1-5-25 - Though I Fall I Will Rise

This morning, we'll be in Micah chapter seven. We'll be looking at verses seven through nine, and we could be tempted to see this text and to be scared by it. I often am afraid when I go to the prophets and start reading them, because there's all kinds of questions that I have about the time and the place. And and sometimes we we come to the prophets and that's how we feel we're kind of afraid to deal with them because we're not entirely certain of all of the context that surrounds them. And so we could be tempted to be scared to try to apply this text to our lives simply because it's from a book that we're not that familiar with.

And what we see, from this passage from Micah is a man who confesses his sins to God, who acknowledges his wrongdoing, and is experiencing or will experience the consequences of his sins. But he looks forward to God's mercy and God's justice. So if I could summarize the text and apply it for us in our context, this text is about a believer. It's about a believer confessing and repenting of of sin and having confidence that God will have mercy on him and rescue him. And so this morning, my hope for us is that like Micah, we would see our sins against God.

We would understand the just consequences of them. And then we would see God's great justice and his mercy toward us through Jesus Christ. With that being said, would you please turn in your bibles to Micah seven verses seven through nine and please stand for the reading of God's word. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord.

I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, oh my enemy. Though I fall, I will rise. Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.

I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him until he pleads my case and executes justice for me. He will bring me out to the light and I will see his righteousness. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

So what does Micah mean when he says, I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him? Well, what we see here is an admission of guilt. There's an acknowledgment of his sin. Micah knows that he and Israel have broken God's law. They've broken the covenant of the Lord and sinned against him.

And so Micah is confessing his sins. He's not hiding from them. He's not denying them. He's owning them. And he says I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him.

Now consider for a moment, how often do you confess your sins? How often do you admit your guilt over your sins? How hard is it for us to admit that we're guilty and that we've sinned against God? How hard is it to admit to another person that you've sinned against them or that you failed them? To look them in the eye and confess your sins to them.

There is an intense kind of shame that we feel when we when we need to look someone in the eye and confess our sins to them. Whether we're confessing our sins to our pastors and elders, or confessing our sins to our spouses, or even our friends, there's an intense kind of shame and guilt that goes with that. It's really difficult to look someone in the eye and confess your sins, especially if those sins are against that person. And at the same time I'm not sure that we feel the same kind of guilt or shame when we confess our sins to God. Especially with the way evangelical Christians talk about confessing sins.

There's all kinds of conversations about confessing our sins and yet it almost seems like we never confess our sins. We're willing to talk about sins and confessing them in this kind of general sense, but we're not willing to get specific and actually confess our sins. We're willing to talk about we're we're we're afraid to actually confess our lust, our greed, our anger. We're afraid to confess the deeds we do in darkness that no one else sees. We're afraid to confess the ways that we sin with our hearts and our thoughts.

And we know, just broadly speaking in the church, we know that we don't really confess our sins because we often hear about scandals in the church. Of men who have not confessed their sin and are found out. We read or hear about these men who've committed all kinds of sins. Sin is ugly and so we try to hide it. So think about how often you confess your sins.

How often do you admit to breaking God's law? And how often do you get specific about the ways that you break God's law? We need to be specific in the way that we confess and repent of our sins. Generic confession is unhelpful. We can we tend to use generic confessions as a way to hide or minimize the shame and the guilt that we feel for our sins.

Generic confession is just kind of cathartic. It makes us kind of feel better, but it's not actually acknowledging what we have done against God. We're just like our first parents Adam and Eve who when they sinned, what did they do? They ran and they hid. Right?

They tried to make clothes out of fig leaves and cover cover themselves to hide their shame. Right? I hid because I was naked. That's what Adam says. I hid because I was naked and I was ashamed.

And that's what we do. We try to hide our shame. We avoid confession. But Micah shows us that actually what we need is to confess our sins. That we need to be willing to be vulnerable and say I have sinned against him.

And in reality, we can't hide our sins from God anyway. You can't hide anything from God. David says in Psalm one thirty nine, where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

And if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. We can't hide our sins from God, even though we might try. And so, we need to bring our sins to him. The fact is that if we hide our sins and cling to this kind of cheap grace, that just God loves everyone the same and we're all God's children and it's okay because love and grace, then we'll never actually experience victory over our sin. We'll never actually experience grace.

We'll never experience the confidence that Micah has in these verses to confess his sins. We can't experience true grace and have true confidence without first confessing our sins and making them known to God. We are guilty. We have sinned and we've sinned in very specific ways. And we deserve God's wrath and justice for the sins we've committed against him.

All of our sins against God are awful, wicked. Thank you. God hates all sin and he hates our sin. Our sin is a rejection of God and it's disobedience to his law. And what we deserve or what we earn because of our sin is hell.

It's eternal judgment. And we shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge that if we got what we deserve that we would suffer God's wrath and judgment. Now, why do I say we shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge that? This is what God's people do. God's people agree with God's law.

They agree with his law that they are lawbreakers and worthy of his just punishment for sin. If we disagree with the law that condemns us, then what we're really claiming is that God is unjust. And so it's appropriate for us as God's people to look at his law and to look at our sins and say, yes. If I got what I deserved, I deserve hell. I deserve to suffer eternity in torment because I've sinned against God Almighty.

Now there's another aspect of confessing our sinful deeds. Excuse me. And it has to do with the sin and evil around us. Ephesians five eleven says, do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness but instead even expose them. Now this is something we see from Micah earlier in this book.

In chapter three, the Lord exposes the evil of the rulers of Israel. He refers to them as you who hate good and love evil, who tear off their skin from them and their flesh from their bones, who eat the flesh of my people, strip off their skin from them, break their bones and chop them up as for the pot and as meat in a kettle. God is exposing their wickedness. This is what the leaders in Israel are doing. God is exposing them.

He's bringing their sin out into the light because they keep hiding it. And we're called to do the same, to expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness. And so, we need to call each other to confess our sins and repent. We shouldn't despise others when they call us to confess our sins and repent of our sins. We especially should not despise our pastors and elders, whose job it is to rebuke, reprove, and discipline according to God's word.

So, we shouldn't despise when we're rebuked or corrected. Because making their job miserable is actually bad for us. Hebrews thirteen seventeen says, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. It would be unprofitable for you to despise and reject and hate the rebuke and reprove of your elders and pastors.

So don't despise their work when they call you to repent. When they tell you you're being silly, or when they tell you that you sinned, or when they tell you that you're being dumb, and they call you to repent. Don't reject them for it. Don't hate them for it. Accept it.

And also, when you see sin, when you see your brother's sin or your sister's sin, you expose it. You call your brother or sister to repent. What good is it for your brother or sister if you see their sin, if you see them fall short and you don't help them, you don't lovingly correct them. We should be working to expose unfruitful deeds of darkness. It is loving your brother and your sister to correct them in a spirit of gentleness.

To see their sin and to call them out for it and tell them that they need to repent of it. We don't do that sharply. Thank you. I'm for whatever it is, everyone got it, the beer bowers, this week. So but be humble in the way that you approach your brother's sins with gentleness.

Not as lording it over your your your brother. But don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to call your brother and sister to repent. Don't be afraid to expose their sins. It's our duty as Christians to do this.

It's your duty as a brother, as a sister to help your brother and sister in this way. It's also our duty to bear each other's burdens. But all of this starts with us being able to expose our own sins. We need to examine ourselves. We need to expose our own sins.

We need to seek repentance for the ways that we've sinned against God. So confess your sins to God. Along with confessing his sin, we see in in our passage that Micah is accepting the consequences of his sins and Israel's sins. Isn't that wild? He says, I will bear the indignation of the Lord.

It's an acceptance of the consequences. I've made a mess. I've sinned. I will bear the indignation of the Lord. We don't like consequences.

We don't like the consequences of our sins. And so this this seems strange to us. We don't often accept the consequences for our actions, especially when they're bad. Especially if the consequence is directly tied to our sins. We just don't.

We immediately want relief from the suffering, relief from the pain, relief from the consequences. Or we just try to avoid the consequences altogether. You delete your browser history. You cover up your sins with lies. When I was younger, I was always trying to find ways out of getting what I deserved.

I did the best that I could to refrain from accepting responsibility for my sins. When me and my sisters were younger, we would rough house and inevitably someone got hurt. And and whoever got hurt would start crying. And if you have siblings and you rough house with your siblings and one of your siblings gets hurt, starts crying and they start crying for mom or dad, you will do everything you could. I would do everything that I could, including, but not limited to, indentured servitude, to keep from getting mom and dad involved.

I'm not saying you should do that. And if we're honest with ourselves, even now as adults, we do the same kinds of things to avoid the consequences of our actions. We try to avoid the consequences of our failures at work and in our marriages. We make excuses for ourselves. We try to be the victim.

We act like we're just kinda dealing with the hand that we were dealt. We didn't have any kind of action in it. We didn't have anything to actually give. It just kinda happened to us. When Paige and I first got married, we fought quite a bit.

It was in the middle of we got married and then COVID happened. So we were just stuck in the same house all the time. And, we would fight. And inevitably, kind of the the theme of our fights, especially in our first year of marriage, was she'd say something like, well, why would you do that? And then, my response was to rehash the entire fight from the very beginning until the very end.

And so I would I would be going through every minute detail that got us from where we started to where we ended. And you would have never guessed it, but I was never wrong. I was always the victim. I was always just responding to her actions. And I don't think I'm alone in doing that.

Whether it's in your marriage or in in your job, or even just generally, we often just kinda feel like victims of the things that happened to us. It's not really our fault. We were just reacting. We were just dealing with it as it came to us. We're always trying to mitigate our guilt or downplay our failures, so that the consequences aren't as severe.

Now on the other hand, some of us don't attempt to mitigate our guilt. Some of us, when we're confronted by our sin, we just beat ourselves into the ground. K. We beat ourselves up mentally and spiritually over and over and over again. And if you're like me and you're prone to kinda beating yourself up over your sin, then what you're doing is essentially you're paying penance.

By consistently just beating yourself up over your sin, you're just being Catholic. You're just trying to punish yourself, inflict pain. It's not typically physical, but you beat yourself up inwardly over your sin and and your guilt. You're trying to make yourself feel so bad over your sin by punishing yourself. And you might even hope that by doing this, that once you confess your sins to God, he'll be lenient.

Right? Oh, you've been beaten yourself up so he's gotta forgive you. Right? He'll be lenient. Maybe he'll have mercy and not punish me so severely.

Maybe I won't even have to deal with the consequences of my sins because I've been beaten myself up so much. And so, we make ourselves suffer by constantly bringing ourselves down because of our sins. These are the ways that we deal with sin and guilt and consequences. But that's not what we see from Micah in this passage. We don't see any of that.

Micah is not beating himself up over his sin, paying penance to try to alleviate the consequences. And Micah's not afraid to confess his sins either. He's not hiding away his shame and guilt. Micah says, I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him. Micah knows that just because he believes and trust God does not mean that he won't suffer the consequences of his actions.

That he won't suffer as a direct result of his own sin. He knows that's a possibility. Because God disciplines his people. He punishes and condemns unbelievers. But believers, he disciplines.

And he disciplines them because he loves them. Hebrews tells us, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are approved by him for those whom the Lord loves he disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

But if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers then you are illegitimate children and not sons. This means that discipline for our sins is a sign that God is our father. It's actually a sign of God's love for you. Discipline is a good thing. It's different from ultimate judgment and punishment.

Judgment and punishment are reserved for those whom God does not love as children, for those who are not God's children. But discipline is for the children of God. And that's how we ought to think about what Micah is saying. Often God uses suffering or discipline to draw us back to him. Because we've wandered off or fallen into sin.

We need to keep in mind also that for the unbeliever, god's judgment and punishment is often, in the one to come, not exclusively. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Sometimes it appears that unbelievers or the enemies of God never suffer the consequences of their sins. This is the this is the lament of the author of Psalm 73.

Right? He looks and he sees that all the wicked, they just seem to prosper. They never have any problems. They never come across any suffering. They never have any trials or issues.

And and yet that's not always the case. That God actually does judge and punish in this life unbelievers who sin against him. The thing that we need to concern ourselves with and think about is in regard to the state of our own souls, Whether or not we we do belong to the household of God. Philippians two twelve says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. One other point about accepting the consequences of our sins and our actions is that we need to always remember that God is just in his dealings.

That if he disciplines you for your sin, it's his prerogative that our God is no man's debtor. Pay for the consequences of your sins, you're not going to maneuver out of that. You're not gonna make a deal with God to get out of those consequences. God's judgment is perfect. And this is why Micah has such faith and confidence.

He trusts that God is just. And as we'll see in a minute, he also trusts that God is the justifier of him. That if there will be deliverance from the consequences, it's actually going to come from God himself. Micah simply expects God to accomplish salvation for him and his people. This is confidence.

Micah has confidence to confess his sins because he has confidence that God is actually gonna save him. He says, I will watch expectantly for the Lord, Micah seven seven. Now, let me ask you something. Does that sound like a defeated man? No No.

Micah expects the Lord to save his people. It's not wishful thinking on Micah's part. It's real. It's genuine. It's an eager expectation that God can and will restore and save him from his sin, from the consequences.

He even says, my God will hear me. That's confidence. That's not weak or timid or fearful. Micah has confidence that God will hear him and that God will accomplish salvation. He says, though I fall, I will rise.

This is not a defeated man. If you looked at verse one, you might have thought or been tempted to think that Mica had no hope. Fruit pickers, like the grape gatherers. There is not a cluster of grapes to eat. But what we see here in these verses is hope.

He's anticipating that the Lord will be just and plead his cause for him. Look at the latter half of verse nine. He says, until he pleads my case and executes justice for me. Okay. So he says, I've sinned.

I'll bear the indignation of the Lord because I've sinned against him until he pleads my case and executes justice for me. Mike is saying that even though he sinned, he'll bear the indignation of the Lord because in fact God himself will plead Micah's case. So who pleads our case? We've broken God's law. We're condemned by it.

We're destined for eternal punishment because of our sins. So who pleads our case? God does. Just like with Micah, the Lord Jesus pleads our case. Romans five nine says, much more than having now been justified by his blood we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.

The blood of Christ executes justice for us. The blood of Christ removes our guilt and our sin. Second Corinthians says that he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. God sent his son to take our sin and to give us his own perfect righteousness. We did nothing to deserve it.

Like Micah, we've sinned. And if not for this, if not for the finished work of Christ, then we would still be in our sin. Our case is not justified apart from the finished work of Christ. We had no case. Right?

We were we're sinners. We've broken God's law. We have no case. But then Christ came And he executed justice for us, taking on the wrath of God, taking our consequences. And now through him, through Jesus, we have mercy and salvation.

God has accomplished salvation for his people and it's through the shed blood of Christ. So where is our confidence? When we suffer hardship, when we're dealing with the consequences of our sins, when we fall into sin and we need to confess it, where is our confidence? Do we have any hope? Do you have any hope when you sin?

Micah had hope. He had hope in the expectation that his sins would be dealt with by God and that he would be saved. We have Jesus. Jesus is our hope and confidence. We can we can proclaim what Micah says here for ourselves because of what Jesus has done for us.

His death, his burial and resurrection, they accomplished salvation for his people. It gives us confidence. His blood, his perfect blood accomplishes the forgiveness of our sins. That should give you confidence to take your sins to God and confess them. His blood executes justice for us.

It reconciles us to God the father. And now, we're his children. Our confidence is in Christ's work. Michael was looking to that. Jesus hadn't yet come, but that's what he was looking to.

The Lord will plead my cause. He will execute justice for me. Even though I've sinned against him, he will execute justice for me. That's what God has done for us in Christ. He has pleaded our case and executed justice for us.

Let's look back at verse eight. Micah says, though I fall, I will rise. Though I walk in darkness, the Lord is a light for me. The point I wanna make here is that our sins should always point us back to the cross. Micah's confidence allows him to accept that he has fallen and that he will rise.

We have such great hope in the finished work of Christ that our sins should cause us to return to the cross. We don't have to be we don't have to be afraid and run away and hide and cover ourselves and leaves. Right? We have the cross. Our sin should remind us of Christ shed blood.

It should create in us a godly sorrow which leads to repentance. But it should also instill in us confidence to draw near to our father. Hebrews four sixteen says, therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. When we sin against God, we should cry out to him for mercy. We should come to him and confess our sins, and we should do it with confidence.

Not arrogance, not assuming that we can continue in sin, that grace may abound, but we should draw near to God boldly. God does not turn away his children. God doesn't refuse to forgive our sins. He has promised to forgive you through Christ if you repent. If you confess and repent, he's promised to forgive you.

Don't pull away from God in your sin. Don't hide your sin. Run to the cross. John says, if we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. And he says, if we say that we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So draw near to God. Don't flee from him. Bring your sins to him. Confess them.

Bring them into the light. Micah says, in verse nine, he will bring me out to the light. And when we talk about walking in the light and bringing things out into the light, we're talking about holiness. We're talking about walking in holiness. So walk in holiness.

Jesus did not come and execute justice for us to continue in sin. He came to save us from sin and its power over us. Our case our case has been settled by the blood of Jesus. But that doesn't allow us to live in darkness. So, don't hide your sins.

Don't walk in the darkness. Instead, confess your sins and walk in the light. That's what it means to walk in the light. Paul says in Galatians five, but I say walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Be confident in the grace and mercy of God.

Be confident that Christ's blood atones for your sins and that God has accepted his perfect sacrifice. There is nothing lacking in the sacrifice of Christ for you. That should instill in us confidence. And be confident as you battle your sin, and as you sorrow over it, and as you repent of it. Because God's given you his son.

God has accomplished salvation for you through Jesus. And you now have the power through Jesus to obey God. You're not a slave to sin. We should have the same kind of confidence that Mica has when we confess our sins to God. If you believe that Christ has died in your place and paid the penalty for your sin and you confess your sins to God, then you share Mica's hope and confidence.

We can't put our confidence in anything else in this world. Nothing else is going to save us ultimately from the judgment of God. Nothing else is going to allow us to accept God's discipline with confidence, unless our hope is in Christ. If you know you're a sinner, and you know God's wrath is set against you, then look to Jesus. Look to the one who died on your behalf.

Look to the one who executes justice for you. The one whose blood accomplishes salvation for those who believe and repent of their sins. And trust them. Let's pray.