[0:00] The root for me. Of what I'm going to talk about. One is just simply the require of thee.
[0:13] ! Because it's a requirement of the Lord.
[0:35] If we're going to be His followers. And so, starting maybe in verse 4 there in Micah 6. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants.
[0:55] And I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Baer asked him from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord.
[1:17] 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?
[1:30] Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Sounds like great wealth. Rivers of oil.
[1:42] Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? And then verse 8. 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.
[2:06] We want to look at those three things today. Lord willing. To do justly is number one there.
[2:21] What does it mean to do justly? You know what Dan shared about Adam, and how that, you know, they were in the garden, they were free, they were innocent, they were pure before God, they had a relationship with God, and we know that because of sin, that relationship with God was broken.
[2:44] It was severed, it was gone, it was, they were afraid, they were trying to hide. And I'm just so glad he shared that and pointed to that this morning.
[2:58] But what does it mean to do justly? Everything that is right and good, upright, to make right what was done wrong.
[3:12] And we know that we can't make ourselves right. Right? We can't, we couldn't pay for our sin.
[3:24] We know that God, through His Son Jesus, came down and paid the penalty. He made right. The question is, do we believe? Do we believe in that?
[3:35] Do we trust in that? But there is also something about doing justly. Doing something about something.
[3:47] For example, restitution comes to mind. when I have stolen something from Brother Mike, which I don't know that I did, but if I did, then I can't just say sorry.
[4:06] I mean, I can, but what about making it right? What about restitution? What about like Zacchaeus did? He stole from many people, but he didn't just, when Jesus was there at his house, he didn't just say, well, Jesus, I'm sorry.
[4:22] Yeah, I believe in you. And, and I'm so glad you came to save us. And I accept that salvation. But what happened, what actually happened is his heart was so changed that day, that he said, whatever I have done wrong, I'll make right.
[4:40] If I've taken from anybody, I'm going to give you back two times, three times more than, or whatever, more than what I took. And then Jesus said, today salvation has come to this house.
[4:56] Because salvation changes us. Salvation brings that change, that restitution heart, the heart that says, I want to make right whatever I have wronged.
[5:13] And so unless I give that back to you, Mike, maybe twice or three times, could be to your benefit, right? But, then, then you questioned, well, did anything change in my heart?
[5:32] Regret, but no action. That's what a lot of people are. They have regrets, but they don't take any action. To do justly, to walk right, to walk right, and not turn to the left.
[5:46] But to walk right. And yes, Zacchaeus was a good example. I went ahead of myself. Now I see it in my notes. But, he went into action mode, and began to making more than what was right, for the cheating he had done.
[6:05] And then, I have a question. Have we cheated anyone? Do we owe any man anything? The Bible says we shouldn't. But, but you know, if you and I wrong each other, whether it's even just with words, or whatever, we owe each other.
[6:28] If, if I cause a brother or sister to stumble, then, or maybe they feel cheated. Maybe, maybe we didn't take money.
[6:39] Maybe we robbed them of their time, or, we robbed them in some other way, just by something we said, or hurt them, or made them feel. And I know there's another side of, well, you get hurt too easy, and things like that.
[6:54] You have to, sometimes, take something. but you know what I'm talking about. That, where we have, indeed, wronged somebody, then we need to take action, and, and correct that, to make that right, to ask for forgiveness.
[7:11] And as Christians, as the people of God, we should be quick, to walk justly, in relationships. And we should care deeply, how we affect other believers, believers, and also non-believers, for that matter, very much so.
[7:32] We should care, and, our example, matters. How I affect other people, or another person, matters to God.
[7:48] To walk justly. What are some examples of that? Some more examples. Maybe you have something that, you'd like to share. What, what would be another good example of, how can we walk, justly, in this world, in the church, in our work, in our everyday life?
[8:08] What does it mean, to walk, justly? I mean, if it's a requirement, of the Lord, we should know what it means, right? What are some other examples?
[8:20] Does anything come to your mind? Anybody? We'll just open it up, for a little bit. Any thoughts on that? keeping our word.
[8:37] Mm-hmm. Amen. Keeping our promises. I'm thinking of our children, especially, you know, they pick up those things.
[8:51] If we make a commitment, or a promise, keep our word, that's walking justly. or with each other, and other people, business, you know, sometimes we might, accidentally forget something, but, and God knows that, that we're human, and that we can, forget things.
[9:11] But, to just not care, and not keep our word, keep our appointments, keep our, you know, do all we can, to walk honestly, and, and to keep our commitments.
[9:27] Any others? That's really good, by the way. Keeping our word. Mm-hmm.
[9:40] Yeah. Yeah. Amen.
[10:01] Yeah. I think, yeah, and that love will cause us to do these things.
[10:18] That, you know, like Dan shared there and Joe, even commitments and things like that, promises, keeping our word.
[10:29] If we love each other, right, we will do our best because we're motivated by love. Any others? Walking justly with all the guilt of not gossiping.
[10:52] If we're just, if we're talking to a brother or sister about something that maybe we see in the life versus talking to a woman. Just a thought on that.
[11:06] Walking justly. And again, with the motivation of love. It's all coming together, right? If we love, we won't gossip.
[11:16] We will keep our commitments, keep our words. Being faithful. Really, in a nutshell, it's being faithful to each other. Especially in the body of Christ.
[11:30] Amen. Very good. I'll move on. If there's any others, just we'll, yeah, speak up. We'll look now at to love mercy.
[11:45] The Amplified says this way, He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you except to be just, to love, and to diligently practice kindness, compassion, and to walk humbly with your God.
[12:06] Setting aside any overblown sense of importance or self-righteousness. Just a note in the Amplified. In other words, to walk humbly with God is to set aside any overblown sense of importance.
[12:24] That's quite a way of putting it. Have you ever been around people where you just felt like something was overblown? It's just, somebody's just too important.
[12:35] But I want to look at to love mercy. So first of all, we should love the mercy that God has shown toward us.
[12:50] We heard about that through the song service, I think, and the opening too. But just the mercy that God has shown toward us. Do we rejoice in that mercy?
[13:05] Has His mercy changed you into a merciful person? Jesus said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall, what?
[13:21] What happens to those that are merciful? They shall obtain mercy. You're merciful to this person, then, you know, that's a promise Jesus gave us.
[13:32] And that would indicate, if you reverse that, it's a good verse to reverse. But if you don't have mercy, then the opposite is true, apparently.
[13:45] Otherwise, the positive couldn't be true. So the negative is also true. And that is that if we are not merciful, we will not obtain mercy from God.
[14:00] Very much like if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses. So to obtain mercy.
[14:11] If we do not show mercy, then God won't have mercy on us. And that would be the most terrible, terrifying thing.
[14:24] If you think about that, just think about that. Can you imagine God on judgment day and there is no mercy for everything we have ever done?
[14:41] So we should rejoice in the mercy of God. We should be very, very grateful that God is merciful to us. And then we also, through that, I think the more we realize that, the more we meditate on that, the more merciful we become.
[15:00] The more mercy we can extend to other people. It's not the kind of mercy that just overlooks sin. We're not talking about that.
[15:10] But just to be merciful. To extend mercy where mercy is needed. In Ecclesiastes 12, verse 13, it says, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
[15:30] Fear God and keep His commandments. This is the whole duty of man. I thought of that verse simply because of this thing of mercy and judgment day.
[15:43] To fear God. The next verse says, For God shall bring every work into judgment. With every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
[15:57] Every work to judgment. And so, if we're going to be to meet God on judgment day, which we will, we'll meet God face to face.
[16:13] And if there's no mercy, and He's going to judge every evil thing and every good thing, we should be so grateful that God, through Jesus, had mercy on us.
[16:27] And that He didn't just forgive us our sin, just because He's good, but He paid for our sin. The payment has been made. Praise the Lord.
[16:41] What is humility? What is humility? We are talking about to walk humbly with God. Is it to come across as humble one to another in some outward way?
[17:02] Is it to try to stay poor or live in poverty somehow and just try to live a very simple life maybe?
[17:16] That can actually be a really good thing, by the way, to live simply. Not against that, not preaching against that. But people do that, do those things sometimes.
[17:27] Humanity will come up with things, a plan or a program of how to be humble. You know, we can be proud in so many ways.
[17:41] And so man, instead of having a humble heart, they try to look humble on the outside. And, well, let's just go on.
[17:56] What is humility? Is it to always root for the underdog or the victim and defend them when we shouldn't? Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, I don't like using the term underdog.
[18:15] I'm not sure what a good Christian way is to use a word for that. But somebody that is maybe often considered by man, by people, to be a victim.
[18:30] Sometimes they're guilty. But some people have a habit of always rooting for them, no matter if they're guilty or not, just because it makes them look humble.
[18:41] It makes them look spiritual, perhaps. And, you know, if somebody is in need, if somebody is, there's a difference between somebody that is actually indeed a victim and needs help, or somebody that we as humans make into a victim.
[19:06] Some people like that lifestyle. They like to be pitied, in other words. You know, we all could become a pity party, couldn't we? If we just tried a little bit.
[19:17] There's things that aren't perfect in life, and we can start feeling sorry for it. And we do sometimes. But, I don't just need more pity. I need you to help me get out of that hole.
[19:30] Not just feel sorry for me. And so, I think that's more what we should look at, is, well, how can we help you get out of that victim mindset?
[19:42] But anyway, some people think that it's just humble to always be bowing down to that mindset. And that's not necessarily humility.
[19:56] Humility is a condition of the heart. And pride is a very sneaky and evil thing. In fact, I believe it's the root of all sin, probably, is pride.
[20:12] I say probably, because I'm trying to think of a verse. But, it just seems like pride is the root of all sin. The love of money is the root of all evil.
[20:23] We know that. But, what is the love of money? It's pride. It seems like it always points to pride, one way or the other. And, so I want to talk about that a little bit.
[20:34] Early on, I thought, well, my whole message was going to be on pride. But, then I found this verse. Thinking too highly of ourselves is most likely what causes us to sin.
[20:53] When we have a right view of God and a right view of ourselves, which, by the way, the right view of ourselves is the way God sees us. When we have that, then is when we can walk in victory.
[21:12] We can walk in humility with God, which is a requirement if we're going to be a Christian. That verse is a requirement to walk humbly with God.
[21:32] You know, the first sin that Dan was talking about in the opening, it began with pride, I believe. It began with a thought that was actually against God.
[21:46] The thought came to Eve, hath God said, did he really say that? In other words, God was way up there and it brought him down into a question mark.
[22:01] Did he really say that? The devil was saying it to Eve. And then, of course, that pride thing, right away there was that pride thing, well, you could become wise.
[22:12] You see what I mean? It lifted up, it brought God down and lifted up man. You could become like him, wise. The first sin, and probably every sin after, is based on pride.
[22:31] Only then came the disobedient part. Once they entertained the thought of pride. No wonder, then, that God has a requirement for us to walk in humility.
[22:49] Not only that, though, he wants us to walk with him. Isn't that glorious? He doesn't just say, be humble.
[23:02] He says, to walk with thy God in humility. To walk with him. Back into a relationship with him.
[23:12] And, that relationship that was broken there in the garden has been restored. And we should be so grateful and so thankful that God did that for us.
[23:33] There is only one way that we can possibly, that we can even have the possibility to walk with God. And that is in humility.
[23:44] Let's look at James 4, if you want to turn there, you can. James chapter 4, to see what James said about being proud. James 4 verse 1 says, From whence come wars and fightings among you?
[24:01] Come they not hence even of your own or of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not, you kill and desire to have and cannot obtain.
[24:15] You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
[24:27] Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.
[24:41] That's not a verse to take lightly. Do you think that the Scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
[24:52] But he giveth more grace. That's one of my favorite sentences in the Bible.
[25:03] But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. You know, there is no walking with God when he resists you.
[25:17] If God resists me, I cannot walk with him. And you can't either. If there is any kind of a resistance from God, I mean, we can resist something and it's not that big a deal.
[25:32] But, I mean, it can be. But when God resists something, it's over. It's not going to happen if he's resisting somebody.
[25:42] Can you imagine God from heaven, the Almighty resisting me or resisting you? There is no grace which that grace is the strength to overcome.
[26:01] Grace is the strength and power to live for God in love and victory. And this verse says there is more grace. He gives more grace.
[26:12] You know, there's more grace available that we can, more than we can contain. It's more than we can even use.
[26:25] If we want it. And we can be totally free. But it is only available to the humble in heart. It is only available to a humble heart.
[26:37] If we would truly learn what humility is and truly what it means to walk with God, there would be revival in the church today.
[26:52] I believe that. If I would truly know and fully get a better picture, a better handle of what humility is from God's perspective, let's put it that way.
[27:07] What God thinks humility is, if I would get more of that and learn how to walk closer with Him, I would have revival in my life.
[27:23] Can I get at least one amen? If I would know what humility is from what God sees as humility.
[27:34] You know, we can deceive ourselves in thinking we're humble. I can somehow believe I'm humble when I'm not and even be proud of it. That's kind of twisted, but being proud of our humility, you know.
[27:51] But humility from what God thinks about humility, that would bring a revival to us. May it be so that God would revive us in this area and to be totally free.
[28:14] And I include myself right in this. I really think and believe that the key ingredient to make it in this Christian life are those two things that we found in this verse.
[28:30] Is to walk in humility and to walk with God. Maybe we'll talk a little more about walking with God than at the end here.
[28:44] There was another verse there that I was reading in James. Verse 7 says, I didn't even get to that.
[28:54] Submit yourself, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. How many of us like the idea of the devil fleeing from us? I hope you do like that thought that the devil flees from you.
[29:10] Why? Why should we like that? It's because he's the devil.
[29:21] He's the wicked one that hates everything about us. He's the enemy of our soul. And in this verse, there's two keys. The first one is to submit.
[29:36] Submit and resist. We submit to the one, to God. We surrender to him. And the other one, we resist. And too many times, people don't resist.
[29:50] Noah Webster says it like this about resist. It says, literally, to stand against, to withstand, hence, to act in opposition, or to oppose.
[30:03] a dam or a mount resists a current of water passively by standing unmoved and interrupting its progress.
[30:19] It's like there was a river coming and they put up a big dam of concrete and they can either turn it or go under it, use it for power, whatever, the way they do.
[30:31] But a dam will change the course. It resists what it was doing before. An army resists the progress of an enemy actively by encountering and defeating it.
[30:45] To strive against, to endeavor, to counteract, defeat, or frustrate. In one point, we were challenged in Acts, you do always resist the Holy Spirit.
[30:59] See, there's things that we resist where we shouldn't and there's things that we don't resist that we should. We never want to resist the Holy Spirit.
[31:12] Another meaning was to baffle, to disappoint. You know, God resists the proud. He withstands the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.
[31:26] grace. He gives that strength, that power. I know we've touched on this verse many times, but it just really stood out to me today about resisting.
[31:38] And if God resists me, what a terrible thing that is. There's no hope for something that God resists. If God stands against a person because He's full of pride, there's no hope.
[31:57] The only solution is to change God's mind by becoming humble, getting rid of the pride. In fact, verse 8 says, Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you.
[32:09] Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Is there anyone here who wants to admit they're double-minded? That would be awkward, I guess.
[32:23] But, sometimes we need to ask ourselves those questions. What is double-minded? And I think this verse, this last verse, is talking about sinners. Yeah, it's specific.
[32:34] It says, probably unbelievers, like, cleanse your hands, and don't become, don't be double-minded, you sinners.
[32:45] Purify your hearts. So, it's talking about sinners, unconverted people, because converted people already did that. They've already cleansed their hands, their hearts have already been purified.
[32:57] But, sometimes, maybe we enter into that realm of being double-minded again. Or, being sinners again, for that matter. Be afflicted and mourn and weep.
[33:09] Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up. And there again, if God does something, He does it right and thoroughly.
[33:23] So, if He lifts you up, you are lifted up indeed. If God lifts us up. It goes on and says here in James, Speak not evil one of another, brethren.
[33:36] He that speaketh evil of his brother and judgeth his brother. Speaketh evil of the law and the law that, and judges the law. But if you judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
[33:49] There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you that you judge another? Then He goes on.
[34:01] I'm going to, well, I'll just keep reading because there's another part here I want to get to here in James. Verse 13, it says, Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow, we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain.
[34:22] Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? He asks a question. What is your life?
[34:33] And then He answers it. It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. For that you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.
[34:50] I appreciate Brother Dan, when you moved here, Dan, you started saying that a lot. And we were, I was kind of getting away from that to say, Lord willing.
[35:02] Lord willing. I grew up with it, but I kind of got away from that somewhat. But to say, Lord willing, it should remind us that life is a vapor.
[35:14] Right? When we say, Lord willing, we'll do this or we'll do that. And so I appreciate that. I think it's good and right to say, Lord willing, when we think of it.
[35:26] You know, you don't say that in every sentence, obviously, but when we have plans to at least be mindful and think of it. But now you rejoice in your boastings.
[35:40] All such rejoicing is evil. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. I want to go back to this, what is life?
[35:56] It says it's a vapor. A vapor is something that appears for a little while, just for a bit. You see it, you know, if a steam or a kettle is steaming or something or the river has a vapor or whatever, it's there for a little bit and then it's just gone.
[36:15] And that's how James describes it here. What we do with that short life that we have will determine what God will do with us for all eternity.
[36:29] for all eternity. And it is truly a vapor.
[36:41] You all remember the man that we prayed for here a number of times, Adam, a friend I grew up with. He is older than me, but, and then he died here just recently.
[36:59] And we watched the funeral the other day. It was recorded. Interesting. Amazing. Amazing things that where my brother Howard was a preacher.
[37:15] Through this man dying, he got to go back to that Amish church and there's actually four churches there. I don't remember how many were there.
[37:25] I don't know how many were there, but some of the bishops and a lot of the people. And he got to preach the gospel there. It's amazing.
[37:37] Got to share the pulpit with another Amish bishop there. You know, because it wasn't really an Amish funeral, but yet, that's what he wanted. He wanted to go back to where he had left 40 plus years ago and be buried there in that cemetery.
[37:54] And so anyhow, it was just amazing. But what I want to point out is just, it just seems like when somebody dies that's close to your age or somebody you knew growing up, it's like, wow, life is, it's over.
[38:08] Just like that. And the amazing thing is too, you know, the mercy that I believe God showed to Adam was, he didn't live for the Lord.
[38:25] He didn't, you know, I don't know, I think there was times in his life that he tried to turn to God, but it seemed like it didn't last or work for him and maybe his commitment wasn't real.
[38:42] But God showed him mercy toward the end there and the way I understand, I wasn't there, but I believe that God saved him.
[38:55] He confessed Christ, said he had peace. And just the fact that he found peace in his last days, this is where I'm coming back to what Dan shared about Adam.
[39:11] You know, that Adam in the Bible, the innocence was destroyed. He became guilty before God and because of the second Adam, which is Jesus, he came back to restore that.
[39:27] And I was thinking about this yesterday, how this Adam that I'm talking about in Michigan, how his innocence could be restored in his last day, last few days there.
[39:38] And how that we, God's heart is that we walk in innocence. We walk as a child that has never done anything wrong, is not guilty.
[39:53] It's just an amazing thought that not only can we, but God wants that for his people, that we walk like we've never sinned because he's forgiven us, he's washed us, he's cleansed us.
[40:12] He doesn't want us to walk in guilt with guilt hanging over us, but to walk in freedom of heart and to be cleansed, to be washed.
[40:27] Jesus paid the price so that that can happen to us. So we become innocent like God meant it to be in the beginning.
[40:41] And I think just from what I've heard, I don't remember all the words or the testimony, but just from what I heard, oh, and this is the other thing about Adam that I just thought about this morning is like, that's the mercy of God.
[40:58] So he left, he left the community so long ago and obviously family stayed in contact with him over the years. But in the last, in his last days down here in Denver in the hospital, so many people called him or went to visit him.
[41:17] People from his past, people he grew up with, men his age, went in there and prayed with him and sang songs. And I just thought, wow, that's God's mercy saying, you didn't live for me, but I'll save you anyway.
[41:37] I truly believe and hope that he made it. God will save to the uttermost. And all it takes is a heart that, you know, goes from proud, arrogant, thinking you can live life on your own to saying, I am done, I don't have anything.
[42:02] I don't have anything to offer. And God will accept that humble heart every time. Just like that. Even if it's, I mean, even the thief on the cross, he didn't even have a, he didn't even have time to say much.
[42:22] Just think about me when you get into your kingdom. But he was acknowledging who he was. You're Christ. You have a kingdom. And when you get there, remember me.
[42:36] And Jesus just turned to him and said, today you'll be with me. That's how merciful God is to us. And so, can we be merciful too?
[42:50] To each other, to our families, to those around us. Do we have a humble heart or is there still some pride there?
[43:05] I just believe God wants to give us more grace like we read in that verse. And he also provided a way in Ephesians.
[43:20] A couple of verses there I just read here while we were sitting here this morning. Ephesians 2. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
[43:39] For he is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances.
[43:54] For to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were near.
[44:15] For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. For through him we have access again to become innocent, to become pure in heart by one spirit unto the Father.
[44:38] We are fully restored back, I believe, just like God had planned in the beginning, that we can be just innocent again and free.
[44:48] and that's how we're to walk in that humility. Father, we thank you today just for being with us. Thank you, Lord, that we have these precious promises and that you showed us what is required of us that we truly that we love mercy and that we walk humbly with you, Lord.
[45:16] We don't just become humble, but Lord, your will is that we walk with you. So God, help us to walk with you. Make us such people that have enough humility to walk with you, that you can accept humility from your perspective.
[45:36] Lord, if we're just humble on our own, it's actually pride. And so, Father, today we just want to ask you to show us, show my heart and all our hearts whether we're truly humble in your sight and help us to have that humility that we can actually walk with our God, that we don't have to be afraid of you, Lord.
[46:00] We reverently fear you, but Lord, we can, you remove that fear of dying, that fear of death because we love you and you love us.
[46:13] I pray we could have that relationship with you. Give us that grace, that more grace would abound in our hearts to live for you. We pray in Jesus' name.
[46:24] Amen. Amen.