Worshipping God

Text: Micah 6:1-8

Focus: Worship

Function: to help people see that acts of kindness are worship

6:^1-2Listen now, listen to God:

“Take your stand in court.
    If you have a complaint, tell the mountains;
    make your case to the hills.
And now, Mountains, hear God’s case;
    listen, Jury Earth—
For I am bringing charges against my people.
    I am building a case against Israel.

^3-5“Dear people, how have I done you wrong?
    Have I burdened you, worn you out? Answer!
I delivered you from a bad life in Egypt;
    I paid a good price to get you out of slavery.
I sent Moses to lead you—
    and Aaron and Miriam to boot!
Remember what Balak king of Moab tried to pull,
    and how Balaam son of Beor turned the tables on him.
Remember all those stories about Shittim and Gilgal.
    Keep all God’s salvation stories fresh and present.”

^6-7How can I stand up before God
    and show proper respect to the high God?
Should I bring an armload of offerings
    topped off with yearling calves?
Would God be impressed with thousands of rams,
    with buckets and barrels of olive oil?
Would he be moved if I sacrificed my firstborn child,
    my precious baby, to cancel my sin?

⁸But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
    what God is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
    be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
    take God seriously.

I have to confess that this is one of my favorite passages in the entire bible. As a matter of fact, this verse, along with Luke 4:18 are my life verses.

Well, actually it is the last verse from our text and I have it memorized like this: “He has shown you, mortal man, what you must do and what the Lord requires of you, but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.”

Instead of preaching, I would like to tell you a story about how the Holy Spirit used scripture to change the direction of my life.

As I mentioned, I have two life verses and both of these verses happened to get my attention in supernatural ways.

The first verse, what I call “My calling verse” is Luke 4:18. In the story, Jesus is reading the scroll from Isaiah 61:1 and he quotes the passage: ¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,

Now I told the story how on May 30, 1979, I was in the woods praying and I heard inside my head, very clearly, the words “Luke 4:18.”

I happened to have my bible with me and I need impress upon you that I had no idea what that verse said.

When I read it, I felt chills up and down my spine.

God called me with this verse and God called me to join Jesus in the mission of transforming the principals of this world into something more loving and just through the power of His Holy Spirit living inside of me.

It was pretty exciting.

My life changed after that. I few months later I found myself working in Atlantic City, New Jersey with a man who was my mentor and we were planting a church in the ghetto of Atlantic City.

Some exciting things happened to us there where we saw the hand of God working.

I remember that ministry, it was on a street corner playground filled with broken glass and cigarette butts and God began building a community of hope among a group of people who were desperately poor.

After a few years helping my mentor plant a church, God called me to go to Bible College and get more education to prepare me for my life as a pastor.

The 3^rd year of my 5 year journey there, God led the administration to choose Micah 6:8 as the “year verse.”

Now I have to tell you that this choice for a year verse caused some controversy in this very conservative Bible College where I attended.

I actually heard, and even repeated the saying, when we were talking about missionary work that met the physical needs of the poor (like being a medical missionary) wasn’t as important as sending preachers who could inform the people that without Jesus in their lives, they were lost and on the way to hell.

The saying that I repeated, that I disavow today was “what good is it if we feed them meals until they die and they still go to hell? We need to convert them to Christ to save their souls if we really want to be faithful.”

And that might sound plausible on the surface. It seemed that way to me at the time to me.

But remember how the Holy Spirit works inside of us?

That year verse that answered the question, what does God want from humanity had nothing to do with heaven and hell theology. It had everything to do with the attitude and perspective of my own heart as I lived and walked among people here on planet earth.

So. The verse caused controversy among the student body as those who lived to see the justice of God change the hearts of mankind and society into a place where we can care for each other and those who were more concerned about what they believed to be the fiery nature of hell and God’s judgment.

The passage speaks of loving mercy. It is consistent with the teachings of Jesus. You see Jesus chiding the religious hypocrites who hated the mercy Jesus gave to people.

Loving mercy, is loving the idea of forgiving our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. Forgive the debt. Forgive it. Forgiving the debt is a powerful and hard task.

The verse. That verse, DO JUSTICE seemed to me to become the opposite of my passion to save their souls and leave their physical state alone. Jesus came to transform society into a place whereby everyone gets a fair and equal chance to survive. And I learned an answer to the question what good is it if we prolong their lives and they still end up in hell?

Well, I wouldn’t even ask the question today because God is Love and Jesus said that He did not come into the world to judge the world but that the world would be saved through Him.

But I started answering the question to those who actually asked it with this: Because Jesus commanded it.

Jesus said, I was hungry and you fed me when you fed the poor. And He said you denied me succor when you deny others succor and have the means to help.

So the answer to the question “What good is feeding them if they are still going to hell?” is because Jesus commands us to.

And it was a pivotal year for my faith and the direction of my ministry. I was using this time at college for spiritual formation and direction

So the impact of this verse and its meaning came at a critical time in my own spiritual journey.

During that time, I remember having another one of those days where I was distracted from the world around me and I was deep in prayer. I was asking God what God wanted from me and more importantly, what God wanted from the church and my ministry.

And in that year, because of my focus on this verse, and the work of the Holy Spirit on that campus and in my heart, my passion changed to reflect the true nature of the verse that God spoke into my ears on May 30, 1979 when God called me to serve the poor.

Can I take a moment to tell the story behind that change?

I was deep in prayer while driving my car downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. And I was sort of trying to understand about the importance of doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with Him as opposed to going out and preaching the word so that souls could be saved. I remember praying simply that day: “What do you want from me? What do you want us to do?

Now maybe you see the irony that was going on in my head. I was asking God what God wanted from me while I was focusing on the verse that starts with: He has shown you, mortal man, what the Lord requires...”

And as I was praying and watching traffic, and again, I was in distress in my prayer and distress is not an exaggeration. I was really upset because it meant that I had been wrong about my conclusions. And nobody wants to admit they are wrong.

So, while I was praying, and this has only happened a few times, May 30, 1979 and this day, I heard in my ears very strongly, not a verse this time, but the words “Look Up!”

And I looked up beyond the traffic and I saw a sign, “Matthew 25 clinic.”

It was an Epiphany to me. And again, I am not exaggerating. It was life changing. And I realized what God meant and why the Holy Spirit was leading me in such an deep time of prayer..

Now if you live in Fort Wayne, the sign “Matthew 25 Clinic” might mean more to you.

There are two big Catholic churches downtown Fort Wayne. There is an Alabaster cathedral that serves the wealthy. And then there is St. Mary’s Parish that operates the Matthew 25 clinic. They served over 1,000 meals a week, operated free dental and medical care for local residents and it was all paid for by the local congregation which was primarily made up of the poor folks in town. They were continuing the work of Jesus.

And I remember saying to God, after that revelation that God must be wrong, forgive me, because they were Roman Catholics and in my faith tradition, Roman Catholicism was a no-no.

I can’t believe I actually argued with the Holy Spirit, but I was deeply entrenched in my beliefs and God had a lot of work to do to free me.

And at that moment the Holy Spirit filled my with our verse for today, Do justice, Love Mercy and walk humbly with God.

This is what God wants from us and this is how we truly worship God.