Micah 6:2 Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD’s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel
Some years ago, I was preaching a Sunday morning service in a church about two hours south of the Bill Rice Ranch. After eating lunch with the pastor and his family, my wife and I were driving home. At a stoplight on the way out of town, there was suddenly a car next to me pulsating exceeding loud, blasphemous music. That characterization may sound a little judgmental and pious to you. I can understand that, but I judged the music that way and you may do differently. It was very clear to me that this was not music that was Christ-honoring, nor was it music that would have been encouraging to the man who pastored that church.
I looked over to see that the two occupants of the car were the pastor’s sons! We had just finished lunch with them. My statement to my wife, almost a knee jerk reaction, was, “Why are they so angry at their dad? Why do they hate their dad?” I don’t know what was in their heart. I don’t know if they hated their dad or not, but their behavior was not about me or about anything I thought. It was about their dad. They were making a statement about their relationship to their dad. Now, whether you would think the music was fine or not, it was clear that their dad did not, and they were making no secret of the fact that they were doing something that displeased their father.
As I was reading Micah 6, I thought about that incident. I thought, “How many times in my life do people pull up next to me and think, ‘Why does Wil hate God and why is he angry at God?’” It is so easy for us to look at our behavior and think, “It’s nothing personal, God.” Yet, it is. I don’t comprehend that an infinite God could care about me and what I do or think, but He does. God is infinite and that capacity allows Him to know, care, and love me.
In Micah 6 there are two questions. One was God’s question and the other was the question of the people of God. They are both instructive. In verse 3 God says, “O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me.” God is saying, “Why are you displeased with Me? Why do you hate Me? Why are you angry with Me? What have I done to you?” Then God goes on to talk about all He had done for these people. He says, “I brought you out of Egypt. I protected you from King Balak who wished to curse you. Do you object to My bringing you out of slavery, parting the Red Sea, or raining food from Heaven? What have I done that has so displeased you?”
In verse 6, God’s people answer with a question of their own. It says, “Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?” So, God asks, “What have I done?” and God’s people respond, “What shall we do? Shall we make great sacrifice? Shall we give our firstborn children to God?”
That question is famously answered in verse 8 where it says, “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Walking is just a way of life. It is not some spasm or excitement of religious symbols. The Bible says, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
The sum and substance of what God asked, “What have I done?” and what God’s people asked, “What shall we do?” is this: take God personally. God is not a code of conduct or a list of rules. My relationship to conduct and rules may reflect my relationship to God, but take God personally because He takes you personally. He knows, loves, and cares for you personally. My sin offends God personally.
How do you take God personally? First, remember His blessings. The fathers in Israel were to recount to their children what God had done. There is one passage where the father is speaking personally, “I was a slave in Egypt and God delivered me.” They weren’t to look at themselves as a mass of people because that is not the way God saw them. To be sure, God has a special relationship with Israel, however, God sees people individually. He doesn’t just see you in a church, a school, or some city. God knows you, so remember His blessings. It is so easy to take God’s goodness for granted and to live our lives as if we don’t care about God. “Testify against me,” God says, “I’ve done all this good for you. Do you not see this?” Remember God’s blessings.
Second, remember to bless God. Remember what matters to Him. We are to walk justly and have mercy. That is our relationship to others. Sometimes that is easier to see than a relationship to God. It is interesting that there is a whole list of sins that all of us recognize socially as wrong. To commit murder or robbery are sins we think of as bad because they are against another person. It is all too easy to commit so-called victimless sins and think it is okay because it doesn’t harm another person. Now we aren’t God so we don’t know when our sins don’t hurt another person. Oftentimes it hurts more people than we think, but even if my sin doesn’t hurt another person, my sin is an offence to God. So, if I am living in immorality and impurity, lying to myself, that may or may not hurt another person, but it is an offense to God. So, I am to do right by other people, to love justice and mercy, and to walk humbly, not in arrogance as if I am an island to myself, with my God, to walk in fellowship.
Today, I don’t want someone coming up alongside my life observing what I do, how I live, what I think, and say, “Rice is religious, but why does he hate God?” No, God says, “What have I done?” The answer is that He has been good. What shall I do? The answer is that you should just do right. Honor God because God loves you, and you and I are to take God personally.