our Daily Homily" (London, 1894) wrote of Micah 6:8
THE perfunctory sacrifices of lambs and rams, rivers of oil, and of tender children, were eagerly practised by the surrounding nations such as the Moabites, but were abhorrent to God. What to Him is the outward rite without the holy purpose, the child's form of obeisance, apart from filial love? Grave questionings as to the utility of mere ritualism suggested themselves in the old-world religions. It appears that the questions of this chapter were put by Balaam; and the words before us were uttered by the divine Spirit to his heart. But however that may be, it is matter for our adoring gratitude that God has stepped out of the infinite to show us what is good, and what He requires.

TO DO JUSTLY is to preserve the balane of strict equity: if an employer, treating work-people with perfect justice; if a manufacturer or salesman, making and selling what will thoroughly satisfy the just requirements of the purchaser; if an employee, giving an exact equivalent of time and diligence and conscientious labour for money received.

TO LOVE MERCY is to take into consideration all those drawbacks which misfortunes, which enfeebled health, or crushing sorrow may impose on those who owe us service or money, or in some other way are dependent upon us.

TO WALK HUMBLY WITH GOD implies constant prayer and watchfulness, familiar yet humble converse, conscientious solicitude, to allow nothing to divert us from his side or to break the holy chain of conversation. We must exchange our monologue, in which we talk with ourselves, for dialogue, in which we talk as we walk with God. Ask Him to make these good things the ordinary tenor of your life.
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