God Requires Honesty and Compassion - Part 1 — Zac Poonen

Micah's Message About What God Requires

I was, I was thinking this evening about this verse, Micah in chapter 6. The Old Testament prophets, they frequently spoke to God's people and told them what was wrong with them. And if you read through all the Old Testament prophets, though some of it is heavy, there is a basic message that comes through, and that's what I want to share with you.

God Does Not Delight in Empty Religious Ritual

That even though God had commanded them to offer sacrifices and regular visits to Jerusalem and meetings, etc., very many times through the prophets, he says, I'm sick and tired of all your meetings. So he says here in Micah chapter 6, verse 6, how shall I come before the Lord?

For God, shall I come with a lot of burnt offerings, a lot of calves to be sacrificed? You think God is delighted in thousands of rams and 10 ,000 rivers of oil? You think he wants my firstborn son? He has told you, oh man, what is good.

Doing Justice by Treating Others Fairly

Verse 8, what does the Lord require of you? And I believe this is true even in the New Covenant. To do justice means to treat other people fairly. That's the meaning of doing justice. See, one of the complaints that God had against his people was that they, the judges, would take bribes and not treat people fairly.

So here he says one of the first things he requires from us that we all treat other people fairly. And Jesus made that clear by saying, expanded it and clarified it and said, that means treat other people the way you want them to treat you.

Loving Kindness Through Forgiveness

That's the meaning of do justice. Love kindness also, or mercy, also relates to the way we treat other people. And that is, if they do something wrong, be quick to forgive them. Because we need forgiveness ourselves.

And so those, there are three things mentioned here, but the first two have got to deal with the way we treat other people. Be fair to them. You want other people to be fair to you? I don't, none of us want anybody to cheat us.

We shouldn't cheat anybody else. How delighted we are if, you know, one day you go to the office and you hear that they've just given you an increment, or you got a raise in salary. I mean, doesn't that delight you?

Generosity Toward Those Who Work for Us

A lot of us are getting such huge salaries now, which is quite unexpected. Have you ever thought of blessing people who work for you like that? I mean, if you have somebody working in your home, have you ever thought of blessing them the way you got blessed in your office with a high salary?

Treat other people the way you want to be treated. I find very few Christians do that. We can go to a lot of meetings and pray and all that, but if we don't, if we're not fair to other people, if you're not kind and merciful to others, we'll find that God's very far away from us.

Walking Humbly by Confessing Our Faults

We can be religious. And the other thing he mentioned here is to walk humbly with your God. To walk humbly with your God means to be honest in acknowledging where you have failed. It's a very difficult thing for many believers because we've all got the poison of Adam, who, when the Lord asked him a question, did you eat, he sort of beat around the bush and blamed somebody else.

And in my observation of Christians in many places, even in our churches, I have found these are the two areas where there's a lot of failure. There's an unwillingness to acknowledge, I was wrong. See old Adam, Adamic nature, Adam finds it very difficult to say I was wrong.

Honest Repentance Without Excuses

Lord, forgive me, that was my mistake, 100%. Can you think, all of you sitting here, when was the last time that you ever went to somebody and said, that was 100 my mistake, I'm sorry. You may have said it to your wife because you want peace at home, that doesn't count.

Because your motive is not right, your motive is, it doesn't mean you're honest, you want peace at home, so for the sake of peace you say something, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about where there was no such issue.

And if you're really honest before God, you may have to think and think, when was it, was it 1995, or, it's amazing, it's only God who doesn't make mistakes. I'm saying this for your own good. There are two things I want to share this morning, and this evening.

Two Practical Requirements for Christian Living

One is, and I'm saying this from the study of Old Testament scriptures and the New Testament. If you want it to go well with you in the Christian life, dear brother or sister, be honest in acknowledging your mistakes, don't blame anybody else.

And number two, be kind to others. It doesn't matter if somebody, you know, did something that hurt us, okay, fine, just forget it. The only place where Jesus was very strict was when it concerned the house of God.

Jesus' Kindness Toward Those Who Mistreated Him

Otherwise, you know, it concerned himself, it didn't matter, he was always kind to people who called him the devil or treated him badly. In Isaiah chapter 1, the Lord says, Isaiah chapter 1, I want to read this from the Message Bible, verse 12 onwards, when you come to a peer before you,.