What Does God Require of Us? S31e117

What does God require of me?  It is not a mystery.

Today, He'll ask something of me that He has 'required' and exampled of Himself:  faithfulness, mercy, & kindness toward the undeserving. Yes, it is a big ask.

This isn't the first day of asking.  Micah 6:8 famously also required it:

He has told you, O man, what is good; 

and what does the Lord require of you 

       but to do justice, and to love kindness, 

and to walk humbly with your God? 

Join me to consider walking this way together.

https://youtu.be/14CkfsMLeKQ

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My brothers and sisters, welcome to episode 117. What does God require of us? Now, our official passage, we've been working, we're working our way through the book of Matthew. So our official passage, which we're going to dovetail off of here today, is from Matthew 9 13. Go and learn what this means, Jesus says. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. That launched us yesterday into the word Hesed, which we'll get to in a minute here. But the passage in my mind is very similar to Micah 6, 8, chapter 6, verse 8. He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of us? What does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. So what does the Lord want from me? What are the criteria that he might use to assess me? Well, he tells us in Micah 6 8. Are they a mystery? No. I've told you before, Old Testament, and I'm telling you now again. So he's told you what is right and what you should what you be doing to follow him. We're going to talk about the first one, then the third one, and I want to get to the last one, which I this applies to our Matthew passage. First of all, do justice. So he's saying that a proper relationship with God specifically includes a reference to how we live in a just way towards other people. So our vertical relationship is going to be assessed by this horizontal justice that we exert towards one another. So that's the first of the three. The third of the three is to walk humbly. Well, what a great point. He he says, hey, let's be careful in this. Let's be deliberate. Let's be thoughtful. You know, we're a sinful people. So I think it means reverence in this and this traditional humility. He's God, and we are not. I don't think there's any big mystery there, walking humbly. So, but let's talk about the other one. Love kindness. Now, this in the Old Testament is the actual word Hesed. Uh it's this love, loving kindness of the Lord. And and it says uh to do justice and to love kindness. Or some translations would even have it love, loving kindness or love mercy. And the reason is they're they're translating the word Hesed, which is translated in in all these different ways. So loving kindness, loving Hesed, love, loving kindness, as it is often translated. So the question is, do you love Hesed? Do you love the Hesed that the Lord provides this faithfulness when we're unfaithful? That's kind of an easy question, and I think the answer is yes. Steadiness when we're unsteady, faithfulness when we're unfaithful, solidness when we wobble. Who wouldn't? I mean, I can't think of who wouldn't want that. But that's only the first step. To love is to love the Lord's action of Hesed for sure. But the second part of that is to love the Lord's Hesed so much that I say, I'm going to endeavor to live my life in a certain way to extend this grace the Lord has given me, to extend this grace, and it's not easy, uh, to people that by my assessment and probably everyone's assessment, they don't deserve it. So will I be like God in this particular way? Will I fix my will on imitating and displaying the character of God in faithful Hesed living? Now He desires this, He requires this of us. So do I love the Lord's Hesed faithful enough to make His characteristic my characteristic? So the people that Jesus is reclining with table, I'm gonna go back to the Matthew passage, are sinners and tax collectors. And specifically, they're they're an easy group to say, hey, they don't deserve this relationship. But then Jesus says, go and learn what this means, which is I desire mercy, Elios, uh the Hebrew word for Hesed in the Old Testament, which is a Hebrew word. He says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. So this the story is in the context of calling Matthew, who is a tax collector, and also our gospel writer here, and he says, Follow me. So Matthew arises from his tax collector uh table, and then later he's found eating with Jesus. Now he gets criticism from the Pharisees to the disciples saying, Hey, what are you doing eating Jesus? What are you doing eating with tax collectors and sinners? So in the story, I'm wondering what it might take to view ourselves as a person in a poor position to receive the mercy of God. What distance do I have to travel to extend this Hesed, this undeserved mercy, undeserved faithfulness to others? Hesed's a word that's uh one of the chief characteristics of God through the Old Testament, mentioned 250 times or so. And generally it's expressed from the Lord's perspective that the Lord has Hesed upon us. Now, the definition is maybe God giving grace to the undeserving, kindness to the ungrateful. I like to say where God butters the bread on both sides. So it's translated steadfast love, kindness, faithfulness, beauty, sometimes loyalty. It's a it's this large, uh, incredibly multifaceted word. So who do you identify in the in the story with as the Pharisee? Do we sit in righteous judgment and say Jesus should not have a relationship with with different sinners as we call we call them? But I think the point is for us to take ourselves humbly and say, I could be wrong at this. What about my actions? Could I move towards the little people, the undesirable, the sinners? And do I desire mercy, not sacrifice? So if it is Hesed, that is, that I want spiritual faithfulness to a broken, rebellious, fallen, stiff-necked people, just go to church, you'll find them there. I'm speaking of people in my kingdom, much less those that are at other churches or whatever. So Jesus says, I desire this, I want this out of you. So God says, This is my characteristic. I am full of Hesed, I relate faithfully to the unfaithful. And then He's saying in our passage in Matthew, he says, but I want you guys to live like this too. So I'm using this as a criteria. More than success in business, I desire this. More than having seven kids, more than a worked-out body, more than riches in the bank, more than beauty in the mirror. I want this invisible interior reality. I want faithfulness, hesed, mercy, especially towards those who what? Don't deserve it. So Jesus says, I want you to live in this way that I live. That says I'm living a Hesed life, and I'd like you to live a Hesed life. It's a very high call. So may you be an example of this great, godly, spiritual reality here on earth. He's asking us to mirror his characteristic in extending love, extending faithfulness towards his creatures, especially that's right, sinners, unmerited, unexpected kindness. Go do Hasid. Do likewise. Thanks for listening.