One simple verse describes the experience that God wants for His people. Join us as we unpack Micah 6:8 and find its parallel in God’s end-time message.

<p>One simple verse describes the experience that God wants for His people. Join us as we unpack Micah 6:8 and find its parallel in God’s end-time message.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

We Believe

Chester Clark

Secrets of Ancient Scrolls, Part 1

Secrets of Ancient Scrolls, Part 2

We Believe - Who is God? Part 1

We Believe - Who is God? Part 2

We Believe - The Burden Bearer, Part 1

We Believe - The Burden Bearer, Part 2

We Believe – One Body

We Believe – Church Organization

We Believe – Buried Alive!

We Believe – The Gift (Part 1)

We Believe – The Gift (Part 2)

Voices from Beyond the Grave

This afternoon we're going to be looking at a passage that I think helps us to understand, at least helps me to understand, this whole, if you want to call it a balance, you might, in the Christian walk.

You know, there's always a question when we start talking about the, When we start talking about the Christian experience and we preach about salvation, and especially when we are talking about the whole issue of obedience and of, you know, keeping the commandments.

The question always comes up to us as Adventists, well, are we saved by grace?

And what place does obedience have in this whole experience?

Is it just something that happens, you know, perhaps after we're saved or is it something that's required after we're saved?

And sometimes I think we get a little bit of our tails tied in a knot when it's simpler than we make it out to be.

And So I thought this afternoon, since this morning we were talking about salvation, we were talking about the gospel, I thought we'd look at 1 verse which I think fairly aptly summarizes this balance, if you call it that, between faith and works.

And so I think it'll be a good study together.

It's not going to be a long time together.

We're just going to spend a few minutes to see what God's Word might teach us.

And so as we begin, let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, thank you for giving us this day.

And I just want to pray that you would bless our time together.

We are grateful for the blessings that you've given us already today.

We're thankful for the beautiful day outside.

We're thankful for the fellowship that we've enjoyed.

And we just want to pray that as we open your word once again, that your spirit would guide us, that he might be our teacher.

Okay, well, you remember that, that Jesus said, take my yoke upon you, ' right?

And he says, "'My yoke is easy.'" And there's some who might say, because of this statement, my yoke is easy, they might say, see, once we come to Jesus, we don't have to worry about anything.

We just accept him as our Savior, and then we're saved, and you've heard different variations of that.

Some even say once you're saved, you're always saved, right?

And others say, well, you know, what you do, your works or your obedience, your fruit that you bear after you're saved, it does matter.

You might not be at as high a place at the table in heaven, but you'll be in heaven anyway because you're saved, you know.

And there's different views of how these works fit into the scenario, which by the way, I think that last view is quite legalistic.

To think that even after we're saved that our good works are going to merit us anything in heaven, to me is a concept that's based on works and merit.

But I want us to just look at the context here between...before we get to our verse, I wanna look through the context of what we were looking at this morning.

When we look at the context of Matthew 11, 28 and 30, and we back up a few passages, back up all the way to Matthew 5 and 6, if you can, and I'm just gonna point out, and we're gonna look together at a couple of passages which it would appear that are contradictory to what Jesus is saying.

For example, let's look here at the end of Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew chapter 5, You know the story, the Sermon on the Mount, the longest discourse that Jesus gave that is recorded for us.

You have heard that it has been said, you shall love your neighbor and hate thine enemy." Okay, that's what the culture demanded of the time.

But I say unto you, Jesus says, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, Do good to them that hate you and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you.

Now, you tell me, does it sound like Jesus' yoke is easier or heavier than what the culture demanded?

If we're just talking about, if we're talking about external fruit in our lives, it would seem, if it was just humanly speaking, it would seem that Jesus actually has greater requirements for salvation, or at least of us, than the Pharisees would have themselves.

And notice verse 47, if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others?

Be therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

We could go on and we could see here in this same sermon how Jesus says, well, you've heard, you know, it said, you should not commit adultery, but in verse 28 of the same chapter, he says, but I say unto you, whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So, these, whatever Jesus' yoke is, it apparently, it apparently does not take away from the requirements of obedience, does it?

It actually, I believe, is what empowers us through a converted experience.

We're just gonna spend our time mostly on this 1 verse.

So if you have a marker in your Bible, you might wanna put it there.

This is a little prophet, a little book, what we call a minor prophet in the Old Testament, towards the end of the Old Testament.

Only 7 chapters, and we're going to be looking at near the end or the middle of the sixth chapter.

Micah 6 and verse 8, we're going to spend most of our time here, although we'll look at other verses to compare, but I want us to see what this 1 verse can teach us about salvation.

I think it's a very succinct summary that Micah gives us here.

Micah 6 in verse 8, and this is what he says.

He hath shown thee, O man, what is good, And what doth the Lord require of thee?

Don't you think that's what we need to know?

But he says, to do justly, and to, what is the second thing?

Love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.

So what I want us to do here, I'm not sure if these are cooperating, but I want us to just unpack this verse by verse, or part by part as we look at this verse, he hath shown thee, oh man, that's the first phrase, isn't it?

And that is a whole topic we could spend looking at revelation, inspiration, but God's word is how we find the path to salvation.

You know, I remember when I was a kid, I learned a song.

It was sort of a popular praise song at the time, I guess.

Oh stumbling pilgrim in the dark, the road to Zion's in your heart.

Now, I don't know who wrote that, I don't know what their intentions were but I can say this The humanist approach to salvation which says we just need to look inside of us to find what the inner light in us would lead us to do, just to be true to ourselves.

That's not the biblical way to salvation.

The biblical way to salvation is God has shown us.

He's shown us through the messages of the prophets.

And we won't take the time to look at all that right now, but Paul wrote Timothy and he says, "'From a child you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation.

This is where God shows us what is required of us.

And whatever we determine, we dare not be among those who simply say, I think, but we want to know what does God say.

We dare not just, you know, have a philosophy and a theory that all makes sense and is cohesive and not contradictory within itself.

We want to know what does the word of God say.

And as we go on, it says the 3 things that we're gonna look at here.

He says, he has shown thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly.

When it says the just shall live by faith, what is it talking about?

Or when we use the word Justification, what does that mean?

Often we use synonyms like righteousness, justly is sort of like rightly, to do the right thing.

Now you might say, wow, you know, Mike is just here explaining what does God require of us, and the first thing that he introduces is what we do.

Does that seem like it might be maybe works oriented?

Well, it could be except that we remember that our own works are not righteousness.

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Series

We Believe

We Believe - The Burden Bearer, Part 2

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The True Medical Missionary

56m

An Eye for an Eye

44m

The Godhead- Part 3

1h

Life of the Apostle Paul

Hold Nothing Back - Part 19

39m

Justice or Mercy

49m

What God Will Never Do For You

41m

Sexual Purity: Lost and Found

1h 19m

Hands-Free Operation

56m

All the World Marveled

Preparing For the Last Temptation

45m

What Are You Looking For?

1h 5m

Acts

Persecution, Prayer, and Power

53m

Being Adventist

The Terrifying Tyranny of Adventist Eschatology

1h 7m

Sound Doctrine