Micah McCormick: Chapter 3, the book of Micah I'm going to read tonight.
Micah McCormick: Well, consider this book, but I want to read to start with chapter 3, verse 9, down through chapter 4, verse 8.
Micah McCormick: It's a little bit of an unusual reading, but again, remember there's no chapter divisions in the original book of Mike, it's just all one book.
Micah McCormick: So in our Bibles, chapter 3, verse 9, through chapter 4, verse 8.
Micah McCormick: And I should say, for those that might be visiting, we're going through a series on each book of the Bible, one book each week.
Micah McCormick: So Hosea, joel, amos, obadiah, jonah, and then this week is Micah.
Micah McCormick: I didn't just randomly decide to preach on myself, so don't Micah.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 3, verses 9, through chapter 4, verse 8.
Micah McCormick: Listen to this, leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert everything that's right, who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with injustice.
Micah McCormick: Her leaders issue rulings for a bribe, her priests teach for payment and her prophets practice divination for silver.
Micah McCormick: Yet they lean on the Lord, saying isn't the Lord among us?
Micah McCormick: No disaster will overtake us.
Micah McCormick: Therefore, because of you, zion will be plowed like a field, jerusalem will become a heap of ruins and the temple's mountain will be a high thicket In the last days.
Micah McCormick: The mountain of the Lord's house will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills.
Micah McCormick: Peoples will stream to it and many nations will come and say let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.
Micah McCormick: He will teach us about his ways so we may walk in his paths, for instruction will go out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Micah McCormick: He will settle disputes among many peoples and provide arbitration for strong nations that are far away.
Micah McCormick: They will beat their swords into plows and their spears into pruning knives.
Micah McCormick: Nation will not take up the sword against nation and they will never again train for war.
Micah McCormick: But each person will sit under his grapevine and under his fig tree, with no one to frighten him, for the mouth of the Lord of armies has spoken.
Micah McCormick: Though all the peoples walk in the name of their own gods, we will walk in the name of the Lord, our God, forever and ever.
Micah McCormick: On that day this is the Lord's declaration I will assemble the lame and gather the scattered.
Micah McCormick: Those I have injured, I will make the lame into a remnant.
Micah McCormick: Those I have injured I will make the lame into a remnant, those far removed into a strong nation.
Micah McCormick: That the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time on and forever.
Micah McCormick: And you, watchtower for the flock, fortified hill of daughter Zion, the former rule will come to you.
Micah McCormick: Sovereignty will come to daughter Jerusalem.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray again, lord.
Micah McCormick: We are praying for the Burgards tonight and we want to share in the grief of those who experienced such grief.
Micah McCormick: As members one of another, we pray that you would give them a supernatural aid, that the spirit of comfort who dwells in them would be a spirit who is especially active in bringing scriptures to their mind and hearts and using the words of family and friends and others, and particularly your words, to give them a stillness and a restfulness, a trust, an acceptance of all that you do as the good and gracious God.
Micah McCormick: Lord, we pray, as we consider this book now, that we'd remember that indeed there is no one like you In Jesus' name.
Micah McCormick: Amen.
Micah McCormick: I want to start with a Hebrew lesson.
Micah McCormick: Don't worry, it won't be long.
Micah McCormick: The name Micah means who is like the Lord.
Micah McCormick: So the M-I, that's the Hebrew way of saying who, and the C in our English language is a Hebrew letter that's compared to like or as, and then the A-H.
Micah McCormick: If you think about A-H, it's kind of a shortened form of J-A-H.
Micah McCormick: Yah, which you might kind of remember and think about that name as Yahweh.
Micah McCormick: So who is like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: That's what the name means, and it's right there when you break apart the name.
Micah McCormick: So I didn't obviously choose my own name.
Micah McCormick: My parents chose my name, and often today, when we give people names, it's really about how it sounds.
Micah McCormick: It sounds kind of beautiful or pleasant, and I think that was true for them, that they liked the sound of it, but they were believers and they also liked that meaning.
Micah McCormick: Who is like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: Now, in the Bible, often when someone gets a name, it says something about what's going to happen later in life, sometimes for good, sometimes not for good.
Micah McCormick: We can't claim that in every case today.
Micah McCormick: We might have hopes and prayers, but I always have hoped that that would be in God's kindness and evidence of my life, that people would look at me and say who is like the Lord.
Micah McCormick: So personal testimony over.
Micah McCormick: Let me ask a question, though, and this is the question I want us to really get our hands on tonight who is like the Lord If we're Bible readers, the Lord.
Micah McCormick: If we're Bible readers, if we're in any way God-fearers, we know the answer is well, no one's like the Lord.
Micah McCormick: The Lord's unique.
Micah McCormick: Why is no one like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: How is it that no one is like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: If I said to you well, tell me why no one's like the Lord.
Micah McCormick: If I said to you, well, tell me why no one's like the Lord, what would you say?
Micah McCormick: Our minds okay.
Micah McCormick: So someone said sin.
Micah McCormick: So there's definitely a clear that was from even this morning's message.
Micah McCormick: Right In Isaiah there's an element of this exalted God, human sinfulness.
Micah McCormick: I think we often, when we think of that question of what's God's uniqueness or greatness, we think of that question of what's God's uniqueness or greatness.
Micah McCormick: We think about he's powerful in a way that no one else is.
Micah McCormick: He knows everything in a way no one else knows.
Micah McCormick: He's present in time and space in a way that no one else is.
Micah McCormick: And all those things are true.
Micah McCormick: And in the book of Isaiah there'll be some times, actually in Isaiah where the prophet will ask a similar question who's like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: And he'll give sometimes answers like that Look at the created world.
Micah McCormick: Who could create anything like that?
Micah McCormick: But we're in the book of Micah.
Micah McCormick: What's Micah's focus?
Micah McCormick: How does Micah answer that question of why is it that no one else is like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: What I read tonight that we listened to from these two chapters we won't read the whole book, we'll hit some different verses.
Micah McCormick: It's kind of a snapshot of the book of Micah in that there's judgment and there's hope.
Micah McCormick: That's often in the prophets, judgment and hope echoing back and forth.
Micah McCormick: And you think about the book of Micah.
Micah McCormick: You can almost divide it up into three sections.
Micah McCormick: And I want to try to show you this.
Micah McCormick: Look at chapter one of Micah, so flip back a couple of pages.
Micah McCormick: It introduces him, micah the Moreshite.
Micah McCormick: And then look at verse number two.
Micah McCormick: Listen all you peoples.
Micah McCormick: Micah is going to be prophesying to the people of God.
Micah McCormick: But listen all you peoples.
Micah McCormick: Micah 1, 2.
Micah McCormick: Now if you go over to chapter three, verse one.
Micah McCormick: Now if you go over to chapter 3, verse 1.
Micah McCormick: Then I said now listen, you leaders of Jacob.
Micah McCormick: So listen, chapter 1, chapter 2.
Micah McCormick: Now chapter 3, listen.
Micah McCormick: And then it goes on.
Micah McCormick: Go over to chapter 6.
Micah McCormick: , chapter 6.
Micah McCormick: Go over to chapter six, chapter six.
Micah McCormick: Now listen to what the Lord is saying.
Micah McCormick: And then it goes on In each of these three panels in the book of Micah listen, listen, listen.
Micah McCormick: There's judgment and hope, judgment and hope, judgment and hope.
Micah McCormick: So you see that working out right here in the book.
Micah McCormick: There's also this is getting a little more narrow now there's also in the hope, some element of shepherding.
Micah McCormick: So look at chapter 2, verse number 12.
Micah McCormick: I will collect the remnant of Israel.
Micah McCormick: I will bring them together like sheep in a pen.
Micah McCormick: Now go over to chapter 4, verse 8.
Micah McCormick: 4, verse 8, and you watch, tower for the flock, fortified hill.
Micah McCormick: Then chapter 5, verse 4, he will stand and shepherd them in the strength of the Lord, his God.
Micah McCormick: And then go all the way over to chapter 7, verse 14.
Micah McCormick: Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that is your possession, verse 14.
Micah McCormick: Judgment, hope, judgment, hope, judgment, hope.
Micah McCormick: Now there's I'm simplifying it a little bit but and then in each of the hope sections, he's a shepherd, he's a shepherd, he's a shepherd.
Micah McCormick: So who is like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: If we're seeing that structure, we might initially start to think okay, who is like the Lord in his judgment?
Micah McCormick: Nobody can judge like the Lord, true.
Micah McCormick: Who is like the Lord in the way that he gives hope?
Micah McCormick: Nobody can give hope like the Lord can give hope and he gives hope, especially as a shepherd.
Micah McCormick: So true, those things are true, but we're going to.
Micah McCormick: So I want to hit those two themes, judgment and hope.
Micah McCormick: But then we're going to try to push forward into an even more specific way to think about how the Lord is unique, according to Micah.
Micah McCormick: So, first judgment, then hope.
Micah McCormick: There are different aspects of God's judgment, and one aspect is that God's judgment is certain.
Micah McCormick: Go to chapter one again, verse number one the word of the Lord that came to Micah.
Micah McCormick: We're accustomed to hearing that phrase as we've been going through the prophets and we let it just kind of trip off our tongue sometimes.
Micah McCormick: But this is the word of the Lord.
Micah McCormick: This wasn't Micah's idea, this wasn't something he made up.
Micah McCormick: This is what God gave him.
Micah McCormick: One commentator writes our shoes should be off our feet as we hear his word.
Micah McCormick: As we hear his word, it's certain.
Micah McCormick: And it's so certain that he can use even foreign nations who don't want to follow him to do his judging.
Micah McCormick: So chapter 1, verse 6 and 7, I will make Samaria, that's the northern kingdom of Israel, a heap of ruins in the countryside.
Micah McCormick: Verse 7, all her carved images will be smashed to pieces.
Micah McCormick: Who's going to do the smashing.
Micah McCormick: Well, it's going to be Syria in the near term, babylon in the more distant future.
Micah McCormick: So God's certain judgment incorporates other nations.
Micah McCormick: We also see its certainty in chapter one in the way Micah walks through different cities and locations and pronounces judgment on each one.
Micah McCormick: You can see that if you look at verses eight down through verse 16, roughly I won't read all those verses but if you look through them you'll see a place mentioned and then some form of judgment conveyed.
Micah McCormick: But it's actually interesting.
Micah McCormick: This is one of those times when it is a little more challenging in our English to hear through what's coming in the original, because this whole series it's kind of a series of pun judgments.
Micah McCormick: I said what do you mean?
Micah McCormick: Micah tells the name of the city and then the way that he expresses the judgment is some kind of play off of the name of that city in the original language.
Micah McCormick: Like well, that sounds silly.
Micah McCormick: This is supposed to be a serious thing.
Micah McCormick: Well, the way we think about puns is kind of a silliness.
Micah McCormick: But in this time period it could be used in very serious circumstances.
Micah McCormick: So let me give you a couple examples.
Micah McCormick: Verse number 10, tell it not in gath.
Micah McCormick: Okay, what's the big deal?
Micah McCormick: In Hebrew, the word for tell sounds like the word for gath.
Micah McCormick: Okay, what's the big deal?
Micah McCormick: In Hebrew, the word for tell sounds like the word for gath.
Micah McCormick: Let's give you another example, verse number 11,.
Micah McCormick: The inhabitants of Zanon do not come out.
Micah McCormick: Do not come out, zonin and come out sound similar in Hebrew.
Micah McCormick: And I won't go through all of these.
Micah McCormick: Some of them are puns, some of them are sound devices.
Micah McCormick: But it'd be kind of like this If I said listen all you residents of Queens, that crown is going to topple right off your head.
Micah McCormick: Listen, all you inhabitants of Levittown, you're going to be levitating in fear when the Lord comes to judge you.
Micah McCormick: Listen, all you folks of Suffolk, you're going to suffer for all that you've done and like that's so silly.
Micah McCormick: Why would you do that?
Micah McCormick: Because it's memorable.
Micah McCormick: It's certain.
Micah McCormick: The Lord's not making a joke.
Micah McCormick: He is reminding them.
Micah McCormick: You're not going to forget this.
Micah McCormick: Judgment is coming.
Micah McCormick: Judgment is also impartial in this sense.
Micah McCormick: It happens to all kinds of people, great and small, and particularly the book of Micah highlights even important people like rulers and prophets and priests as those that don't escape God's judgment.
Micah McCormick: So if you look over at chapter three, you can turn over to chapter three.
Micah McCormick: Just an example of this Verse number one of chapter three, I said now listen, leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel so it'd be especially kings, but other political leaders, aren't you supposed to know what is just?
Micah McCormick: You hate good and love evil.
Micah McCormick: You tear off people's skin and strip their flesh from their bones.
Micah McCormick: You eat the flesh of my people.
Micah McCormick: After you strip their skin from them and break their bones, you chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.
Micah McCormick: Very graphic language in a cauldron.
Micah McCormick: Very graphic language.
Micah McCormick: Not that every king was a cannibal, but the way they devoured the people and took advantage of them.
Micah McCormick: Micah is going to speak of taking bribes, taking property.
Micah McCormick: Think of someone like Ahab in the Old Testament.
Micah McCormick: He sees a vineyard and he wants it and they don't want to sell it to him and his wife says you're the king, you know you can manipulate the situation and he gets people.
Micah McCormick: You're the king, you can manipulate the situation and he gets people to lie about the owner of the vineyard.
Micah McCormick: So he stoned the desk.
Micah McCormick: He can then take the property.
Micah McCormick: We're not talking about here, about this ravenous kings.
Micah McCormick: We're not talking about whether the minimum wage was $11 an hour or $10 an hour.
Micah McCormick: There's something a lot more graphic going on here with the attacks these leaders made on the people.
Micah McCormick: But it wasn't just the kings, it was the prophets also Chapter 2, verse 11.
Micah McCormick: If a man comes and utters empty lies, often the prophets are the ones speaking.
Micah McCormick: I will preach to you again.
Micah McCormick: This is kind of prophet activity here.
Micah McCormick: I will preach to you about wine and beer.
Micah McCormick: He would be just the preacher for these people.
Micah McCormick: In other words, you're looking for someone who's going to give you all the good things that you want to hear.
Micah McCormick: You're looking for someone that can I don't know if entertain is not the right word but a prophet who can come and just make it all a party, because the prophets from God often talk about judgment.
Micah McCormick: Right, we just saw that in chapter one.
Micah McCormick: The prophets that aren't from God often say don't worry, everything's going to be okay.
Micah McCormick: If you look down a little bit verses five and six this is what the Lord says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who proclaim peace when they have food to sink their teeth into, but declare war against the one who puts nothing in their mouths.
Micah McCormick: Therefore, it will be night for you without visions, it will be dark for you without divination.
Micah McCormick: And then he goes on and goes on.
Micah McCormick: Look down at verse number 11.
Micah McCormick: The summary here her leaders issue rulings for a bribe, her priests teach for payment and her prophets practice divination for silver.
Micah McCormick: Yet they lean on the Lord, saying isn't the Lord among us, no disaster will overtake us.
Micah McCormick: And it's wrong.
Micah McCormick: And there's a common ground of greed.
Micah McCormick: That's here.
Micah McCormick: You see that there in the passage.
Micah McCormick: There's in the book of Judges a story about another person named Mike, a different person, but he's an idolater, and he hires a Levite to be his own personal priest, and it's not even for that much money.
Micah McCormick: But the Levite is happy to get a comfortable living and just go get paid, not to really serve the Lord but just to kind of live in comfort, so that the greed here is not always accumulating more and more and more.
Micah McCormick: It can be, as Kevin Cooney loves, that t-shirt that says comfort wants you dead.
Micah McCormick: There's an element of that here, with people that are not concerned for giving a message from God but just for making their life a lot easier.
Micah McCormick: Judgment's very personal.
Micah McCormick: Turn over to chapter six, verse number three my people, what have I done to you or how have I wearied you?
Micah McCormick: Testify against me.
Micah McCormick: Verse number six what should I bring before the Lord when I come to bow before God on high?
Micah McCormick: Should I come before him with burnt offerings, with year old calves and then probably the most well of you to act justly, to love faithfulness and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah McCormick: Very hard for me to get that out in the CSB.
Micah McCormick: My parents kind of put that verse on me when I was young and I've got the King James just drilled in my mind of that verse and so it's hard to get on the CSB for that.
Micah McCormick: But it's hard to get on the CSB for that.
Micah McCormick: But it's personal.
Micah McCormick: The Lord who reigns is not just looking for righteous deeds in the abstract.
Micah McCormick: My people, what have I done to you?
Micah McCormick: I'm not looking for thousands of sacrifices.
Micah McCormick: I want you to walk humbly with me.
Micah McCormick: So that means that the humble relationship that's breached by the people.
Micah McCormick: There's a corresponding judgment that comes.
Micah McCormick: It's a very personal judgment and yet there is so much hope in this book of Micah also.
Micah McCormick: So there's some aspects of judgment.
Micah McCormick: But what about these aspects of hope?
Micah McCormick: Chapter 3, verse 8, go back there.
Micah McCormick: We're going back and forth a bit.
Micah McCormick: If there's going to be real hope, there has to be a truthful foundation for it.
Micah McCormick: This is verse number 8 of chapter 3.
Micah McCormick: As for me, micah, speaking, I am filled with power, by the Spirit of the Lord, with justice and courage to proclaim to Jacob his rebellion, to Israel his sin.
Micah McCormick: So the starting point of hope is to get real about what's going on, not to offer a false hope like the prophets who were there.
Micah McCormick: I have a friend back in Louisville who is significantly autistic and that's not crucial to the story, but it makes his commentaries much more endearing.
Micah McCormick: And one thing he does not like is false teaching.
Micah McCormick: And we'll have these conversations when I live in Louisville more often, but regularly, where he'll say now Micah, now Micah, tell me about this.
Micah McCormick: What would you do, micah, if you were in a church and the preacher said oh, dear children, god loves all of you.
Micah McCormick: You don't have to worry, no matter what you do, everything's going to be okay.
Micah McCormick: What would you do, mike?
Micah McCormick: What would you do?
Micah McCormick: He said well, brad, that doesn't sound like it's very he goes.
Micah McCormick: That would be false Teach.
Micah McCormick: You should get out of there.
Micah McCormick: So this guy was there, but he was right.
Micah McCormick: That is.
Micah McCormick: They don't use that tone of voice, otherwise it'd be easier to get rid of.
Micah McCormick: But he's right.
Micah McCormick: They tend to say everything's going to be okay, no matter what, no matter what repentance, no matter what, and there's no real frank discussion of sin.
Micah McCormick: The prophetic hope here begins with there's real rebellion, but that's going to lead to make the hope all the more sweet and precious.
Micah McCormick: And the hope that Micah gives is not centered on their ability to correct themselves or make up the difference.
Micah McCormick: It's centered on God and what he accomplishes.
Micah McCormick: So let's go back to chapter two, verse number 12.
Micah McCormick: I will indeed gather all of you, jacob, I will collect the remnant of Israel, I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like flock in a pasture.
Micah McCormick: Verse 13,.
Micah McCormick: One who breaks open the way will advance before them.
Micah McCormick: I, I, I the one breaking open the way.
Micah McCormick: This is God doing this work, the way this is God doing this work.
Micah McCormick: Turn over to chapter six, another fascinating example of this.
Micah McCormick: Often the prophets go through history of what happened in Israel's life.
Micah McCormick: They'll do that to remind them of sin, but they'll also do that to remind them of how God has brought them hope in the past with his sovereign power.
Micah McCormick: Chapter six, verse number five, after the prophets talked about he rescued from Egypt, micah says my people remember what King Balak of Moab proposed.
Micah McCormick: This was a hundred years before another king outside of Israel.
Micah McCormick: This was a hundred years before another king outside of Israel tried to hire a prophet, balaam, to come and pronounce a curse on Israel.
Micah McCormick: He's trying to manipulate the spirits.
Micah McCormick: So he gets a hold of Balaam and says, like I'm going to pay you, I got it.
Micah McCormick: These Israelite people, they need to get some kind of voodoo curse.
Micah McCormick: So come give them a curse.
Micah McCormick: And Balaam goes.
Micah McCormick: Now, if you know the story of Balaam, it's not completely clear from the Old Testament but he seems to be kind of prophesying against his will.
Micah McCormick: And then the New Testament and other places makes it clear Balaam was a bad guy.
Micah McCormick: He led the people into sin.
Micah McCormick: He wasn't a true prophet of God in the wholesome sense.
Micah McCormick: So Balaam's not a good guy.
Micah McCormick: But Micah says not here.
Micah McCormick: Remember, balaam was a bad guy, don't be like Balaam.
Micah McCormick: He says remember what King Balak of Moab proposed.
Micah McCormick: Remember what Balaam, son of Beor, answered him and what happened from the Acacia Grove to Gilgal, so that you may acknowledge the Lord's righteous acts.
Micah McCormick: Well, okay, so what did happen and what made it a righteous act of the Lord with all this sin.
Micah McCormick: Listen to one of the things that Balaam says.
Micah McCormick: Balaam opens his mouth after he's been hired to prophesy against Israel, and he says this from Numbers 23, 20 and 21.
Micah McCormick: I have indeed received a command to bless, since he has blessed.
Micah McCormick: Speaking of God, I cannot change it.
Micah McCormick: He considers no disaster for Jacob, he sees no trouble for Israel.
Micah McCormick: The Lord, their God, is with them and there is rejoicing over the king among them and the king that hired.
Micah McCormick: Balaam gets ticked off and he said what are you doing?
Micah McCormick: You're supposed to be cursing these people and Balaam's like I, I, I, I.
Micah McCormick: And now Micah says remember even that wicked king and the prophet that was maybe kind of a prophet for hire and at least later turned a wrong course.
Micah McCormick: Even he couldn't go against God's people when it was God's purpose to bless them.
Micah McCormick: So the hope is that God's going to do amazing things, despite what attacks and assaults that people face.
Micah McCormick: I'll leave that aside.
Micah McCormick: Another comment, but leave it for now.
Micah McCormick: God's hope is not just for that people, israel.
Micah McCormick: It's an expanding hope, it's a universal hope.
Micah McCormick: Go over to chapter four.
Micah McCormick: So we saw some of this already and Micah overlaps with Isaiah, don't know that they were best friends.
Micah McCormick: We're not aware of that, but they have a similar timeframe and a similar message and even similar words, which also shows this is the spirit of God behind this.
Micah McCormick: It's not their imagination, but verse number one of chapter four in the last days, the mountain of the Lord's house will be established at the top of the mountains and be raised above the hills.
Micah McCormick: Now listen, peoples will stream to it and many nations will come and say let us go to the mountain of the Lord, the house of Jacob.
Micah McCormick: He will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.
Micah McCormick: Many nations.
Micah McCormick: So lest we think God's work in the Old Testament is merely limited to Israel, no, even there there's this plan and purpose of God to bless the nations that it's not just one place or one nation or one small temple.
Micah McCormick: It's going to expand to be a kingdom that encompasses heaven and earth.
Micah McCormick: Great judgment, great hope.
Micah McCormick: So let's come back to that question who is like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: No one is like the Lord in his judgment.
Micah McCormick: Yes, no one's like the Lord in the way that he provides hope and a tenderness to the hope that he'll gather his own like a shepherd.
Micah McCormick: But let's turn to chapter seven, because Micah answers his own question.
Micah McCormick: If you read the book this week, you already knew how it ended, but maybe you don't.
Micah McCormick: Micah, chapter seven, verse 18.
Micah McCormick: Who is a God like you?
Micah McCormick: So Micah asks about his own name.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't say his own name right here, but he's asking the question the book reveals.
Micah McCormick: The prophecy came to Micah.
Micah McCormick: Now, at the end, micah asks the question who is a God like you?
Micah McCormick: And then what's Micah's focus?
Micah McCormick: Forgiving iniquity and passing over rebellion for the remnant of his inheritance.
Micah McCormick: He does not hold onto his anger forever because he delights in faithful love.
Micah McCormick: He will again have compassion on us.
Micah McCormick: He will vanquish our iniquities.
Micah McCormick: You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
Micah McCormick: You will show loyalty to Jacob and faithful love to Abraham.
Micah McCormick: No one forgives like God forgives.
Micah McCormick: That's Micah's answer.
Micah McCormick: Like God forgives that's Micah's answer.
Micah McCormick: It's not a story of raw power or intellect or knowledge true as those things are.
Micah McCormick: It's that God has this quality of forgiveness that's backed up by his loyal love.
Micah McCormick: That is unmatched.
Micah McCormick: But you need the judgment and the hope.
Micah McCormick: And it still raises the question that Micah doesn't give great detailed answer to.
Micah McCormick: But wait a minute.
Micah McCormick: If God is bringing judgment rightly and all kinds of people deserve judgment where's the forgiveness come from?
Micah McCormick: It comes from Jesus Christ, who tabernacled among us.
Micah McCormick: It comes from Jesus Christ who lived perfectly and walked the righteous mountain of Zion and was crucified on a cross and took God's judgment so that we might receive real and lasting hope.
Micah McCormick: So if you're tonight thinking well, that's kind of a letdown answer like no one forgives, like God.
Micah McCormick: I mean, yeah, god's supposed to forgive.
Micah McCormick: No, it's amazing that God forgives.
Micah McCormick: If you think well, yeah, someone once, you know, swerved in front of me, but I forgave him in my heart.
Micah McCormick: No, no, god forgives in a much greater way than that.
Micah McCormick: There's eternal debt here, there's personal sin and grief, but God forgives.
Micah McCormick: I've loved loyally before From eternity to eternity.
Micah McCormick: God has his own.
Micah McCormick: That's a faithful love that's incomparable.
Micah McCormick: It's the same thing when Moses says show me your glory, and do you remember God's answer?
Micah McCormick: He does tell Moses, I bring consequences to the third and fourth generation, but he begins by saying I'm compassionate and gracious and maintaining love to a thousand generations.
Micah McCormick: It's the same thing we saw in Jonah, where we get to the end of the book and Jonah says I knew this was going to happen.
Micah McCormick: I knew you were gracious and forgiving, and Jonah doesn't have very good attitude about it, but he knows what's true about God that God forgives.
Micah McCormick: There's a word that's used here and it's a Hebrew word and we don't do a lot of Hebrew, but this is a word that's important and we're going to actually come to it next Sunday morning, so I'll give you a little cliffhanger here, but it's this word that's translated sometimes love, or faithful love, or loyal love.
Micah McCormick: That helps to reveal the quality of God which generates such intense loyalty and such intense sovereign achievement of salvation that brings full forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: So we celebrate the fact and we can hear more about it next Sunday morning from the Psalms, where that repeats over and over again as a refrain His faithful love endures forever.
Micah McCormick: Who is like the Lord?
Micah McCormick: No one, because no one forgives like our God.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray, lord.
Micah McCormick: We are astounded that you would extend forgiveness, not because we deserve it or there's some obligation, but because this mysterious and marvelous fountain of grace that you are to make a way for forgiveness to happen, to make a way for reconciliation, to bring us into the fold of Jesus Christ, that our shepherd loves us to the end, loves us, even with iniquity and sin.
Micah McCormick: Lord hear our cries of hallelujah and our amazement.
Micah McCormick: That would not be ever something we want to take lightly or think little of, but to have as the theme of our hearts and the magnitude of our prayers.
Micah McCormick: No matter what happens in life, our God forgives us, no matter what disappointments we have from others.
Micah McCormick: We're forgiven and loved by the Lord, no matter what sin we might contribute.
Micah McCormick: We come to you, we turn, we confess, and there is forgiveness with you that you we confess, and there is forgiveness with you that you might be feared, but there is forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: How we praise you, oh Lord, god, that there is no one like you In Jesus' name, amen.