Promises
Sermon Notes
Micah 1:6-16
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.
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.
10 Tell it not in Gath; weep not at all;
in Beth-le-aphrah
roll yourselves in the dust.
11 Pass on your way, inhabitants of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame;
the inhabitants of Zaanan do not come out;
the lamentation of Beth-ezel
shall take away from you its standing place.
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.
For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah;
it has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.
12 For the inhabitants of Maroth wait anxiously for good,
because disaster has come down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.
13 Harness the steeds to the chariots, inhabitants of Lachish;
it was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion,
for in you were found
the transgressions of Israel.
14 Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Moresheth-gath;
the houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.
15 I will again bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Mareshah;
the glory of Israel
shall come to Adullam.
16 Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight;
make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they shall go from you into exile. 1
Promises.
People make them. People break them.
It is such now that many just don’t see promises as binding or truthful or even expect people to stand by their word. When it comes to politics, it is mostly expected now that campaign promises are often little more than rallying cries rather than agreements to actually fulfill them.
1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mic 1:6–16). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
No wonder so many struggle with trusting Christians when they tell them that there is a God who loves them, desires to know them, has made a way of hope, life, and is trustworthy.
In a world of empty promises it is difficult to trust.
In this journey with the Moreshethitian prophet Micah to a disobedient people, a cloud of broken promises hover, but it goes much deeper.
More than simply broken promises, the people had forsaken their covenant.
Promises and covenants are often viewed as synonyms, but they are not. A promise is an assurance that one will do something or that something will happen. A covenant is a formal agreement (like a contract, but stronger) between two or more parties where they each agree to do or not so something.
With a promise, one party may be active while the other is passive and receives the benefit of the promise.
With a covenant, there is understanding from both parties that actions will be taken and things fulfilled.
A promise is a promise, but a covenant is relational, binding, legally valid, and not to be dumbed down as simply a contract or an easily- ignored or breakable promise.
The people of God in Micah’s time had forsaken their covenant role. They had slid into a routine where God was viewed more as a good luck charm in the sky who did things in the past to provide for their ancestors and now, well...he was just a symbol to many. Shockingly, they likely thought all was good (since for generations this has been the way) but God sends a man – a prophet to be his mouthpiece. A prophet who would give two messages in his short, blunt, clear word of warning.
He would speak gloom and glory, grief and grandeur, misery and majesty, sorrow and splendor, terror and triumph.
He would declare judgment and joy.
God initiated his covenant with his people at Mt. Sinai (Ten
Commandments)
Israel had agreed to it, on God’s terms.
Both parties had obligations:
God – protect Israel from their enemies and provide for their physical and spiritual needs.
Huge promise from God – taking responsibility for his people’s well- being.
God’s promise included land, houses, animals, financial provision, etc. The people’s promise – to be loyal and obedient.
In the New Testament, Jesus affirmed this covenant between God and his people and identified the key elements to keeping it.
Matthew 22:34-40
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him,
38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind.
“You shall love the Lord your
like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”2
This was Christ’s affirmation of the central teaching, the Shema found in Deuteronomy 6 and the instruction to love one’s neighbor from Leviticus 19. (New was fulfilled old.)
The motive behind every act of loyalty is LOVE. God’s love for his people. The people (our) love of God.
Love and loyalty to God requires two things of us: 1. Obedience
2. Surrender
The call of God through Micah was precipitated by an abandonment of the covenant. The failure of the people to remain loyal, faithful, honest, and obedient to the one true God who had and was providing for his children in the midst of a sinful, evil, and broken-down world.
It is in Micah 1:7 that we see clearly why God will bring judgment upon his people – not because he is unfair, not because he is unloving, not because he is unpredictable, but because he is loving, caring, and protecting.
John Calvin stated it well speaking of the predictable nature of man.
“Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”
“Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a
god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is
overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality
and an empty appearance as God.” (Institutes, 1:108)
This is the natural inclination of the heart and mind of man. You don’t have to plan to allow this, but when religion and relationship become routine, this is the result. When the stuff of life busies us to the place where faithfulness is compartmentalized to when we have time. When “me time” is greater than “Thee time” the idols roll down the assemblyline in our minds and hearts. And those idols take many forms.
But pastor, you don’t understand!
I do. Just because one is called and has the great honor to be called under shepherd of the flock does not mean that the nature of the heart is erased.
Left to our own devices, to our own philosophy of life, to our cultural understanding of ought to, idols will continue to be manufactured in our hearts.
God’s message to his people through Micah was one of despair...and of deliverance.
God will not be mocked. We are under the new covenant, but that is not an abolishment of the old, but a fulfillment. Have no other gods before the one true triune God – Father, Son, & Spirit. Let’s shut down the idol factory and live in obedience and total surrender.
This is the Word of God – repent, return, be restored.
Endnotes
1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mic 1:6–16). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
2 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mt 22:34–40). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
