Micah Week 4 • Micah 4:9-5:14

Show Notes

Sunday, May 17th • Beau Bradberry

"And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth." — Micah 5:4

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Beau Bradberry

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Thanks for listening.

Good morning, everyone. Again, so glad that you're joining us today.

If you've got your Bibles with you, and hopefully you do, go ahead and open up to Micah chapter 4.

As you turn there, I hope you're able to see our video that we posted on Facebook this last week.

If you weren't able to see that, I just want to let you know a lot of questions are being asked about the when and the how are we working to gather back together as a church.

And I just want to share with you that we are definitely in the middle of those conversations.

And I am excited to say we're going to be able to post another video this coming week updating everyone about that.

And so we'll post that through social media, but also make everyone aware through email what is going on in the life of our church as we're working to gather back together as soon and as safe as possible.

So thank you guys so much for being with us.

So we're going to continue on over the next three weeks and finish up the book of Micah.

It's a prophetic book, a book where God speaks to a prophet and gives him a message to delay to his people, where the prophet speaks on the behalf of God.

And then what we're trying to do is we work our way through this book is understand what God is saying to the direct audience that is getting the message.

And since God isn't speaking that to us, how we can take the lesson that we can learn from this and apply that to our life.

And so that's the main focus of this.

And today is a reminder of one of those passages of scripture that we've got to be careful that this isn't being spoken directly to us.

But there's so much that we can draw from that, that we can learn and that we can apply it to our life, especially as it concerns the nature, the character and the work of Christ.

So let's keep reading Micah chapter four, starting in verse nine.

Now, why do you cry aloud?

Is there no king in you?

Has your counselor perished?

That pain seized you like a woman in labor.

Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor.

For now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country.

You shall go to Babylon.

There you shall be rescued.

There the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

Now many nations are assembled against you, saying,

Let her be defiled and let her eyes gaze upon Zion.

But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord, and they do not understand his plan.

That he has gathered them as she's to the threshing floor.

Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hooves bronze.

You shall beat in pieces many peoples, and shall devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.

So here's the reality of the crisis that is facing Jerusalem.

They're about to enter into captivity.

They're about to be obtained by an outside people.

And when this happens, there will be no more king for them.

When this happens, there will be no more government for them.

And because they're in a theocratic structure, what is going to come from there is the religious structure of who they are is going to fall apart.

And they're going to enter into a season, they're going to enter into a pattern of life of great difficulty.

As everything that they know is normal is going to be pulled from them, and they're going to be ruled by another nation.

God's people, God's chosen people, are now going to be ruled over and dominated by outside forces.

So why is this happening?

Why is God doing this?

God is pouring out his wrath on them, but in hopes of something.

God is pouring out this punishment on his people, whom he loves, whom he's chosen, whom he's called for a very specific and important reason so that he can call them back.

See, this is the process of what we're seeing in the very nature and the heart of God.

But even in God's punishment to them, even in God's wrath of them, even as God puts them through suffering, there's a reason for it as he calls them back to him.

And so in this opening part of this passage that we're looking at, Micah speaks of the impending doom that Israel will face, but in doing so, he also speaks to the deliverance as well.

He speaks to the hope as well.

And so where Israel finds itself is their present disobedience of Israel will lead to their captivity, but the eternal promises of God will lead to their salvation.

Do we see what's happening there?

Their sin brings them into captivity.

God's faithfulness will deliver them, just like your life and in mine, right?

Our sinfulness is what calls us to be captivated by the sins and the desires of this world.

But the faithfulness of God is what sets us free.

The faithfulness of God is what brings us salvation.

So even in the disobedience, even in the punishment of Israel, God's working to bring good from it in their lives.

And while there is punishment that awaits them for their sins, in that still is the redemption of God.

So what is Israel to do during this time?

What is Israel to do during this captivity?

There's a word that they're going to have to embrace.

It's a word that you and I don't like.

It's a word that very few of us are good at.

And Israel must wait.

Their suffering will be real, but they must wait.

And in that waiting, their hope of the Lord will be there with him.

And so Israel is called to wait.

But here's the interesting piece.

Here's what we see from this and we begin to understand.

While Israel waits, God isn't waiting.

God is working.

And God is working in them to break them.

God is doing a work in them to bring them to repentance.

And God is doing a work to grow them.

And even in this, what we see, to separate from them who are truly his people of faith and who are not.

And we see what God's doing.

And we see that in this, that in your life and mine, when we go through seasons of suffering,

when we go through seasons of waiting, what we can gain from this is the spiritual importance of what's taking place.

Because oftentimes we're impatient with God as we go through the difficulty.

And in doing so, we miss the work that God wants to do.

And so church, there's a very valuable thing for us, not only the people of Israel before the reign of Christ,

but for us, the church of Christ, waiting for him today, that we understand what it means and what it looks like to wait for God.

And I want to tell you, I don't like to wait.

I've never liked to wait.

And the older I get, the harder I find it to wait for things in my life.

I'm about, let's see, about four months ago, I had to make the dreaded trip to the DMV, right?

And so I go in there and I get my number and there's just people are filled in the DMV.

And so I know that I'm going to be sitting here for at least 45 minutes to an hour as I have to wait.

And so I do what most all of us do in those moments.

I sit down and I pull out my cell phone.

And the dreaded thing begins to happen that I notice on my phone.

That top notification at the top right screen of my phone is red.

And I notice that I've got 5% battery on my phone.

And I can feel the anxiety begin to well up in me as I know that my phone is going to die.

And then all I can do is sit there and wait.

We hate to wait.

We hate to wait for things that are the immediate when we know they're going to happen.

But even more so, it's so hard of us to wait on God.

But God does so much in that.

I thought about this story from my childhood that I think is very important when it helps us understand what it means to wait for God.

And the story that I'm thinking about is a story of what it was like to wait for dinner growing up.

You know, my mom was a school teacher.

And so every day my mom would pick us up and we would ride home with her.

And she'd get into the kitchen and she would begin to cook.

Now the rule was we couldn't eat anything before dinner because we might spoil our dinner.

So we would hear my mom.

We could smell what she was cooking.

We knew that dinner was coming.

We knew that the pain that was in our stomach from the hunger could be satisfied.

We knew the goodness of the smells that were there that we could actually begin to taste them as soon as they came out of the kitchen.

But the rule was that we had to wait.

And specifically, we had to wait not for my mom to get done cooking even though that was important.

But oftentimes my mom would finish the meal.

And what we had to wait on was we would have to wait on my dad to get home.

Because mom wanted us to eat as a family.

And so we had to wait for him.

Now we weren't waiting for my dad to finish talking to his friends outside.

We weren't waiting for my dad to finish running errands of things that he wanted to do on his time.

But we had to wait on my dad to finish working so that he could provide for our family.

So we had to wait for the father in order for us to experience the goodness that was waiting for us.

And I think that's so much what the picture looks like for us waiting for God.

Right now we're waiting for God, but God's still working.

Right now we're waiting through the suffering.

Right now we're waiting through the uncertainty.

Right now we are waiting through the brokenness.

But while we wait, God is at work.

When God sends his people into captivity for them to wait on him to redeem them,

it's not that God sent them into captivity and God stopped, but God continued.

And for you and I, as we are on this journey of our life in the time frame,

which God and his sovereignty appointed for us to be here on this planet,

we go through these battles and these trials and these circumstances.

And in doing that, we wait.

And while we wait, God works.

And here's what God's doing.

God's saving in the waiting.

God's calling people into salvation.

God is growing us in the waiting, making you and I more like Christ in the process.

But God is also separating in the waiting.

God's drawing from his creation who the true church is,

separating the sheep from the wolves as he works, as we wait.

Church, we can't forget the beauty in the waiting.

Let's keep reading in chapter 5.

It says this,

Now muster your troops, O daughters of troops.

Siege is laid against us.

With a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.

But you, O Bethlehem, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days.

Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth.

Then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.

And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,

in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.

And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.

And so what God begins to paint the picture for Israel of what they are waiting for,

of what they will experience.

And from this, kind of continuing on from where we were last week,

we begin to see the messianic pieces have come together of what you and I wait for.

And the very first thing that God reminds them of the hope of what God is going to do

is who God's going to do it through.

And he doesn't point to a nation.

He doesn't point to a group of warriors.

He doesn't point to an army.

But instead he points to a future king, our king, Jesus.

And so the hope will be based and rooted in Jesus and everything else that comes from this.

Every future thing that God points to will come from him and him alone.

Because this king will redeem Israel and this king will redeem God's church today.

All of this comes from Jesus.

And so Jesus does a miraculous work of moving God's people,

of moving Israel, of moving the church, of you and I from one status to another.

The first thing that is seen here that we can apply in our lives is moving from estranged to redeemed.

You see, because of sin, because of what you and I have brought into our lives,

because of who you and I are, we've come estranged from God.

The talk is about the great divide that has separated us from the Lord,

the great divide that we have put in between us and him.

We created the divide, but God says of what we created, it is temporary.

As we made ourselves estranged from him, God redeems us and the divide becomes temporary.

For Israel, it's a season of captivity.

For you and I, we enter into our own spiritual captivity for a season.

And we do not redeem ourselves, but through the work of Christ, he redeems us.

And as he redeems us, verse 3, we become brothers, we become family.

And he moves us from the outcast who we chose to be, to the family he called us to be,

to the family he chose us to be.

And so we move from estranged to redeemed.

We move from outcast to family, all made possible through Christ and Christ alone,

the future king of what we have to look to.

We continue to read in verse 5,

So not only do we see our future king, but the future king brings a future peace.

Continuing on what we talked about.

But I love the words that God gives Micah.

He noticed what peace is.

Peace is Jesus.

At the very beginning, and he shall be their peace.

Notice, it's not their circumstances.

It's not their situation.

It's not their state of mind.

It's not anything around them that is their peace.

But their peace is rooted in Christ.

He shall be their peace.

He is our peace.

So we see that in the current tense, right there in the present tense.

He is our peace.

But God also gives the words to Micah in a future tense.

That not only is he your peace now, but he shall deliver us.

So in the midst of the circumstances of everything that's chaos,

he is our peace.

And we put our hope in a future deliverance that will come with him.

We place our trust in a person who did a work that we currently stand in the reality

and position ourselves in that work.

But then we place our hope in the future fulfillment of what will be done.

Do you see the past, the present, the future work of Christ all coming into one?

And that's the peace that we find in him and in him alone.

Church, that's where we have to be.

Yes, in spite of your circumstances, he is your peace.

And he shall deliver you.

So many times what we see, what we feel, what we experience determines our peace.

But Jesus is our peace.

Continue on in verse 7.

Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples,

like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass,

which delay not for a man nor wait for the children of man.

And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations in the midst of many peoples,

like a lion among the beast of the forest,

like a young lion among the flocks of sheep,

which when it goes through, treads down and tears in pieces,

and there is none to deliver.

Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries,

and your enemies shall be cut off.

And what we begin to see even more as we look to the future

is the future vindication that comes with Christ.

What comes from this is important.

Kind of recapping from last week.

It's not the masses.

What comes from this is not the many.

What comes from this is the few, is the remnant.

Talked about it last week.

Just the little bit that is left over,

the little bit that has remained,

it's the remnant.

And in this passage of Scripture,

the remnant is described in two different ways.

The first way is like the dew or the morning showers,

and the next is like a lion.

Now we think about that.

The dew and the lion.

Two completely different pictures of power.

Two completely different pictures of nature.

One is weak, one is powerful,

but it describes what God is doing through his people.

The remnant is the dew,

because the dew does not wait for man.

The remnant is the dew,

because the dew does not come from man,

but it comes solely from the power and the sovereignty of God.

You see, it isn't dependent on man to bring it,

but it is solely dependent on God and God alone.

But it's also the remnant is the lion.

It is the lion that brings victory.

And so that we as God's people can stand in victory,

because there is victory in Jesus

over the godless forces that oppose God's people.

That we're not weak, but we have power.

And in God's sovereignty,

as God does what he's going to do in his people,

what God also does is he creates in us

a position of victory that cannot be defeated.

Church, Satan wants nothing more in your life

than for you to fail.

When he lost you in salvation,

what he tried to gain in your life right now

is the defeat from the day to day.

And so many of us fall into a pattern of that,

where we fall into the patterns of the stresses

and the circumstances of the world,

where we fall prey to what he wants us to,

so he can't have our future,

but what he does try to cling hold to is our right now.

And God says, no, that's not how this works.

These people are going to work.

These people are going to do in the manner of which I've called them

from my power of who I am.

But there's also a victory in them

that cannot be taken away from them.

We'll continue and finish up verses 10 through 14.

And in that day declares the Lord,

I will cut off your horses from among you

and will destroy your chariots.

And I will cut off the cities of your land

and throw down all your strongholds.

And I will cut off sorceries from your hand

and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes.

And I will cut off your carved images

and your pillars from among you

and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands.

And I will root out from your images from among you

and destroy your cities.

And in anger and wrath,

I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey.

And what God points to here is a future purification.

Now this process looks painful.

There's a lot of talk in here about destruction.

But if you're not careful,

what you will simply see is destruction.

But when we read this passage through the lens of the gospel,

what we notice is not destruction, but redemption.

Because God is going to destroy all

that will stop the complete and total trust in him.

You see, in the end,

God's not simply looking to set us free from something.

God's looking to destroy it

so that it can no longer lend claim to who you are.

And what that involves is a process

as he draws it out and destroys it.

A couple of years ago,

my kids for Christmas wanted to make

my dad and my father-in-law one of those river tables.

I don't know if you've seen them on social media,

the river tables.

And so we use an epoxy in order to make those.

And so we got the pieces of wood

and we cut them to where we'd had the river

that would flow through that.

And we framed them, did all the things that we need to do.

And then we poured the epoxy.

And what began to happen is we began to notice

that from the epoxy,

there were impurities that were there.

And the impurities make themselves known

through bubbles or through air pockets.

And so we had to get rid of the bubbles.

And in order to get rid of the bubbles,

what we had to bring was a painful process into it.

We had to bring fire into it.

And so what we would do is we would light a torch

and we'd get as close as we can

to the surface of that epoxy.

And we would just lightly burn

in a very difficult, a very hot process.

And so that as the fire more and more touched the epoxy,

what would come from is the hidden even imperfections

and the hidden bubbles that we couldn't see.

And they would work their way to the top

until they disappeared.

And that's what God does.

That God in this, God for Israel, God for the church,

what he promises is a process of what he's going to do

to eliminate all the things that we've brought in,

of all of the things that we've allowed to control us

so that he can purify for himself

a bride that will be with him for all of eternity.

The church, this message was written,

was given by God to Micah for Israel.

But in this, what we see is the beautiful faithfulness

of the future work of our king.

We have to faithfully wait on him.

Would you pray with me?

God, I thank you for our time together this morning.

God, may we wait for you.

God, in our faithfulness, may we wait for you.

Lord, in our love, may we wait for you.

Lord, and I pray that during this time,

Lord, that you would continue to work,

that you would save, that you would break,

that you would call us back.

Bring us to repentance.

Lord, grow us so that we could grow more like Christ.

Jesus, we thank you for your sacrifice on the cross

and for your love for us.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

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