He Has Shown You What Is Good

So I want to start with a question. If you were writing a letter today,

a letter to be sealed in a vault and opened 250 years from now in the year 2276,

what would you want it to say?

Or more to the point, what would need to be done for the people opening that

letter to still have anything left worth celebrating? celebrating.

Today is July 5th, 2026, and we are celebrating 250 years, 250 years old.

And if we think about what happened over these last 250 years,

we had a revolution, we had a near fatal civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression.

Somehow we're still here. That's great. That's amazing.

But it's not an accident.

It's not merely the result of good governance or military might.

And I want to make the case that the next 250 years are not guaranteed.

And the answer to how we get there is the same answer that a prophet gave about

2,700 years ago to another nation that had forgotten who was really in charge.

So our reading this morning comes from Micah chapter 6, verses 6 through 8.

Micah 6:6–8

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 tens of thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has shown you, O mortal, 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.

Now, before I get to the main points, I need to lay one stake in the ground,

because everything else hangs on it. And yes, I did use that visual on purpose.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he didn't hesitate.

He said, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Notice the order.

God first, others second.

Not country first not comfort first not culture first not approval first god first,

so that's the spine of everything today every patriotic impulse every national

pride every political conviction it all goes through that filter and this morning

that filter is going to do some work.

So if we back up a bit in our Micah 6 reading to verses 3 through 5,

Micah opens this passage with a question from God.

It's almost heartbreaking in its tone.

He says, my people, what have I done to you?

How have I burdened you? Answer me. And then God says, kind of in this effect,

he says, do you remember what I did?

Do you remember the exodus? Do you remember how I brought you out?

Do you remember what I did for you in the beginning?

See, that's covenantial memory. God uses history to create accountability,

and before he asks anything of his people, he reminds them of what he's already done.

So I'm going to take a page out of his book. Before we talk about what God requires

of us today, we're going to remember how things got started for our country here.

So the year is 1620, and a group of about 102 English separatists and strangers,

which is actually what non-Puritan passengers were called, have been at sea for 66 days.

They were supposed to land in Virginia.

They missed by approximately 500 miles.

Now, whether that was a navigation error, whether that was a storm,

whether that was providence, it's a matter of some debate, but what is not debated,

is what they did before they ever set foot on land.

They stopped before anyone left the ship. They stopped and they wrote a document.

And the very first words of that document are this, In the name of God,

amen Having undertaken for the glory of God And the advancement of the Christian faith,

And the honor of our king and country A voyage to plant the first colony In

the northern parts of Virginia,

The Mayflower Compact is what that's known as In the name of God,

amen Having undertaken for the glory of God,

That's not a formality That's a mission statement,

These people were cold They were 500 miles off course and before they took a

single step off of that boat they had been there for 66 days before they took

a single step off into the wilderness they put God first in writing.

See, we are founded on faith. Now, ten years later, a man named John Winthrop

is on a ship called the Arbella headed to Massachusetts Bay.

He preaches a sermon aboard that ship that has become one of the most quoted

documents in American history.

Presidents from John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan have cited it.

He quotes Jesus directly, Matthew 5.14. He says, you are the light of the world.

A town on a hill cannot be hidden.

But here's the part that almost never gets quoted. See, Winthrop said the same

words that Micah said. but he made it a warning, not just a promise.

His exact words were, For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill.

That's the part that's usually quoted. The eyes of all people are upon us.

But he goes on to say, So if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work

that we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw our present help from

us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.

In other words, this only works if God is actually in it.

And whether or not he stays in it depends entirely on whether we stay obedient to him.

See, that's Micah 6.8 in colonial clothing.

All right, let's fast forward to 1776. Everyone knows the Declaration of Independence,

but here's a little detail that most people tend to miss.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, they are endowed

by their creator with certain unalienable rights, He's not just being poetic,

he was making a specific theological argument.

See, rights come from the creator, not from the state.

Which means that the state can't take them away because the state didn't give them.

That's a profoundly biblical idea. The imago dei. It's Genesis 127.

It's the dignity of every person made in the image of God applied to political philosophy.

Then we get the Constitution. These are more things that really should make us smile.

The executive, the legislative, the judicial branch. It wasn't James Madison's invention.

Isaiah 33, 22 said, for the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver.

The Lord is our king. Three functions, three branches.

Judge, lawgiver, king.

Madison wasn't plagiarizing. He was clearly downstream of something.

And the checks and balances? Those exist because the founders believed what

the Bible teaches, that human beings are sinners.

Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. who can understand it.

They didn't build a government that trusted man's goodness. They built one that

assumed man's fallenness.

That's applied Christian anthropology. The founders, in their own verified words,

understood what Micah understood plainly. They were not the source.

God was. And Washington said it in his farewell address.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,

religion and morality are indispensable supports.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail

in exclusion of religious principles.

And as Pastor Tim read last week from John Adams He said it even more directly

He said, our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people It's

wholly inadequate to the government of any other They knew,

They knew who they were They knew where they stood They were founded on faith.

Which brings us to part two. We are sustained by grace.

So I'm going to introduce you here to a couple of passages that kind of puts

things into perspective.

In Isaiah 45, 9, God is speaking. He says, Woe to those who quarrel with their

maker, those who are nothing but pot shards among the pot shards on the ground.

Does the clay say to the potter, What are you making? Does your work say the potter has no hands?

And then Isaiah 29 16 it calls it out directly it says you turn things upside

down as if the potter were thought to be like the clay so what is formed say

to the one who formed it you did not make me can the pot say to the potter you know nothing,

Paul echoes this too in Romans 9 20 but who are you a human being to talk back

to God so what is formed say to the one who formed it why did you make me like this?

See, the clay does not get to evaluate the potter.

The clay does not get to tell God that his plans are wrong, that his standards

are outdated, or his designs need updating.

The moment that we personally as a church or as a culture start arguing with

our maker, then we have put ourselves in the place of God, and that never ends well.

The question isn't whether God's commands are inconvenient. The question is

whether we will submit to the one who made us.

God is sovereign over the nations. He sets their times, their boundaries,

their rise and their decline.

Deuteronomy 32.8 tells us, the Most High fixed the boundaries of the peoples

according to the number of the sons of Israel.

And Paul, he quotes that very passage, Deuteronomy 32.8, Mars Hill in Athens,

when he says that God did this so that they would seek him. He's saying,

God determined these things.

Our American history is not spinning randomly. It's under God's governance with a redemptive purpose.

Pastor Tim read this in Psalm 33 last week. No king is saved by the size of

his army. No warrior escapes by his great strength.

The nation that has stood for 250 years has not done so on its own merit.

It has stood under the patience of a God that has not yet given up on the people within it,

so here's the uncomfortable truth we are not still here because we have been

so faithful we're still here because god has been so patient,

we are sustained by grace,

and so we come to part three we're called to humility.

Most people know that George Washington proclaimed days of thanksgiving.

What fewer people know is that John Adams, who was by temperament approximately

as warm as a New England January, proclaimed something else entirely.

In 1798, with America in a Cold War with France and the country in political

turmoil, Adams issued an official presidential proclamation calling the nation

to a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer.

Not just prayer but solemn humiliation first fasting second and prayer third,

and in that proclamation he wrote the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately

and essentially depend on the protection and blessing of the almighty god,

existing or threatening calamities the just judgments of god against prevalent

iniquity are a loud call to repentance and reformation,

John Adams, America's second president Founding father Harvard-trained lawyer,

Publicly told the entire nation That their problems were At the root,

A spiritual problem that required humility before God.

I love that. I wish we had more of that today.

But back to Micah's question, Micah 6.8, he has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you? See, the people in Micah's day,

they weren't irreligious.

That's kind of the haunting thing. They were offering things.

Burnt offerings, rams, oil.

They were willing to give more, more rituals, more sacrifice, if that's what it took.

They were like a child that forgot to do its chores and tries negotiating by

offering to do twice as many next week,

but god was not impressed by more and bigger offerings he was calling for a

different kind of heart he has already shown you what is good this was not new information,

it's always been the standard love god above all love your neighbor walk in

justice and covenant faithfulness.

Don't chase the world's approval.

Let's take each of Mike's three requirements and try and bring them home.

The first one Mike says is we need to do justice.

It's not just a political slogan. In Hebrew, it's mispat, but it means enacted

or concrete righteousness in the community.

It's the difference between knowing what's right and actually doing it.

It means that you treat people honestly in your business dealings,

it means that you don't exploit those that have less power than you.

It means you show up, you tell the truth, you keep your word,

and treat every person as a bearer of God's image. Because they are.

The church that does justice in its community is not the church that passes

resolutions at denominational meetings. It's the church whose people are honest

at work, who are faithful in marriage, who are generous with money,

who are fair in every transaction.

For the next 250 years, what America needs is not more legislation,

it's people who actually live justly.

The next one is love kindness, or hesed in Hebrew.

It's kind of one of the richest words in the Old Testament. It's translated

as kindness, or loving kindness, or mercy, steadfast love.

It's the word that's often used to describe God's own character towards his people.

It's not niceness. Niceness is pleasant. It's noncommittal.

But hesed is a covenant word it describes the love that stays a love that keeps

its promises when it becomes inconvenient,

that serves when it's costly that forgives when it's hurt it's the difference,

between a love that lasts and the love that leaves,

james 4 4 kind of contrasts that kind of love with the world and he makes it

very explicit when he says you adulterous people don't you know that friendship

with the world means enmity with god,

see james uses the word adulterous there and it's jarring and it's meant to be,

the church seeking the world's approval is breaking covenant with god and we

cannot be hesitant towards god we cannot be showing loving kindness towards

god while being obsessed with the world's opinion of us.

The last one that Micah says is, walk humbly with your God, Hatsnia.

Literally means to walk in a way that is quiet, unassuming, without self-advertisement.

It's the opposite of pride.

It's the posture of someone who knows that they are clay, not the potter.

And this is kind of where that thematic thread that's run through this whole

sermon comes to a point. We started with the great commandment,

love God first, love others second.

Every decision about what we do what we say what we defend it all has to go

through that priority god first,

the founders tried to build something under that principle and however imperfectly

however inconsistently when they did it worked when they didn't it cracked,

but here's what jesus himself said in john 15 18 and 19 jesus to his disciples

the night before he was crucified he said if the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first,

if you belong to the world it would love you as its own but as as it is you

do not belong to the world for i have chosen you out of the world that's why

the world hates you it's not easy to walk humbly with god when the world is

applauding something else.

It's not easy for the pilgrims it's not easy for the early church,

as pastor tim said last week it's not easy when you're trying to declare independence

from the most powerful nation in the world and two-thirds of your companions

are either apathetic or at worst sympathetic with the enemy,

it will not be easy for us either r.c sprawl wrote it this way he said if we

are never hated for the gospel's sake we are likely not being true to the gospel,

and i heard it another way just recently too somebody said that,

we are called to love our enemies well if we're called to love our enemies that

assumes that we are going to have enemies Peace.

This is not a call to be difficult, not a call to be combative or self-righteous.

Micah Standard is justice, kindness, and humility, all three of them together.

We're not called to be harsh. We're called to be faithful.

We're called to please God rather than the world, to serve God rather than culture,

and to love God and love our neighbor.

In that order. Always in that order. Even when it costs us.

When the First Continental Congress convened in 1774, someone moved that they opened it with prayer,

and it was immediately objected to, not because they weren't God-fearing people,

but because the delegates were Episcopalians and Quakers and Anabaptists and

Presbyterians and Congregationalists.

They were too divided to pray together.

But then Samuel Adams, the firebrand revolutionary from Boston,

stood up and said that he was no bigot, and he could hear a prayer from any

man of piety who was a friend of his country.

And he nominated Episcopal clergyman named Jacob Touche.

And the next morning, Touche came in full vestments and read the appointed psalm

on that day, which happened to be Psalm 35, which is a psalm of one surrounded

by enemies calling on God to deliver him.

Well, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that same day, and that letter has been preserved.

And he said, I must confess, I never heard a better prayer or one so well-pronounced.

Episcopalian as he is, Dr. Cooper himself never prayed with such fervor,

such ardor, such earnestness and pathos for America, for the Congress,

for the province of Massachusetts Bay.

And then Adams added something that tells you everything about how these men

understood their situation.

He calls the providential assignment of that psalm, on that day,

sortis biblique, which is a latin term that means,

divine lots from scripture he had thought that god had picked that psalm for

that day and actually i recommend anybody,

i didn't have time to cover it here but.

That prayer from the first continental congress if you have time to go and look

it up it's very very well documented very highly documented there are journals

from all of the people there there,

correspondences from more kind of responses between John and Abigail,

that prayer went on for multiple hours that morning,

That's how our country got started. That's how our founders started this country.

With prayer.

The path forward for the next 250 years is not complicated.

It's never been complicated. It just requires something that's genuinely difficult in any age.

Humble yourself. Pray.

Seek God's face. and turn from your own way,

and if that sounds familiar that's because it's second chronicles 7 14 if my

people who are called by my name will humble themselves pray and seek my face

turn from their wicked ways and i will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and kill their land,

now i'm going to be careful with that because it's often misused god said those

words to solomon after the dedication of the temple as a promise tied to the covenant with israel,

We can't claim it as a guaranteed political fix for America But what it does

tell us Is that God's character does not change,

He responds to humble,

repentant, seeking hearts among his people,

That's who he is He's always been that way So the healing begins with the church,

Not with Washington Not with elections, but with us Thank you.

So if we get back to our letter, if we're writing a letter to be opened in 2276, what does it say?

I would suggest that it has to say something like this.

We knew what the Lord required. He had already told us. He told Micah 2,700 years ago.

He told the pilgrims 150 years before our founding.

He told Washington and Adams at the very beginning. He told us from the pulpit,

from the word, and from the witness of the Spirit.

In the near 2026, on the 250th anniversary of this nation, we chose to submit

to the Maker rather than argue with Him.

We chose to love God first and let everything else find its proper place.

We chose to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly even when the world laughed.

Even when the culture moved the other way, even when it cost us something.

See, Micah's question is not rhetorical. What does the Lord require of you?

He's already answered it.

Love God. Love others. Do justice. Love kindness.

Walk humbly.

Not because America is a Christian nation in a covenant sense,

but because we you and i belong to god and the best thing that we can do for

this nation for the next 250 years and for the glory of christ,

is to be that is to belong to god let's pray.

Holy Father,

on this 250th anniversary of our nation's birth, we acknowledge that every good

gift has come from your hand, not from our strength.

Not from our wisdom, not from our virtue. Forgive us for the times that we have

turned things upside down as if the clay could tell the potter what to do.

Forgive us the times that we

have sought friendship with the world at the cost of faithfulness to you.

Lord we pray for this nation Not for prosperity or success But for repentance and renewal,

Heal what is broken in us So that we can be the salt and light In a confused

and divided land Raise up believers,

Who love you above all And love their neighbors as themselves Who are willing

to be misunderstood To be opposed Or even hated for the sake Of your love and truth,

And as we go now, may the God of hope Fill us with all joy and peace as we trust

in you So that we may be overflowing with the hope and power of the Holy Spirit,

Make us doers of the word and not hearers only And may all we say and do this

week be for the glory of your name And we ask us in the name of the Father and

the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen.