Micah 6:8

The Requirements of God

I. The ideal requirement of God.

A. In Deut.10:12

DEU 10:12 And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee,

but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways,

and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all

thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments

and the statutes of the Lord.

B. In our text the prophet declares "He has shown thee O man what

is good and what does the Lord require of thee, but to do

justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God."

C. In the Hebrew language their are two different words that are

both translated require in English.

1. In Deut. the Hebrew word is more like inquire, or ask

of you. "What does the Lord ask of you."

2. In our text, the Hebrew word is more of a demand, "What

does the Lord demand of you."

D. What are God's requirements?

1. Fear the Lord thy God.

a. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of

wisdom.

b. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.

c. It is to stand in reverence of His awesome

holiness.

2. To walk in all His ways.

a. That is to obey every commandment, and statute

of the Lord.

b. To walk in holiness, truth, purity.

3. To love and serve Him with all your heart and soul.

a. No half-hearted relationship.

b. Or as we spoke a few weeks ago, no divided

heart.

E. That is what God asks. What does He demand?

1. That you do justly.

a. That you be fair in all your judgment.

b. Paul asks who are you to judge another man's

servant, before his own Master he either stands

or falls, and God is able to make him to stand.

c. God has not given to us the privilege of

judging others. "Judge not, lest you be

judged."

d. We do not have all the facts.

e. We do not know the motives of the heart.

f.

We so often judge on the basis of hearsay. "But

someone said that they saw." Someone is not a

credible witness. We are often quick to judge

on the basis of someone. Who? What evidence did

they produce? Usually it was a friend or cousin

of someone. Twenty years ago they were

circulating a picture of Jesus in the clouds. I

heard at least 20 different versions of who

took the picture, and where it was taken.

2. That you love mercy.

Even if the person is guilty, that

you be kind and forgiving. "Be kind one to another,

tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for

Christ sake has forgiven you.

a. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall

obtain mercy."

b. "Forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive

those who trespass against us."

c. Here it is not that you just be merciful, but

that you love mercy.

3. That you walk humbly with thy God. The man who is

proud, does not know God.

a. When Isaiah saw a vision of God he said, "Woe

is me"

b. When Daniel saw a vision of God he said, "My

beauty was turned into corruption."

c. No man has had an encounter with God and come

from it with a feeling of pride and greatness.

4.

These are the things that God requires, or demands of

you.

C. You say, "I have failed, I have not lived up to those

requirements, but let's go to the New Testament, I've always

had trouble with the law, I sort of prefer the mercy, love and

grace of the New Testament."

1. In Matthew 5:48 we hear Jesus saying to His disciples,

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven

is perfect."

a. So you say that you want to live by the New

Testament standards? Good luck, but you will

need much more than luck.

2. Matt. 22:37 Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy

God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all

thy mind, and you shall love your neighbor as

yourself."

3.

As I read these requirements of Jesus I immediately

come into the consciousness of sin, I have missed the

mark. I am not going to try to pretend that I have even

come close. Mine is not a near miss. So many say, I

would have hit the mark, but you pushed my arm, and

caused me to miss. Adam said, "The woman that you gave

to me to be my wife, she did tempt me, and I did eat."

II. What is God's actual requirement? I have not been able to fulfill His

ideal requirement?

A. With man there is the ideal self, and the real self. In

psychology it is called the ego and the super-ego.

1. The super-ego is what you perceive yourself to be, and

the ego is what you actually are.

2. The closer your ego is to the super-ego the more well

balanced you are. If there is a wide divergence, then

you will have difficult mental problems.

B. With Jesus the real and the ideal were one. There was no

divergence. He was able to say, "I do always those things that

please the Father."

C. No man has attained to the ideal requirements of God except

Jesus.

1. The Bible says that there is none righteous, no not

one.

2. The Bible says, "For all have sinned, and come short of

the glory of God."

3. Do you want to challenge those statements, would you

like to come forward and from this pulpit declare to

all of the people here that you are perfect?

4. Should you come forward and make such a statement with

real sincerity you would immediately gain the sympathy

of the whole crowd, for we would know that you were

mentally deranged.

5. No man in his right mind, would think himself to be

perfect. There is that consciousness of sin in every

heart.

D. One day a group asked Jesus what they must do to do the works

of the Father. "What does God require of us?" Jesus answered,

"This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He hath

sent." Joh. 6:28,29

1. Our King James text reads believe on, but the Greek

is more literally translated believe into. For when the

Greek word eis is used with the accusative, it always

denotes a motion into.

2. It is believing into Jesus Christ. Many may believe on

Jesus and not be saved. It is believing into a

relationship where He becomes the Lord of your life.

3. By your believing into Jesus Christ, God grants you the

forgiveness for missing the mark. "Believe into the

Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Paul told

the Phillipian jailor who was asking what he must do to

be saved.

4. Paul wrote to the Romans, "For if you will confess with

your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in

your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you

will be saved."

III. What happens when I fulfill the actual requirement of God and believe

into Jesus Christ?

A. God forgives all my missing of the mark. The blood of Jesus

Christ His Son, cleanses me from all sin.

B. He gives to me the gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell my life,

and begin the work of conforming me into the image of Jesus

Christ.

1. And we all with open faces beholding the glory of the

Lord are changed from glory to glory into the same

image, by the Spirit that worketh in us.

2. The fruit of the Spirit which is love begins to be

manifested from my life. Through His help and power I

begin to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind, I

begin to love my neighbor. I become kind, merciful, and

forgiving.

3. What is happening? I am moving from the real to the

ideal.

4. You see, God has never given up on my attaining to the

ideal requirements, but has now given to me the power,

whereby I might attain unto it, through the Holy

Spirit.

C. Have I attained?

1. Paul the apostle a man who was in touch with his real

self, said, "The good that I would, I do not, that

which I would not, I do, O wretched man that I am."

After thirty years of walking with the Lord as he wrote

to the church in Phillipi he said, "I have not yet

apprehended that for which I was apprehended by Jesus

Christ, neither do I count myself perfect, but I press

toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of

God in Christ Jesus.

2. No I am not yet perfect, but I am on the way trusting

in the strength and help of the Spirit that I might

become more like Jesus every day.