1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 4th Sunday after Epiphany is taken from Micah 6:1-8. It’s entitled, “See What God Has Done for Us.” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. In the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin gives a card to his mom for Mother’s Day. The card reads: “I was going to buy you a card with hearts of pink and red, | but then I thought I’d rather spend the money on me instead. | It’s awfully hard to buy things when one’s allowance is so small, | so I guess you’re pretty lucky you got anything at all. | Happy Mother’s Day. There, I said it. Now I’m done. | So how about getting out of bed and making breakfast for your son?”
3. The oddness of the card’s message with the spirit of Mother’s Day! Calvin’s calloused misunderstanding of the day is on full display in his poem when he says, “There, I said it. Now I’m done.” Calvin falsely believes that doing something for Mom on Mother’s Day is an obligation, a duty he’s stuck with . . . so the quicker, the easier, the cheaper the way to dispense with the duty and move on, the better. His heart certainly isn’t in it. Do it. Get it over with. He’s forgotten all Mom has done for him and missed entirely the delight of thanking her.
4. This is a mistake Israel was making with the Lord, and one we might also often make with God. No question, God commands us to do for him. We’re obligated. But in our text, God through the prophet Micah reminds us again what he has done for us. That gives us a whole different perspective on why we are to do for God.
5.
We fall into Israel’s sin when we
think what we do for the Lord is just something we have to get done. The Lord
has an indictment against Israel. Micah 6:1–3
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. “O my
people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!” They have wearied him with
scant measures, wicked scales, violence, lies, and idolatries like former kings
Omri and Ahab (6:10–12, 16). They begrudgingly offer God sacrifices. Micah
6:6-7 says, “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? 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?” They might even be willing to
give him their firstborn, as pagans did to Baal. But these are worthless to the
Lord because Israel sees him as a God who must be appeased. We fall into the
same sin: When we treat worship as a box to be checked. When we hang
Christian decorations in our house to appear pious. When we make demands of God,
rather than humbly following him.
6. Brad and Brittney were sending their children to a Lutheran preschool. Near the end of the year, they approached the pastor and asked him if he would be willing to do their wedding. He offered to visit them in their home to talk about God’s design for their relationship, and the forgiveness and grace that is found in Christ. When the pastor arrived at their home, he sat down at their dining room table. Hanging on the wall above their table was a giant wall hanging that said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15).” When the pastor asked them if they had a Bible, they said no.
7. The pastor gently said, “I see you have this sign above your table from the Bible. And yet, you don’t have a Bible in your home, and you have three children, and you’re not married. What do you think God would rather have you do? Have a Bible and get married and come to worship, or have a wall hanging in your house with a Bible passage on it?” The couple admitted that the wall hanging was in conflict with their actions. Praise be to God that through gentle and patient instruction, they repented, got married, took membership classes, and now are regular members at the same congregation where they sent their children to preschool. God doesn’t look for token gestures but for lives in accordance with his will, as the prophet Micah says (Micah 6:8).
8. The Lord does tell us that we must “do” for him. Micah speaks as the voice of conscience to the Everyman: “[The Lord] has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you?” (Micah 6:8a). Yes, the Lord requires. We must “do” for him. Mother’s Day, Lord’s Day, every day—we must do what is good.
9. And what is the good we must do? Not offerings we invent and give grudgingly. “But to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8b). That never comes from checking boxes and doing just to get done. That comes from a heart that loves. Justice, kindness, walking humbly with our God means sincerity of worship and love for our neighbors.
10. But what the Lord commands us to do is a delight when we remember what he has done for us. Micah reminds of God’s acts of love and righteousness. Micah 6:4–5 says, “For I brought you up 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 Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.” Rescue from Egypt and slavery. Giving faithful leaders: Moses, Aaron, Miriam. Deliverance from Balak’s evil schemes.
11. You don’t always need to tell people what they’ve done wrong to make them feel guilty. Oftentimes their conscience will do the heavy lifting, especially if you articulate all the good things you’ve done for them in the past. This is a common argument between spouses. A husband and a wife get into some war of words when suddenly one says to the other, “You know, this past week I’ve made breakfast every morning for the kids. I’ve made most of the dinners too. I also went to parent-teacher conferences by myself, and I cleaned the kitchen after the kids went to bed. I shoveled snow out of the driveway, and I folded all those clothes that were in the dryer.”
12. This articulation of good things is designed to make the other spouse feel guilty for not being similarly good. It’s an indictment against his or her inaction. While this type of spousal argument has questionable motives, it is similar to the unblemished words of God—like God through the prophet Micah asking, “O my people, what have I done to you? . . . O my people, remember . . . the righteous acts of the Lord” (Micah 6:3, 5). God is pointing to his own goodness and letting the conscience of this people of Israel do the heavy lifting.
13. These are all foreshadowings of what God has done for us and for the whole world: sending Jesus. Jesus came not to compel us to do what we’re required to do. Jesus came to do, get done for us, the justice, the loving kindness, the humble walking with God, the good we couldn’t do. He did it by living and loving, by suffering, dying, rising, ascending. Why articulate what God has done for us? This is how God changes hearts. The Law forces and compels us to do. Righteousness and grace free us to do.
14. When you remember what God has done: You delight to do justice to his other children. You love being kind to brothers and sisters in the faith—and to those not yet of faith. You love walking humbly with him!
15. Here’s an illustration of remember what God has done for us. Three friends spent a year planning the vacation of a lifetime: ten days in the remote wilderness of northern Minnesota called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Wilderness. Two days into the trip, one of the friends had a severe anxiety attack. He insisted that he needed to go home. Right now. He offered to pay each of his friends a thousand dollars if they took him out and got him home. They were miles and miles from roads. There were no phones. No electricity. No running water. No heat. The friends had to get him out. To make the anxiety worse, this friend was aware of the fact that he was ruining their long-planned, once-in-a-lifetime vacation. Shortly before they left camp to take this friend home, he asked his buddies, “Name anything you want. What can I do for you to make this up to you?” The friends replied, “We’ve forgiven you. We’d be much obliged if you believe us.” Just as the friends abandoned their vacation and got their friend out not for his offers of money or anything else, God isn’t a God to Israel—and us—for the sacrifices we might offer to Him, but for what He has already done for us through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord (Micah 6:6–8).
16. There! Jesus did it! It’s done! And so it’s done for me too. Just as Calvin’s mom loved him not for the card, just as God loved Israel not for the sacrifices of calves or oil, God has done it and loved us not for anything we do, but so that we can do with love and delight in what is good for him and for neighbor . . . and that we can walk with him. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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