Sunday Recap 1/8/17 “What is the Cry of God’s Heart?”
To emulate the heart of God, you have to be transformed by the heart of God. The book of Micah is a picture of the heart God crying out to His people. Studying it opens our hearts up to be like God’s. Towards that end, we looked at this Big Picture Question:
Big Picture Question: What is the cry of God’s heart?
And we looked at Micah 1 to answer that question.
Micah 1:1 The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. 2 Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. 3 For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. 4 And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.
5 All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? 6 Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations.
7 All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste, for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.
8 For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches. 9 For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.
We find these 3 answers to our Big Picture Question.
Big Picture Question: What is the cry of God’s heart?
- For us to be aware of His holiness
- For us to be aware of our sin
- For us to be aware of our need
Micah is a difficult time for the people of God. Micah does not serve as a prophet very long, but he serves under 3 different kings. That means there is massive political unrest. Additionally, the civil authorities are not to be trusted, and the religious leaders focus more on the outward life instead of the inner. This is a very relevant book for our day. With that background, let’s begin answering our Big Picture Question. What is the cry of God’s heart?
For us to be aware of His holiness
1 The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.2 Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. 3 For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. 4 And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.
5 All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? 6 Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations.
The people off Micah’s day had grown unaware of God’s holiness. They lost a right fear of His holiness. They sinned and sinned, and finally, God said that He was going to come down off His throne, as a judge, to demonstrate His holiness.
The people of Samaria lived protectively behind a great wall. They trusted that wall. Yet, God said in a demonstration of His holiness against their sin that He would tear down that wall all the way to the foundations. When sin continues and continues, the people of God must become reacquainted with God’s holiness.
And once the people of God grow aware of God’s holiness, then they become aware of their sin.
For us to be aware of our sin
7 All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste, for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.
The people of God were worshiping idols. They were engaged in temple prostitution in “worship” to other gods. And yet, they still offered sacrifices to God on the Sabbath and prescribed holidays. God declared that He would destroy all of their sin in an act of grace to His people.
Growing aware of one’s sin is not a dread and awful thing. It is an act of God’s grace. As one becomes aware of sin, we also become aware of our need.
For us to be aware of our need
8 For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches. 9 For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.
God Himself will weep and wail and lament over His people’s sin. He will strip Himself naked and lament because the sin problem of His people is incurable. There is nothing they can do about it to heal themselves. But God can. We see that in…
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’” 16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
God’s weeping and wailing and lamenting is ultimately found in the person of Jesus. He takes on human flesh to suffer as we do, yet He obeys, dies, and rises again for our hope and our salvation.
We concluded our time with this summary.
Big Picture Question: What is the cry of God’s heart?
Truth: We understand God’s heart as we become more aware of His holiness, our sin, and our need.
Application: Live knowing that God is using every circumstance in your life to teach you more about yourself and more about Him.
Action: Imitate God’s heart of holiness and compassion to someone in need this week.