…spiritual history rooted in the Reformation of the 1600s, we should consider our social history as well. For the Reformation of Luther and Calvin was not only a revival of the soul of the Church, but the soul of a nation. The Reformation of the societies of Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland, for example, and other nations were directly impacted by the Reformation within the Church.
It doesn’t always happen, I know that. I explained this before. We’re not saying that, hey, wonderful things happen in Church, and everything’s going to change in society.
No, these things take time, and it works out in God’s providence, perhaps. But it’s still real. There’s still a cause and effect in God’s mystery there.
The multitude of holy days, for example, there was more vacation time for the medieval peasants than what you have today. You count the holy days, because they’re not work days. Sorry, you lost that.
But that was part of the Reformation. They got rid of all these extra holy days that were not commanded by the Word of God. They were greatly reduced.
Promiscuous priests. Remember, I went through a series on this last year, or the year before, on the Reformation history. Yeah, the priests were promiscuous.
They saw them down at the bar, looking for people. They were thrown out. Wasted papal funds were redistributed for better use in society.
Better laws were enacted, and kings were freed from undue papal influence. The corruption was great in the Church, and it was greatly reduced in these areas. And the right to resist tyranny was codified, in a large measure.
In other words, the Great Reformation our Church hails from was a two-fold Reformation. A transformation of both society and Church, and the body, that is, the body and the soul of a nation. That’s traditional language of Christianity.
The body and the soul. The body being society, and the soul being the Church. And this makes sense.
The Church, as instituted by God Almighty through Christ His Son, was created in the midst of an already existing society. Adam and Eve. They were already a society.
They had kids. It’s a very small society, to be sure. And it grew, as we know.
They lived for hundreds of years. They had many great inventions at their time. And they expanded the kingdom of man, or society, as we say.
And the Church was created in the midst of her. The tribe of Abraham is another example. And everyone in between there, including his servants, as a matter of fact, to an entire nation of Israel, who was given special cultural indicators, unique things that we don’t have to follow anymore.
But it was a society nevertheless. It had a lot of things in common with the ancient Near East neighbors, even with some of their laws. Because the Church, the salvation of our souls, and the implanting of us in the body of Christ, does not change that there are societies, any more than it changes that there are families, right? You don’t all of a sudden become a strange, weird family that you metaphysically change or something because you’re Christian.
You still act like a family. You have family expectations and have family love. It’s enhanced, to be sure, because you’re saved.
And that’s wonderful. And the same goes with the greatest of families, society. The Great Commission does not undermine this historical pattern, but assumes it.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of what? The nations, or societies, or peoples. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In the early days of Germany, England, and places like Armenia, Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, the local pagan tribes often converted as a group when their leader converted.
Society moved along with it. And, of course, their pagan practices eventually started changing. That’s a good thing.
It takes generations for these things to leaven in society, and it did in their case. Changing hearts often changes actions. In these cases, their two-fold reformation was simultaneous.
The birth of a new church, and these pagan tribes brought about a rebirth of their existing society. They didn’t stop being dramatic, because they were Christian. They were still dramatic.
But now, they got rid of their old pagan practices, and kept the ones that are indifferent, or just fine. And they had a number of those, like, I don’t know, family. Birth, celebration, marriage, and the like.
This two-fold reformation was well established in the Old Testament. Israel was both a nation and a church, and the one affected the other. There was a clear division of authority, to be sure.
There were two different judicial courts, as you recall. One for the king, and one for the lord. 2 Chronicles 19.11 summarizes that very well.
But there was one people, the body of the nation, with their customs, practices, and laws. And they had one religion, one god, and one church. And as we live in a post-Christian America, an ever increasingly paganized America, we too need a two-fold reformation.
Although we do not have the same arrangements of society and church as they did in the Old Testament, of course, we still have a society and a church that needs reformation. And I think the passage in Micah 6.8 is a good summary of reformational goals that include both church and society. That’s how he’s writing to his audience.
He doesn’t differentiate, does he? He’s like, well, now I’m writing to the church, the Old Testament temple and the priests, and over here I’m writing to all you common Jews, don’t worry about the church issues. He just says it all together. He starts out condemning their false worship, and saying that the Assyrian king is going to come down and demolish them because of their false worship.
And then he goes right into decimating the middle class. Remember that? It was the people with pleasant homes, it says. And had rich cloaks torn off of them.
So it wasn’t just the poor he was concerned about, it was also the middle class, just the people. It’s social injustice in that sense. And so when he comes to this great high point in, not the highest, the highest being, of course, the passages on Christ to come.
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. And he makes no differentiation between the church and society. He expects the Christian, whether at church, or in society, at your job, or president, or judge, or neighbor, or an engineer, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before their God.
It’s as simple as that. Now, of course, he’s preaching to an audience, again, where every member of the society is in the church. He has preached the gospel, he has assumed the gospel, and I mentioned that when I preached Micah 6.8a a little bit earlier.
That this isn’t the gospel formally speaking. You don’t just start doing justice, and you have a big heart of mercy, and you say, God’s bigger than me, and I’m a humble, small little man, therefore I’m saved. That’s not what justifies you.
That’s not his purpose. His purpose here is to emphasize to his audience, sanctification. Why aren’t you living like followers of the seed to come, of the Messiah to come? I’ve given you my laws, I’ve given you the standard of sanctification, I’ve given you my spirit as we know.
That is to those who are humble, who follow the Messiah to come, and trust in the promises of the covenant. That’s assumed in Micah. And he brings it out now and then to be sure, although it’s not the emphasis.
And same with this verse. Not every verse can say everything. And so to be sure, and I preached on this, every reformation, every growth of the church, and by reformation and revival I don’t mean, you know, emotionalism and radical things happen and miracles.
It could simply just mean being more faithful. Nothing more exciting than that. It’s very humdrum in many ways.
Surely we don’t have that in large measure in this nation as a society, my own lifetime, and even the churches, the best of the churches, we struggle and have problems. I don’t mean that either for reformation, but at the very minimal, sanctification, collective sanctification. And that begins the gospel.
Society needs the gospel. Americans need the gospel. They need to hear repent.
They need to hear sin. They need to hear their sinners, not just their neighbors, or vague notions of social injustice, whenever it’s convenient for them. But that they themselves are oppressors, because they follow the devil, and they follow sin.
Yes, they need to hear that. But this sermon today is mostly for us. I tailored it for our congregation.
Obviously I’m your pastor. I’m not someone else’s pastor. And something to remind us, that reforming society is part of reformations often.
Reforming Society: Do Justly, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly
To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before our God. Reforming society, Micah does not specify who and what justice or mercy or humility are, if you notice. He doesn’t sit there and say, let me give you the Webster Dictionary definition of this.
Again, it’s assumed that they know, and they’ve heard these things, and they’ve read Deuteronomy and the like, or they’ve at least been to the reading of the law, which is supposed to be given at least once a year. The book points to, as I pointed out earlier, social and religious concerns. The poor, the middle class, are being oppressed and abused.
The pure worship of God was contaminated. And by society, I mean everything not uniquely Christian. Politics, legal matters, sometimes we use the word state, separation of church and state, or the two kingdom theology.
It also includes everything else. So you have the church and the state, and of course we believe the separation is different, and then what atheists want, they just don’t want church at all, often. They don’t want any influence, influence of Christianity upon society, often.
Not just state or legal matters, but everything else. Hollywood, entertainment, news, business, schools, universities, marriage, family, relationships, expectations, social practices, organic life within the confines of the law, but not limited to the law. That’s what society is.
And we live and breathe in society. And in heaven we’ll have the great society of perfection. That’s not what we’re seeking out.
We don’t believe, the Christian church does not believe, that we’re going to have heaven on earth. That’s society. That’s what I’m talking about.
And the Reformation includes the two tables of the law. The first and greatest, of course, is God, and submission to God, and his gospel found in Jesus Christ. Otherwise, you don’t have the greatest of all reformations, the saving of a soul.
But I tell you, I’d rather have a nation, as some of you had when you were younger, with some more godly laws, full of unbelievers, than a nation full of unbelievers with wicked laws, which is where we’re at now. In the former case, it’s not because I’m especially pious or something, but it’s good for the church. And you have a captive audience, and your members in your congregation aren’t being killed, robbed, or stolen from, or future generations slaughtered.
You can witness to them. You can’t witness to dead people. And in society it’s becoming more pagan.
Again, in Sunday School class, I did a series on voting, and one of the great themes, the great theme, of course, is to glorify God. But what’s under that? The good of God’s kingdom. Jeremiah says, Pray for the peace of your nation.
Not because he wants prosperity for pagans. He wants prosperity for the church, which is in captivity in that pagan nation. And same with us today.
These things all coalesce together here in this sermon. So the first table. Who would like to live in early America? Compare it to today.
Right now where we are. I would. Pick another nation or whatever that has much nicer laws and less massacre of innocent children and the like.
And I like to pick early America because I think it’s the best, but I thought it would be a good example. Washington, Madison. Even the Calvinist John Jay, the first Supreme Court Justice.
He was raised a Dutch Calvinist. I read his commentary. I read his biography.
He wrote a number of early American history biographies and the like. That’s why I’m aware of blasphemy laws, Sabbath laws. Thomas Jefferson himself, along with Madison, passed in Virginia, worship laws.
People aren’t aware of that often. The state constitutions. I read the original state constitutions.
They’re very hard to find actually. They all mention either God, Christianity, or in one or two cases, Christ. Explicitly.
Schools required Bible reading. That’s been my specialty, as you know. Catechism and the like.
The history of Christian education was not lost in early America. It was there in full measure. Social expectations and family life was assumed to be Christian.
Even if a lot of variations were different. We weren’t European. We had different traditions to some extent, obviously.
Although we were more European back then, obviously. In the 1700s. So even if they weren’t Christians in their heart, society could be described as Christian.
As opposed to just raw pagan. The second table of the law is obvious. What that would look like.
This could… This may probably never happen in America. America is not the promised land. Nations pass away.
They come and go. And America seems to be going. I don’t know where our children, our children’s children are going to be.
It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t stop fighting it. I want what’s good for my children. They’re in the church.
I want what’s good for the church. And of course it’s all in God’s hands. Did you justly to love mercy and walk humbly in society and social issues? What does that look like? Justice, obviously.
Just laws against murder and adultery. Easy divorce. We forget about that.
Where we are now, we have redefined marriage. That began in many ways because we made marriage easy to break in our laws. Not to be unduly slow to punish the wicked.
Consistent punishment instead of favoritism. We see, for example, injustice in society. You’re probably thinking, oh well, the pastor’s talking about murder and going to court.
Now how about Harvard? Did you see that? Harvard’s in court right now. Because the Asians said, we’re underrepresented. And we think we’re underrepresented because you’re biased against us.
And sure enough, oh, they are. Harvard is not being just. Now, not a big issue for us.
What are we going to do as a Christian church? We’ve got a lot of our own problems. That’s true. But I’m describing and giving illustrations of justice and how we, if we were in a church or a school like Harvard, ought to exercise justice and equity.
Love mercy in business. Bosses being understanding of difficult family life that interferes with work as opposed to, I don’t know, a boss obsessed with making money. He doesn’t give a rip.
He’ll find someone else to replace you. We have more and more of that. I mean, you have unbelievers run a business.
They’re going to run it differently than a Christian. Ideally, because Christians ought to show some mercy. Because, what does Paul argue? With respect to the gospel, he says, Christ has been merciful.
You ought to be merciful. He makes that connection. He makes a moral connection from the call of, from the life of Christ obeying and living for us, justifying us.
He makes a moral conclusion. It doesn’t mean, of course, being a doormat, a line must be drawn. You’ve got to fire people.
That’s hard. I can’t imagine being a Christian boss. That would be under justice.
And we’ll talk a little bit in another sermon about this, about justice and how that looks in the Christian life. Judges love mercy. Laws that are not too harsh.
Judges that take into consideration circumstances. Even the best of the pagan authors historically have acknowledged and recognized that laws can’t cover every nook and cranny, every jot and tittle. And there’s some freedom even in the Old Testament, the Jewish laws for punishment, the range of punishment it appears.
Of course, it doesn’t mean letting everyone get off the hook for a crime. That’s the other extreme of loving mercy so much there is no justice. Matthew Henry, interestingly enough, in this commentary on this part of the Bible, points out that justice is mentioned first because justice is very important.
And often the case is that mercy swallows up justice in society. And lastly, in society, the Reformation of society, not just justice, not just mercy, not being unduly harsh and understanding people’s circumstances. You still get punished in the case of a poor person stealing, but you understand that they were poor and maybe a little more lenient.
To walk humbly, walk humbly, brothers and sisters. We are called to do, and it’s before God, to walk humbly with your God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. What does the Lord require of you? The covenant keeping God.
He requires that you walk humbly with your God, the maker of heaven and earth. And you can do that in Christ Jesus. We have been humbled by our sin, to be sure, but we are brought up and exalted in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
But even in the midst of that, we are humbled in the sense that we know our place and position in life. Humility is understanding your station in life and acting accordingly, not going above your station and your calling. As a member of society, in this case, the poor don’t try to act rich.
The way they do that, they typically go into debt. Or the rich shouldn’t be haughty towards the poor. We’re reminded of that in James 1.17. A very practical book of the Bible.
Reforming Church: Do Justly, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly
The second main point, reforming the church. This is Micah, the inspired by the Holy Spirit, telling his Christian audience that was also Jewish, so they were a nation state, but they were also a church. What they ought to do, beyond the obvious, which is you ought to repent, you ought to believe in Jesus to come, or in our case, Jesus that has already come, brothers and sisters.
But there’s more than that in the Christian life. There’s not enough to say, I’m justified, yay, isn’t that great, let’s go to heaven, sit back, real relaxed, put my hand behind my back, watch some TV, become a spiritual couch potato. No, we are therefore motivated because we are born again, and our sanctification has also kicked in.
Justification does not change. Sanctification does. It ebbs and flows in your life, brothers and sisters.
And what is that but to be holy? Jesus says, holiness is if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And we can do that out of love and commitment to him. To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before our God is one way of describing reforming a church, or continuing to reform a church.
To do justly, laters, it can be a deacon, it can be a ruling elder or a pastor, don’t play favorites with church members. Pretty simple. Down to earth example.
Don’t set up extra rules to protect the leadership. Justice must be enacted among church officers. People in the pew, laymen, shouldn’t think we are untouchable.
You can’t ever bring charges or talk or bring a complaint to the session and the like. And that happens in churches unfortunately. One of the strengths of Presbyterianism is by God’s grace we have a layer of courts.
So if a local church is not acting the right way, that’s right, Presbyterians have sin. Then you go to the Presbytery to deal with it. That’s how God designed it and that’s part of doing justly.
Laymen, be just among yourselves. Be fair minded without playing favorites as well. Be considerate of one another and your difficulties but be just.
And here’s the example for myself. You can pick on me. If the pastor’s child is acting out, go ahead and treat them like all the other children.
It’s okay. Don’t play favoritism. That’s not just.
That’s not loving Jesus Christ with our actions. Love mercy. We are called to love mercy brothers and sisters.
Gentleness as I explained there in Galatians and the Fruit of the Spirit, my sermon series on that. Gentleness, that particular word there in 5.23 used again in Galatians 6.1 where he says, you go to your brothers and in gentleness rebuke them. The idea of gentleness there is to remember your position and consider the situation of the person before you.
That’s another way of talking about mercy, isn’t it? You go to a child. You realize, oh, they’re a child. They’re just eight years old.
They did wrong but they get easily distracted, you realize. And so you help them. You still reprimand them.
You might do it mildly. You might have to be a little stronger to be sure. But gentleness isn’t never remanding or never punishing.
That’s not what mercy ultimately is. It’s always in context of justice. But here the love of mercy is to be considerate of someone else’s circumstances and act accordingly.
Maybe the punishment would be a little less harsh in their case. And, for instance, we’ve had members in the past and some of you have grown up that way. You’re new members.
I guess it’s kind of new. It’s been five or six years now, right, for some of you. You didn’t have a Reformed background at all.
And coming into a Reformed church, you’re just like, wow, this stuff is completely new. What in the world is going on here? A merciful person will say, well, look, they’re new to the Reformed faith. We’ll be patient with them.
It takes time to learn these things to get used to our worship practices which are really weird. The expectations of a Reformed person, the way a Reformed person talks and thinks. Mercy says, I won’t be harsh on them.
I’ll throw the book at them. Look at the way he talked. They’re speaking heresy and blasphemy.
They don’t know what they’re saying. They’re not quoting the Confession. Calm down.
Calm down. I don’t think that’s been a special problem, but it can be. You need to realize that’s a good example of being merciful or even patient.
Long-suffering. Other fruits of the Spirit. To distinguish between big and small things.
Because what does love do? Love covers a multitude of sins. In the context of the Church, love covers a multitude of sins. In the context of your family, love covers a multitude of sins.
Loving mercy, that’s a form of mercy. Covering sin and not making a big deal about it. You may have to bring it up later to be sure.
Doesn’t mean you never mention it again. But in that circumstance or for that time period, you’ve got other issues to deal with or bigger fish to fry. You can’t go after every sin and never get anything done.
Be hammering and hashing. I’ve met people like that. They’ve been cast out of the Church unfortunately or left on their own.
This church or other churches are just always going after someone’s problem. That’s not merciful. We can’t do that.
We’re not God. We must turn the other cheek. We must walk the extra mile as Christ commanded us.
And then for the Church, not only to do justly, to love mercy, but to walk humbly with your God. Humility before God as I mentioned before is knowing our station in life and our lot in life. In this particular case it’s a state of our heart.
To do justly in this context of Micah and the sins and the social issues he brings up in this book is clearly outward action. Don’t oppress the middle class. Don’t oppress the poor.
Don’t steal their land and take their pleasant homes. To love mercy would be probably related to that. Be merciful.
You don’t have to buy all that land. Leave a little bit of land for some of the poor. Like you leave the corner lots for the poor to glean the wheat and the food, right? Here to walk humbly is first and foremost, of course, a state of the heart.
And it’s with your God. With the Lord God above who loves you and has given his life for you. The humility before him, our place in his providence we’re not as rich as we want to be.
We’re not as popular as we want to be. We’re not as well employed as we want to be. That’s your station in life.
I’m sorry. It’s not going to change. Immediately.
It may change eventually. But for now, this is where you are. Accept it.
That’s part of humility. Moses said he was the most humble man. Remember that in Genesis? And Exodus? This is kind of a strange thing to say.
He’s referring to his station in life. He knew where he was. And he did not go above his station and calling in life.
For children, that means being children and not trying to be adults. That’s humility. For men, that means leading your household and protecting and not avoiding responsibility.
Be humble and accept your calling as a man or a woman. Submit to the husband. Take care of the home.
Our society looks down upon that and belittles it. They want you to be proudful and rise against that. No, we’re supposed to be humble and accept our lot in life, our position where we are, and do the best we can by His grace and strength.
Because we have it. This is the covenant of keeping God talking to you. What does the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, require of you who are members of the church of God? And so just saying that, He should be encouraging you.
He’s saying, I’m the covenant-keeping God. I’m going to keep the covenant in you. And although I give you an imperative, I give you a command, it’s because I’ve already saved you.
It’s because I’ve given you my Spirit. And the blood of Christ has covered you. And you can march forward in your sanctification and grow even a little bit.
And let me give you some guidance in that growth. Do justly. Love mercy.
And walk humbly before your God. And part of that walking of humility is just doing your job as a Christian, as your vocation, as a mother, as a daughter, as a son, as a citizen, as a worker. And don’t go above yourself and beyond what you can do or what you’re called to do.
Our lives must reflect humility to walk the old Hebrew way of speaking. By our actions, of course, flowing from our hearts, executing God’s law and not our own pet peeves. That’s humility, not rising above God’s commands.
There are many issues, of course, and we can disagree with some of them, how to apply God’s law. But I think we can all agree about humility. How much justice and when, how much mercy and when, but humility we can agree upon.
Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, as James requires of us. Another description of humility, isn’t it? Let us examine ourselves, brothers and sisters, if these things be so, and I think they are in large measure, I encourage you to continue on in this regard, to pray for more spirit, more love, more faith in Christ Jesus to work in you, that which is well-pleasing in His sight. And what is well-pleasing in His sight? To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
May God grant our nation a two-fold reformation, both of society and especially of our churches. Amen. Let’s pray.
Our God above, our covenant-keeping God, you’ve kept the covenant for us. We have broken the Adamic covenant, God. You gave us a new covenant, Christ Jesus.
You obeyed it, Lord, for us, and He also works in us. We may finally, with full fruit in Heaven, be perfect in obedience. But even now, Lord, here, in this exhortation, in the light of the Gospel promises, God, we can do justly and mercy and walk humbly enough, Lord, here and now by your sanctification.
We pray, God, that we will be encouraged thereby and to persevere and not give up. In your name we pray for your glory alone. Amen.