Micah 6:8 "Walking Humbly With God"

Micah 6:8 

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?

--> For the last couple of posts, we have been looking at Micah chapter 6.  This was written to the Israelites concerning a general attitude that seemed to develop concerning sin and what God actually desired of them. 

Under the Old Covenant, you remember, sins were forgiven through a process of animal sacrifice.  The people would come to temple and through the priest, make sacrifices.  That was God’s law.  It has always been God’s law that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.  It’s not because God is a bloodthirsty God who delights in gore.  Its because God wants us to be aware of the awfulness of sin.   

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The Israelites were willing to make whatever sacrifices at the temple were necessary in order for them to get off the hook for their sins, not necessarily because they wanted to quit sinning, but simply because they didn’t want the punishment for the sin that they knew for certain was coming.  They really didn't understand why sin was a problem or what God actually wanted from them. 

--> Since they could always go to the temple and make sacrifices, they didn’t think sin was that big of a deal.   

Micah, in this passage, points out to the people, and to us, that although God instituted the sacrificial system, He was never actually interested in their sacrifices.  What He really wanted from them and from us is a relationship.  He wants an authentic, day-to-day, ongoing relationship.  

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What we have seen so far is that if we have a right relationship with God it will affect both our outward actions and our inward character.  A right relationship with God will always lead us act justly, to do justice.  Also, a right relationship with God will produce in us the quality of mercy.   

--> Now, we are looking at the third and final thing that Micah lists as God’s requirement: walking humbly with God.  The obvious key to understanding what Micah is trying to teach here is the word humble.  But, as we will see, the word walk also has implications for us.

--> There are three basic ways in which the concept of humility is used in the Bible.  The first use of the word humble is to describe the condition of poverty.  When people are poor or deprived or needy, they are humble –they are not fancy and frivolous.  The second use of the word humble has to do with abasing oneself, lowering oneself.  It is the opposite of arrogance.  Arrogance puffs up and calls attention to itself.  Humility lets others get the attention and the glory.  And the third use of the word humble has to do with submission.  Like when a soldier, for instance, submits to the authority of a commanding officer.  It has, in a sense, to do with understanding our rank, understanding and accepting where we fit into the scheme of things.

All of these things are loosely connected, and they all have some implications for what Micah is telling us.  A right relationship with God involves our admission of spiritual poverty, admitting that we need God.  A right relationship with God involves letting go of our pride and arrogance –giving God the attention, giving God the glory, instead of trying to glorify ourselves.  And a right relationship with God involves submitting to God.  It involves understanding exactly who we are in relationship to God.  When Micah tells us that the Lord requires us to walk humbly with God, he is implying all of this.

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In a sense, though, it is impossible to walk with God if we don’t submit and give up our arrogance and recognize our spiritual need.

--> We are either walking humbly with God, or we’re not walking with God at all. So, perhaps, the bigger understanding we need to have of this passage has to do with that other word: walk.

 

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The Hebrew word used for walk here, halak, is loaded with implications for us.  It means to move surely and steadily.  It means to keep apace.  It means to go along side.  It means to move forward.  All of these are descriptions of what it means to walk with God.

--> Walking with God means that we going where God is going.  We aren’t going off in our own directions following our own whims and desires.  It means we are keeping apace with Him.  That means we don’t stop unless He stops.  It also means we don’t run ahead of Him trying to find the path on our own.  If we are walking with God, we are walking beside Him, letting Him choose the direction, letting Him open the right doors, letting Him close the wrong ones.  

We often get in trouble over these things don’t we?  Don’t we try to figure things out for ourselves and get way ahead of God and try to push open doors that God doesn’t want open?  And at other times don’t we see God’s open doors before us, and refuse to go through them.  Don’t we sometimes dig in our heels and sit down to rest, or maybe even lay down and go to sleep instead of walking along side of God?  And what happens when we do this?  Does anything good ever come from our insisting on doing it our way?

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At the point we insist on our own way, we get out of step with God –we actually quit walking with God, and we lose benefits of walking with God.  When we are walking with God in close relationship with God, His closeness comforts us and gives us assurance and hope.  When we are walking with God, He opens the right doors and we don’t have the anxiety and worries and fears about making the right or wrong choices in life.  But when we intentionally quit walking with God, when we say "no" to God, or when we refuse to go through the doors He opens, or we insist on going through doors He didn’t open –in other words, when we demand our own way, we left are on our own.  We’re not on left our own because God got angry at us and abandoned us, we’re on our own because we quit walking with God and started walking in some direction other than the direction God is going.

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The bottom line is this.  We were designed to have fellowship with our Creator.  Since sin interfered with that, God made a way for our sin to be forgiven.  But, if we then refuse to actually walk with God and have fellowship with God, we are missing the point entirely.

So, if you are saved, but are somehow missing the intimate fellowship, the personal relationship –if you have believed in Jesus and trusted Him for salvation, but are not truly walking with Him, how do you get your life back on track?  How do you reconnect with God?  How do you figure out where He is and what direction He is going so that you can walk with Him?   

Listen carefully now, because I’m going to tell you.  Are you listening?  Do you want to know where God is, so you can start truly walking with Him again?  You will find God waiting for you at the point where you last told Him "no."