Therefore I will look unto the Lord

Sermon notes from Sunday 19 January 2019

Micah 7 verses 1 - 7

The first week we looked at this verse we considered the word "therefore" at the start and thought of the situation Micah found himself in.  He was living among a people who had a great outward profession for the Lord but were really going through the motions.  Their lips were near to God but their hearts were very far off.  Things were very discouraging, a depraved society, crumbling around him.  There was no-one that he could trust or depend on.  Micah brings himself into the equation in this verse - it is personal to him and to us.  What am I going to do?  Maybe the days will be long and discouraging.  Micah says "therefore I will look unto the Lord."  It is a great profession.  He also has a great patience - "my God will hear me."  Finally Micah has a great peace in his heart - "God will hear me."  What a challenge for us as we go into a new year!

A great profession

Micah is professing his faith in the living God.  He will get his eyes off everything else and place them on the Lord.  Paul could say in Romans 10 verse 10 "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."  Micah was confessing his faith just as Paul did.  We thought previously about Joshua leading the people into the land of Promise.  The land was being divided up, Joshua looks all around him and tells them they had a choice to make.  They could serve the gods of their fathers before the flood or the gods already in the land of the Amorites but as for Joshua "as for me and my house we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24 verse 15)  Joshua and Micah made the decision to follow the Lord.  Much water had flowed since Joshua took up the mantle from Moses.  For Caleb it was 40 days from the day when he went to spy in Canaan yet he asked Moses to give him the mountain.  Is that our resolve - to look to the Lord?  Micah meant business with God.  Man had failed him, society was corrupt but he was going to look to the Lord.  Remember David when he returned to Ziglag.  All the houses were burnt and the people had been taken captive.  David`s army are turning against him - if they hadn't been away fighting they might have saved their own village and people.  They were at the point of stoning David.  David said to himself "I will encourage myself in the Lord." (1 Samuel 30 verse 6)  Remember Paul and Silas in the prison house in Philippi.  They were beaten and sore, cast into the prison but at midnight they sang and prayed.  They were encouraging themselves in the Lord.  Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, they were not left to their own devices.  When we bowed our knees at the foot of the old rugged cross, when we realised that Christ had taken our sin, borne our sins on his own body, when the Holy Spirit showed us our need of salvation, when we said that day "Lord come into my heart and life, I am trusting thee as Lord."  Have you trusted Christ as Saviour yet?  We are not left to our own devices when we come to Christ.  He has given us his precious word to lead and direct us for the way ahead.  When Moses came out of Egypt with the multitude of people he could look to the pillar in the day and the fire at night.  God will not leave himself without a witness.  God would direct every step they took.  Can you imagine their faces when they came out of Egypt and the pillar turned a different way from what they expected?  If they had gone the way they had expected it would have been through the land of the Philistines.  They would have experienced warfare going that way and probably would have led to them wanting to return to Egypt.  God knows what is in our lives, how difficult it can be.  We think God doesn't fully understand and is taking us a different way that is not in our opinion the right or best way.  God knows best.  He wants to lead you if only you will let him.  Remember Paul when he was taken into the third heaven one day and shown things he could never imagine.  When Paul was brought back to earth something had happened to him - he was given a thorn in the flesh.  A blessing followed by a hindrance.  He prayed 3 times which really means he prayed continually, possibly up to 300 times for this thorn to be taken away from him.  God said no to Paul and then said to him "my grace is sufficient for you."  Maybe there are difficulties in your life right now and you have prayed earnestly for God to take it from you.  God says "I understand it all today, I am with you in it, keep looking to me."  Paul says "I know the pain of suffering, God will strengthen you in ways you never thought possible."  I am sure when he had to leave Miletus with a friend lying sick he couldn't understand God`s ways but he trusted God to work it out.  If your prayers are not answered today leave it with God.  He will help you through it.  Micah was determined to look to the Lord, to keep his eyes on the Lord.  So should we.

A great patience

Micah now says "I will wait for the God of my salvation."  In the midst of all the coldness and carelessness his only hope was in God and he was willing to wait.  The Psalmist could say "my help cometh from the Lord."  Even when there were no signs to bolster him up.  Let`s get our eyes off the signs and discouragements and look to the Lord.  Psalm 40 "I waited patiently for the Lord."  It was a very difficult period in his life, he described it as being in a pit, a miry clay.  In this hole in the ground signifies there was nothing concrete for him to stand on.  He was in danger of drowning, what terror held him.  He was waiting on God to move, there seemed no hope for him.  Day after day no-one cared for his soul.  He was in a very lonely place.  We can be in a similar place where no-one understands us.  The Psalmist didn't just wait, he waited patiently.  Micah could see no outward evidence of a society coming back to the Lord.  There is very little evidence even today of a people turning back to the Lord and it is very discouraging.  Micah says "my eyes are on the Lord."  It speaks of unanswered prayer for the Psalmist.  How often he prayed and nothing happened.  Are you still waiting today?  That Psalm was probably written at a time when David was on the run from his own son or in the cave hiding from Saul.  He felt very lonely, there were few he could trust and depend on.  Micah was prepared to wait.  No doubt he was crying to the Lord.  God will lift us out of the darkness.  Think of the story of Joseph.  20 years of age and cast into a prison at the behest of Potiphar`s wife.  She slandered his character.  He met 2 men in that prison - Pharaoh`s baker and butler.  He talked with them and Joseph realised they could help him.  He asked to be remembered when they went back before Pharaoh.  When that day came neither remembered Joseph in the cell.  It was 2 years until God moved in the butlers heart.  God moved.  Let`s have patience with God today.  Philip Keller wrote a book entitled "Lessons from a sheep dog."  He tells about a sheep dog he got when it was old and he thought it wouldn't learn any new tricks.  He had a great relationship with that dog.  He would go down into the valley, in amongst the thorns and briars to bring the sheep back to the fold.  The hardest thing for the dog to do was to wait.  The dog would squat down and sit there.  No more commands, just wait.  If he moved the sheep were gone, scattered.  Patience.  That is what we need as we go into 2020.

Micah`s great peace

Micah had peace that God would hear and answer.  Everyone else had let him down.  People had disappointed him.  If we are prepared to stand and wait on the Lord we can have a great peace, a peace that passeth all understanding.  Isaiah 40 verse 13 "but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."  He knew about waiting patiently on the Lord and that is what we need to do.  Walter Scott was considered a dunce.  He was in the house one day when the poet Robert Burns was present.  Robert Burns was admiring a painting with a poem beneath it.  He asked who wrote the poem.  No-one could answer but Walter Scott recited the poem and told who the author was.  Robert Burns told Walter Scott "you will be a great man in Scotland one day" and the rest is history.  Jairus had a daughter who was dying.  He asked the Lord to come to his house to touch her.  On their way to the house someone came out and told him not to trouble the master any more as she had died.  The Lord looked to Jairus and said "she is not dead just sleeping, only believe."  Maybe that is how we feel.  We think things are dead.  People in our family have no interest, they have no chance of coming into the house of God.  Have patience and peace - God will move.  Let us look to the Lord for this year.  Have patience, he knows our anxieties and worries.  We need to have peace and faith.  Trust in the Lord today.