A God Who Will | Micah | Special Guest Brian McCormack

Oh man.

Let's say this right off the bat.

The good news is I feel so much better than I sound.

Okay.

But here's the deal.

Anybody like grow up in a talk back church where you get to like talk a little bit?

Have any fellow brethren, anybody, I if you want to fill the gaps a little bit if I start giving out, uh you you let me know.

That'd be helpful.

Um, I'm so honored to be here.

Like uh Pastor Chris said, my name's Brian.

Uh I lead a Bible study at Texas AM University called Breakaway.

Anybody familiar?

A couple people?

Um anyway, uh anybody go to Texas AM University?

Okay, there you are.

All right.

Um, it's important to clarify, uh, I am not talking like this because last night the Aggies went to 6-0.

Okay.

So if you are not an Aggie, I pray grace upon you because they don't get to you're the Aggies around you don't get to talk like this really often, okay?

Um, but anyway, I was not at the game.

I have no idea what's going on with my voice.

I just choose to believe that the enemy doesn't want us to get into the scriptures today.

And not today, Satan.

We're pushing through.

You guys with me?

Let's do it.

It's gonna be good.

This is nothing alcoholic in here, I promise.

Okay.

Um, I love your pastor.

I love your church.

Uh that is not pandering.

Um, I get so excited to speak here.

There's something special happening in your church.

I hope you sense that and believe that.

It is an honor to be a part of it.

And I just, it's something worth applauding.

Um, you should know that God is moving in a lot of places.

Uh, I was a lead pastor in a church playing through Seattle for about over a decade before God moved us to college station.

It's quite a quite a shift.

Um, and it's been incredible to see what God's doing there.

Uh, God is moving at Texas AM University, and He's moving at Breakaway, but He's moving on this campus.

And I need you to know uh what you are hearing, hopefully, about what God is doing on college campuses.

It is not hype, it is not exaggeration.

Uh, I don't know what to call it, uh, if you want to call it revival or not.

It is at the very least the sparks that we are praying will catch fire.

That is what we've been seeing.

Uh, to give you a glimpse, last week, Aggie volleyball is a top 10 program in the country right now.

They were playing Kentucky, another top 10 program.

They had the fifth largest attendance in the history of Aggie volleyball.

It was like 4,500 people out to see a volleyball game inside Reed Arena.

Uh, well, this was a couple weeks before.

This was 6,000 students gathering in the same arena to lift up the name of Jesus, okay?

So that's breakaway.

Which is pretty wild.

And we just to be clear, we love Aggie volleyball.

We're not in competition with them.

We actually have the whole team.

There's a lot of believers on that team.

They're bringing their whole team out a few weeks from now on a Tuesday night in the arena where we meet.

And we let some of the players read scripture and then we lay hands on the team and we bless them for God to reveal himself to them.

So we pray for them.

Um, but another great example of God's favor in what he's doing.

A couple weeks ago we found out we couldn't be in the arena where we are most Tuesdays, and Aggie Athletics was like, Hey, can we help you solve this problem?

We said, What's on your mind?

They said, What if we shut down the heart of campus right outside Kyle Field, the largest stadium in the SEC, uh, right across the street from the student center, right across the street, the other way from the Rudder Auditorium, where some of the most intellectual minds in the world come and give lectures.

The heart of campus, what if we shut that down, close a road or two, and let you guys do like an open air old school revival breakaway?

And we're like, are you serious?

Like, it was wild.

And so that's what we got to do.

And so a couple thousand students showed up outside the stadium, which was wild.

To hear my voice as I was like reading scripture bouncing off the walls of this campus in the heart of the campus was just wild.

Hundreds of students decided to come alive in Jesus if they never put their faith in him.

Some decided to come awake if they've been slumbering in their apathy.

If that is you, I pray that this message is a wake-up call.

And some of them came home.

Some of you have been wandering from God because of the hurt you've experienced or the grief you've been in, or the shame that you feel.

And I believe that your even presence here is him ushering you back home.

I pray maybe that that story of those students would lead the way.

But I also need your prayer.

I just want to show you these last two pictures.

Um, this is what I see more than just big crowds is prayerfulness.

This is thousands of students circling up and praying for one another.

Some of the people in this picture had no intention of coming to breakaway, had never been in a Christian environment before, but felt drawn by the open air dynamic.

And went from like mocking to worshiping in like a half hour.

That's what's happening here.

But just pray that prayerfulness would increase because we study church history.

Prayerfulness precedes great moves of God.

So be a praying people, United City.

And then just one more picture, it's so beautiful, just shows like the unity.

Pray for the unity.

We are experiencing supernatural unity across denominational lines and church lines, Christian and non-Christian, different ethnicities, like just beautiful things, fraternities, athletic teams.

Pray that God will do that all the more.

Um, but thank you for your support.

Um, it means a lot.

Thank you so much.

Um, last year, my friend in Seattle needed to get away.

And so he did.

It was a very angsty millennial thing to do.

He just threw his gear and his like Hyundai and then just started driving with his camera.

And he found himself zigzagging from National Park to National Park on the West Coast.

And his journey eastward ended in College Station, Texas.

Thank you.

I was waiting for at least one laugh.

As you imagine Arches National Park and then College Station, Texas, right?

Um, Aggie's calm down, okay?

It's not a beautiful place, it's a beautiful life, okay?

Um, and so he ends up in college station, and he's on the couch in my living room with my five kids and my wife, and we're looking at his pictures on the big screen television, and we're looking at wildlife, and we're looking at canyons and all just this beauty.

Then this picture comes up and stops me in my tracks.

Let me show it to you.

If you can't see it with the stage lights, that's a bunch of stars.

A whole bunch of stars.

And I'm like, where in the world did you get that?

It's like that's Yellowstone.

I took my camera, I put it on top of my car, and the reason you see so much is I set it to an eight-second exposure.

So the lens of the camera was essentially looking up at the sky for eight seconds instead of like your iPhone.

Click, you know?

And that's why you see so much extra stuff.

Well, that's beautiful.

I think that the astronomy lesson is over.

We're going back to wildlife.

Um, but this is the next picture.

I'm like, where is that?

You should have started at that place.

Um that's the exact same spot.

It's 15 seconds instead of eight.

I think it's over now, but then there's one more picture.

Texture.

Color.

Movement.

And I look at him bewildered, and he smiles, doesn't even make me use the words 30 seconds instead of 15.

Y'all, what you need to hear is that what's true of the stars is also true of the one who made them.

If you want to see more glory, if you want to experience something more than what you've experienced before, you need only look longer.

That's it.

It's crazy.

Like most of us don't need deeper truths to believe.

We need to believe simple truths more deeply.

And I think that what I love about scripture, which I've been in a love affair with for 25 years since I met Jesus.

Okay.

What I love about scripture is that yes, we have a creator who will reveal like more things, more glory when we look longer.

Y'all, when we look longer at the book, the glory comes alive.

And this is why I love the minor prophets.

Okay.

Uh, if you had a nickel for every time someone said they love the minor prophets, you wouldn't have enough for Wrigley's gum.

Okay.

Uh, but I think we should have more nickels in that hypothetical.

I feel like the minor prophets are like a long-lost observatory that is just like forgotten and in some way reasons like avoided.

And they offer a unique perspective of the God you claim to love, Christian.

And so, like, as people who like, I know your pastor, his heart is that you guys would know the whole counsel of God.

Give this man some props.

When you see him next, yeah, we're going minor prophets.

We're doing this thing.

Our people are gonna know the whole scriptures.

And this is what I believe, y'all.

Whether you are investigating faith in Jesus this morning, and some of you are, or you're wavering in your faith in Jesus, or you're hungry to strengthen your faith in Jesus, we get to spend the next few minutes looking longer at him together.

Uh, may that never get old.

Uh, would you bow your heads?

We're just gonna say a quick prayer before we get into the scriptures together.

Friends, first, would you say a prayer for yourself?

Maybe the first prayer you ever prayed.

Would you just pray, God, would you speak to me through your word this morning?

Now, would you pray a similar prayer for those to your left and to your right in front of you and behind you?

God, would you speak to them?

And lastly, would you just pray a simple prayer for me?

God, help Brian handle the word faithfully and just get his voice through this.

God, the book's open, which means you're already speaking.

Speak all the more because your servants are listening.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Everybody sit together.

Amen.

All right, Micah, let's do this thing.

Um, before I take us on a quick kind of weave through Micah and highlight a couple specific things, I just want to give us context about a book that many of us have never read before, um, or perhaps haven't read in a long time.

Uh, the prophet Micah was from a small town called Morisheth in the southern kingdom of Judah.

He ministered around 740 to 700 BC, around the same time as Amos and Hosea in Israel and Isaiah in Judah.

So, like a ton of prophetic activity happening that he was a part of.

Um, those northern and southern kingdoms of God's people had split up long ago, but they had both violated their covenant with God in different ways.

It was a time of moral decay.

Sound familiar?

Does it sound familiar?

Um, and the the primary expression of that was injustice being done to the poor by the rich on purpose.

So, not just like old systems having to impact, like just like intentional oppression of the poor for the benefit of the rich.

Um, so for this uh and many other reasons that get highlighted in the book, Micah warns his readers that God is going to bring the Assyrians to take out the northern kingdom and terrorize Jerusalem.

And he also warns that after that, Babylon would bring even greater hardship among his readers.

But he also had a crazy message of hope that there would be restoration on the other side of the judgment.

Now, the God of the Old Testament, which believe it or not, is the God of the New Testament as well, gives a bad rap for things like judgment coming to bear on disobedient peoples.

An important thing to remember as you work your way through some of these forgotten corners of narrative of the of the history of redemption is that when God brings judgment towards his people, it's not for the purpose of destruction, it's for the purpose of redemption.

He's trying to get people back to his heart, even when it feels harsh, okay?

And you gotta remember that, not just to be faithful Bible readers this morning, but to be a faithful follower of Jesus, follower of Yahweh, okay?

You gotta understand that that there's times when we're experiencing the discipline of God because of ways that we refuse to live according to his ways, he's not trying to destroy us, he's trying to bring us to a place of redemption and recognition and repentance.

The same concepts are swirling here, okay?

So here's the big question.

When we look longer at God in Micah, what do we see?

What do we see?

First answer we see a God who will not tolerate sin.

Look in Micah chapter two with me.

I'm gonna read the first couple verses.

It says, Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds.

When the morning dawns, they will perform it because it is in the power of their hand.

Okay?

So he's painting a picture here to be very clear when it says people devising evil on their beds, right?

He's not talking about anything sexual, like the bedroom, anything like that.

He's painting a picture of a person, a people, who are going to bed, and you know that place where you can't fall asleep because your mind's racing, and you have to like meditate and think about something until sleep comes.

King David in the Psalms gives us what we're supposed to do with that space.

We're supposed to meditate on God's love and on his word and on his law.

It explicitly tells us that.

He's painting a picture of people who instead are meditating on the ways that they will exploit people who do not have their power or opportunity for their own personal gain.

And he highlights that as like an expression of the two things that are wrong in God's people: um, idolatry towards God and injustice towards people.

If you're a no-taker, write that down.

That's the two expressions, the two things that need to be addressed: idolatry toward God and injustice toward people.

These two things are often married, are they not?

When we fail to worship the one true God and instead worship another God of money or power or pleasure or self, we tend to stop looking at people as people to be served and loved as we worship the same God together, and we start looking at people as worshipers of ourselves or means to the end of helping us worship the so-called gods that we've given our allegiance to.

That's what happens.

So we've got to be aware of that.

Look at the people in the book, look at our own heart, look at the situation in the book, look at the situation in our lives.

All right?

So there's this idolatry toward God, and if you look at Micah 1, Micah 1 verses 5 through 7 gives you a picture of just how bad this idolatry had gotten.

Micah 1:5–7

It said, All this for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel.

What is the transgression of Jacob?

Is it not Samaria?

I mean, all these different spots in the northern and southern kingdom.

No one's exempt.

Uh, what is the high place of Judah?

Anytime you see high place, it almost always implies like an altar erected to like a demon god.

It's like a real idol in terms of like a spiritual entity and the dark things that happen there.

He says, I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards.

I will pour down her stones, like the imagery of these altars being torn down into the valley.

All her carved images, depictions of these false gods, will be beaten to pieces.

And then it talks about all her wages will be burned with fire, all her idols will be laid to waste.

From the fee of a prostitute, she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.

That's some intense language.

It's making these points.

The idolatry was not simply the tragedy of people like worshiping something that doesn't exist in a whimsical way instead of worshiping Yahweh, the true God.

They're worshiping real gods.

Specifically in that region, it was Baal, B-A-A-L, and Asherah.

And one of the ways that Baal would be worshipped was through child human sacrifice.

And one of the worship practices toward Asherah was ritualistic prostitution for a fee.

How bad had it gotten with God's people?

They had completely mingled with these nations.

They had, instead of tearing down altars, they're gathering at like demonic altars.

And they've walked far away from the true God, and they're like practicing unimaginable stuff.

And God's like, absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

That simply will not stand.

And so in this place, what the what needs to come to bear is a realization that idols uh of position and power and wealth and pleasure will try to draw our worship away.

And there will be times that like we have to ask ourselves, like, how have I been doing walking this line of being in the world but not of the world?

Like, what repentance needs to come into my own life?

Because there's a God who does not tolerate sin.

And the way he tells his people in Micah, like, I'm going to bring judgment on that.

Friends, it is unloving for me to not tell you there will be a day of judgment that we'll give account for the things we did in the places we brought our worship.

And we need to feel the weight of that.

We too often rush through that, but that's absolutely true.

We will all give account.

Judgment is a real thing.

All right.

And so make sure that you spend time thinking about the idolatry that we breathe.

Like we live in like a culture, largely, that is worshiping things that are not the God of the universe, but also the idolatry we breed.

Like the idolatry that comes from our hearts.

It's not like we're breathing it from culture, just the brokenness of my heart.

A church father said, My heart is an idol factory.

And I need to take inventory of that and invite God to come and flip tables and clean house, take out my old heart, give me a new one.

That's what the gospel offers us.

Make all of that at the front of your mind.

That first thing we see when we look longer at Micah is a God who will not tolerate sin.

But guess what?

The second thing's incredible.

We also see a God who shows up despite sin.

And this is wild.

And this is more scandalous than we realize.

We're gonna be in Micah 5-2.

Right?

Um, and before I read this text, if it is true that there's a God who shows up despite sin, that's already really good news.

Because I'll do some work for you, some research.

Every monotheistic religious way of thinking is the opposite.

It's some form of a God who stays distant until you get your stuff together, until you clean yourself up.

Christians in the room, has it gotten old that your God comes near and chases you down even when you're a mess?

Anybody still thankful for that?

I'm so full of gratitude that he chases me into those places.

And some of us, our theology kind of compromises his character in this weird way.

Where yes, we believe, like, well, God can't, he's too holy, he can't be present with sin.

I'm like, right, like perfect true relationships, not possible.

But like, my God is a God who gets his hand dirty, hands dirty, coming to get the kids he loves.

And I just want you to know that posture.

And here's a beautiful example of it.

Micah 5, verse 2.

Micah 5:2

But you, O Bethlehem, Ephra, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient of days.

Skip to verse 4.

He shall stand as as shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord our God.

They shall dwell secure for now.

He shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be their peace.

Friends, who's the he?

Who is the ruler that's to come?

Who is the shepherd?

Imagery, the one who's going to shepherd, who's the one who will not just provide peace, but be peace to all who will see him for who he is.

Y'all, this is a beautiful thing.

This is a prime example of what's called a messianic prophecy, a promise about the coming Messiah.

But this is like what the entire thread of scripture is all about.

You get to page two or three before God's perfect creation is just cracked down the middle.

And I'm like, Genesis three, you get the first allusion to this mysterious He who's going to come and fix everything that's been broken in the world and in your heart and in mine.

And he's going to crush the head of the serpent who brought this break.

Brokenness to bear on everything.

That mysterious he is this he who will come to Bethlehem.

He's gonna be born in Bethlehem, whoever he is, right?

And it's not just calling it shot in terms of geography.

Like hey, if a guy comes and he starts like saying crazy stuff and doing miracles and bringing hope to bear on hopeless situations, if he's from Bethlehem, pay attention.

It's not just about geography.

All that imagery is tied to the fact that Bethlehem was the hometown of David.

King David, the most prolific king in the history of God's people, the greatest human king they'd ever known or seen.

It's saying a true and better king is coming.

He will be a shepherd like David, but a better shepherd.

He will be a king like David, but a better king, and he will be our peace.

Call in the shot.

He comes despite sin.

He comes to get his kids.

He puts on skin and comes down here and enters into obscurity to live like an upside-down kingdom kind of life.

That's what is told here.

It's absolutely beautiful.

And Matthew 2 quotes this, says, Oh Bethlehem, from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people.

The gospel's quote it.

And then Luke 2 tells us it's fulfilled.

Jesus, the true and better King, was born in Bethlehem.

Incredible.

He comes to get us despite our sin.

Third thing we see.

Third thing we see when we look longer at Micah is a God who commands us to confront sin.

He commands us to confront sin, and I'll add to that, in the meantime.

Because think about the timeline of the book that we're reading.

There's this present tense, gosh, idolatry and injustice and all that.

And then there's this coming Messiah centuries away, right?

And so the message to God's people is like, oh, there's gonna be a major event.

The arrival of the king of kings, the shepherd, better than any other shepherd who will bring peace.

In the meantime, I have things I need you to be committed to.

And friends, it's just as applicable to us.

Although we're in the privileged part of redemptive history, I hope you're grateful, Christians, that you live on this side of the cross and the empty tomb and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I hope that's not old to you.

You get to daily walk in realities that Old Testament saints would have given anything to experience.

Right?

But like even us in this place of like past tense knowledge of this incredible Messiah and indwelling power through the Spirit on this side of Pentecost, we also have been given things to care about, to be devoted to until that same Messiah comes back.

Alright?

So what is it?

How does he want us to be confronting sin?

Look at Micah 6, 6.8, with the exception of the passage we just read that is very prevalent uh in Christmas time messages, born in Bethlehem and such.

This is definitely the most well-known passage.

If you look at Micah 6, 6, 8, does anybody in here have an ESV Bible they're looking at right now?

What's your heading say?

Right above that section.

Say it loud.

What does the Lord require?

Does that get your attention a little bit?

Now, the headings are not inspired.

Those weren't written by scribes and rabbis or translators.

The translators added them to help us break down and process the different sections.

Not inspired by the Holy Spirit, but man, inspiring.

What does God require?

That kind of gets my attention.

And so listen, this is what it says.

It says, With what shall I come before the Lord?

This is already courtroom terminology, the way you would come before a judge.

Because we just spent five chapters, if we've read the whole thing, finding all the ways why the people of God are guilty and judgment is coming.

Right?

What does he require?

What do we do?

And here's the speculation.

Micah's like talking on behalf of God and on behalf of the hearts of the people.

He says, Well, uh, what if I bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings?

So it starts fairly predictable.

There was a framework for that in the sacrificial system that God had given them, um, but they had largely rejected or made a mockery of.

I can give some burnt offerings with a calf a year old.

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams?

So see the escalation?

Like I think you bring up burnt offering, a calf, or thousands of rams.

It's an escalation of this like ritualistic expression.

Then it says, with ten thousands of rivers of oil, so the imagery's getting bigger.

Will that be enough to deal with this situation?

And then it says, Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression?

What's that make you think of that we've already talked about?

The prophet, like the the false god of Baal and how he was worshipped.

Laying down like your firstborn.

Is this like kind of like hyper hyperbole?

Um just trying to think of something huge, or is it actually like a dark proposal?

It's kind of up to the translator a little bit.

But notice the, and then it's like the very fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.

Here's the point: notice the escalation.

What you're supposed to take from that is that the people's hearts are so hard that they will think of escalating momentary expressions to try to deal with the sin problem instead of actually repenting in their heart and actually doing justice with their lives.

And we pivot from the text back into our lives.

How often do we try to do something when we realize there's been a moment or a night or a weekend or a season of horrific decision making and running from God instead of to him, and we start bargaining.

We start putting things on the table, like I will do this and I will do this and I will do this if you get me off the hook of the consequences of my sin.

That is not repentance.

Offering your outward symbol is not repentance.

Repentance starts in the heart, my friends.

And their willingness to do anything but repent should be haunting to those of us who have been trying to do the same thing instead of actually inviting a heart surgery, instead of trying to do some grandiose one-time action that might get you off the hook, but won't get you in the kingdom.

Okay, that's what we see here.

And it goes on, it goes on to tell us uh what does the Lord require, though?

If it's not any of those gestures, verse 8, he has told you, oh man, what is good.

This isn't the first or the only time he's made it clear what God wants his people to be devoted to.

He's told you what is good, and what does the world require of you?

This to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with your God.

Oh let's focus on justice for a second.

This is the Hebrew word mishpat.

Everybody's saying mishpat.

Congratulations, you're all seminary people now.

Congrats.

I joke that if a preacher's giving you like 50 Hebrew terms, he's flexing.

But also sometimes I think that there is a certain group of words I think every believer should know just to make it like a sticky thing.

Gosh, Mishpat's huge.

Mishpat justice.

Okay?

Here's what's happened over the last decade when it comes to the word justice.

Ten years ago, intellectual giants of Christianity like Tim Keller would use the word social justice to describe their biblical conviction that the people of God, in addition to their central purpose of being witnesses to the gospel and winning souls and being evangelists, in addition to that, straight from Scripture, Old Testament and New, we should be people seeking justice that benefits society.

This should not be controversial.

It was publicly used that way.

And in the years that followed, there were some culture wars, there were some massive insights, like massive situations in our country that kind of forced people that weren't even really united to try to have conversations using words.

That's our biggest challenge.

Man words are rough when it's all we have to communicate.

And so suddenly the word social justice becomes really, really like nerve-inducing.

Um, that some people redefine this as like, well, if you talk about social justice, you're a socialist, and we're like, hold on.

Even if there's some academics who maybe made that point, we weren't talking about that, right?

And so for a while, there were some leaders that we were trying to fight for the word, and finally we're just like, whatever.

Let's just focus on the biblical words, let's call it biblical justice, okay?

Micah 6.8 justice.

And then what's happened even in the last five years is our communication across dividing lines has gotten even worse, in my opinion.

And so now sometimes just the word justice makes people nervous.

It makes them lean in, like, what are you talking about?

Where are you going with this?

Right?

And that's a problem.

That's a problem.

I don't need the word social, justice.

I can adjust.

There's certain words I'm not getting off the couch for.

Like words like evangelical, I don't I don't know.

But Bible words, heart of God words, like justice, and if you need to be sold on this, my friends, Psalms.

In the Psalms, it starts talking about God as the king of all things.

And it says that the foundation of his throne is Sedekah righteousness and Mishpat justice.

And that justice isn't something that we tweet or something that we applaud according to this.

It's something that we do.

It's an action word.

It's an action word.

What does God want his redeemed, gospel-centered, spirit-filled people to be voted to, to be devoted to?

And so for them, his first coming or for us, his second coming.

Oh my gosh, it's relationship with God and with the Messiah we know to be Jesus, and it's unconditional love.

But you better believe it's bringing justice to bear on the parts of the world that need justice to come and serving the people who are experiencing injustice around us and not caring if that gets us labeled something that we have no control over because we have to obey the book.

So, United City, I put this before you.

I put this before you.

Would you prayerfully, would you biblically all the more say, gosh, how will we follow Jesus and how will we know God?

But how will we, how will we do justice in our pocket of opportunity?

How will we do Micah 6a justice?

Who gets loved that's not being loved when we do that?

Who gets a glimpse of God that they haven't seen before when we do that?

I put that before you and I trust it with you.

But also do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.

That last part, walk humbly with your God.

Most of the time in my life I've preached that little phrase, walk humbly with your God.

I focused on the humility part.

Be humble, right?

And I think you're supposed to.

But just sharing my personal learning, you know the word there that's been resonating with me?

It's walk humbly with your God.

It's not just a call to behavior, it's a call to nearness to him.

Walk humbly with your God.

And the implication there is that being with God intimately is made possible by believing the gospel.

He lived the perfect life I couldn't live.

He died the death I deserved in my place.

He rose to new life so I can have new life.

But listen, now on this side of my salvation, I am with him when I walk where he walks.

And he has this habit of walking among those who need love they have not experienced before, and justice to come to bear on parts of their lives that they haven't experienced before.

And so we go with him and we experience nearness we haven't experienced before.

I just, last addition, have you connected the dots yet?

That word with that the cross itself, that the gospel itself, that the forgiveness that comes from those things, the adoption that comes from those things, are all means to an end.

I promise I'm not a heretic.

They're actually not the point.

They make up the most important information in the history of history, but they are all means to the end of you being with him, of a loving father getting to be with his kids.

The culmination of this God who comes to get us despite our sin is when he gets you with him.

So don't get caught up on checking boxes when the God of the universe wants you to be with him, brothers and sisters.

Oh man.

The last thing that we see is a God who removes sin from a people and a person.

And this is gorgeous.

When you look at Micah 7, starting in verse 19.

Like what does it say God's posture is towards sin and towards sinners?

This is verse 18 that he's pardoning iniquity, he's passing over transgression.

Verse 19, he has compassion on us.

He will tread iniquities underfoot.

Remember, we talked about that serpent who brought sin into the world?

He's gonna crush the head of the serpent.

It's like pointing back to that in beautiful fashion.

He's gonna cast all of our sins.

Say all of our sins.

He's gonna cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea.

It's like Psalm 103 saying, As far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your sin from you.

This is a God who takes everything out of the way so he can be with you.

You look longer, and that's what you see in Micah.

And my friends, the end of this message is the end comes from the end of the book, and it's a vivid image of hope.

Those last verses are this picture of God's people, Israel, watching and waiting.

They're in shame, they're in defeat the way some of you feel.

And it's depicted as this individual watching for God's mercy, hoping for forgiveness, daring to believe that there might still be hope for them.

Is that you in this season?

Have you been waiting?

Have you been watching for mercy?

Daring to hope you can be forgiven.

Ultimately and for the first time, we're afresh for the latest struggle.

The thing you can't believe you're back here again.

You need not wait any longer.

Instead, look longer.

Yes, at the sin and the idolatry in your life, but exponentially more so at the God who comes to cast it into the depths of the sea by what he's done through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And may you look longer at the justice you will do as you walk with him through those glorious truths.

Would you bow your heads so I can lead us in a time of response?

Would you just bow your head and close your eyes for a moment?

Stop what you're doing.

Don't check your phone.

Don't wonder what the next song is.

Don't tap into the ritual of your body and your muscle memory of what happens at this point in a service.

Just stay.

Take a breath and consider these questions.

One, is it time to start taking your sin seriously?

Are you tolerating or even celebrating things that he will one day judge?

This is a wonderful day to stop doing that.

This moment is an invitation to take your sins seriously, for he certainly does.

My friends, he was willing to die for it.

Is it time to allow him to show up for you in your sin?

Some of you have been stiff-arming him, like, no, I'm too dirty, I'm unworthy.

He's like, Yeah, I know, but you're my kid and I'm coming to get you.

And then are you willing to imitate him by showing up for others in their sin as well?

Having grace ready for your brothers and sisters in Christ who are struggling in sin.

Is it time for you to show up for them and invite them into the light?

Holy Spirit, bring someone to mind for people that need to hear that.

And then about this, what ways might he be calling you to do justice, the way Micah says God wants us to?

Who's not being loved that needs to be loved?

Who needs to see grace exemplified with hands and feet as much as with words spoken, and we need both.

But to the people in the room who say, Yeah, God has forgiven me and taken my sins away, but I'm having trouble forgiving myself.

I just want to challenge you in love.

The final words of your Jesus on the cross, where it is finished.

And when we say things like, Yeah, God forgave me, but I can't forgive myself, we shout back.

No, it's not.

Cross wasn't enough.

It's not enough that you've absolved me.

I have to absolve me.

Friends, that ain't true.

Grace is bigger than you think.

And would you taste it today?

Is it time to believe him when he said he has cast all your sin into the depths of the ocean?

Don't go try to chase your sins down.

If you've been shopping for scuba gear metaphorically, like I'm gonna go back, don't.

Instead, stick with the one who keeps his promises.

He's promised to make you like him with him.

He's promised to get you home.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We can't wait to see you next week for any of our services at 8:30, 10, 1130, or Espanol at one o'clock.