What should you do when you have sinned? Most of us could probably answer this question in a wrong manner this morning. We have probably all answered this question in our lives by allowing our sin to send us in this out-of-control spiral like a plane that loses its engines. That is to say, we sin, we feel bad and dirty, so we sin some more, so we feel worse and more dirty, and so we sin some more until finally something leads us to see that we have got to stop. At other times, we might go to the other extreme, and we sin and just ignore it, hoping it will go away. And yet it eats at you and eats at you until you one day are forced to admit to the Lord, as David did in Psalm 51:3, “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” But the answer I’m looking for today is not necessarily “What do we do when we have sinned?” but “What should we do when we have sinned?” And I think these last two chapters of Micah can really help us out in answering that question this morning.

The setting and situation of Micah 6-7

Chapters six and seven of Micah begin with a magnificent court scene as God is calling to trial his covenant people as all of creation around them stands as witnesses to the people’s atrocities. He says to them in 6:1-2, “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the LORD has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel.”

And in the midst of Israel’s great sins and rebellion against the Lord, God begins asking what he has done to them that has been anything less than great and good and merciful. He says in 6:3-5, “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember what Balak king of Moah devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.”

Thus, the Lord reminds them of his deliverance of them from slavery, of his conquest for them over evil kings and throughout the Promised Land, which he led them to conquer and divide. And yet where do his people stand? They stand before the Lord as those who have disobeyed the demands of the law which he gave them. For the law is foundational in its demands, which if met would bring blessing and is disobeyed would bring cursing. Thus, the redeemed people stand as those who disobeyed the demands of their God.

Yet the people try to answer with their own payments to God, seeing if they might be able to provide their own redemption with a high enough price. They say, “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (6:6-7).

But Micah’s answer, on behalf of the Lord, is that God has told them what to do already. They were to obey his commands. They were to be a holy people, in obedience to the demands of their Lord. Micah says in 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice; and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Yet the people had not done this at all. And so they stood in this large court room, as it were, knowing they’re guilty, knowing they can do nothing to undo their disobedience, and knowing of the curses and punishment that the Lord said would come with such disobedience.

Thus, in 6:9-16, the verdict is declared, they are guilty and will meet the punishment and discipline of the Lord for he will not be unjust in his judgment. The Lord declares, “Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it! Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is accursed? Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights? [i.e. should God act as unjust in his judgment of them as their judges had acted in the judgment of others] Your rich men are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Therefore I strike you wit ha grievous blow, [i.e. the sentence] making you desolate because of your sins. You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be hunger within you; you shall put away, but not preserve, and what you preserve I will give to the sword. You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine. For you have kept the statutes of Omri, and all the works of the house of Ahab; and you have walked in their counsels, that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing; so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”

The people are guilty and are about to know the anger, indignation, and punishment of the Lord. So, what do they do?

First, Micah, now identifying with the people recognizes the sin of the people. They see their own sin, the horrid nature of it, and they recognize the situation of disaster they now face. Micah says, “Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned; there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires. The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net. Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great ma utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. [Thus, they have seen their own sin and the nature of it, but now they see the resulting situation and their punishment] The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house” (7:1-6).

Their sin is heinous and has resulted in a situation that is utterly destructive to the foundations of life. And Micah identifies himself with these people. But then Micah speaks of a solution, of a prophesied hope.

He writes in verse 7, “But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” But how will the salvation of the Lord come? Micah answers in the following verses. He writes, “Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, [okay, that’s everyone’s plot, but where is the hope? Micah continues …] until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication. Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, ‘Where is the LORD your God? My eyes will look upon her; now she will be trampled down like the mire of the streets,” and he continues with the result of his vindication through verse 17 (7:7-10).

But do you see his answer? His hope is in God, his judge, the one who has justly declared his guilt and deserved punishment, coming to plead Micah’s cause. It is the picture of the judge saying, “How do you plead?” knowing the defendant is nothing but guilty, then stepping out from behind the bench and coming down to stand at the side of the defendant and saying, “He should not be condemned because …” This is preposterous. And yet it is the prophet’s sure hope.

Thus he declares praise to his wonderful God, to whom nothing can be compared, saying in verses 18-20, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.” And thus we have a beautiful picture of hope from Micah.

But how do we apply these last two chapters of Micah for ourselves? For there is a lot of similarities between us and the prophet as people who sin and need to know what to do once we have sinned. However, there is also a big difference, namely 2,700 years of salvation history. So where do we go from here?

Well, I think the answer of what we should do when we find that we have sinned is principally the same as the situation we read in these last two chapters of Micah. For this reason, I want to highlight some steps that it might be good for us to walk through that I see laid out in these two chapters. But before I do that, I want to show the main difference between our situation and that of Micah.

The hope to which Micah looked for his deliverance in 7:7-10 has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ as he came to earth, lived in perfect obedience to the Father, died for our sins, was buried, was raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven where he now makes intercession for us before the Father

That is to say, the one judging us coming to redeem us (to plead our cause) has occurred in Jesus Christ. Therefore, Micah was speaking 700 years on that side of the cross and we now stand 2,000 years on this side of the cross, but we are both looking to the cross for our hope.

God has come to justify us through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Thus, as Micah referred to God “passing over the transgression for the remnant of his inheritance” in 7:18, one might have thought that God was violating his justice. “How can God simply pass over their transgressions and still claim to be just in his judgment?” one might ask.

But Micah can say this, knowing that God was not going to be shown unjust, for he knew that God would come to plead his cause and would execute judgment in a way that men could see “his vindication” (7:9).

We see how this happened in the death of Christ 700 years later as Paul puts the pieces together in Romans 3:23-26, writing, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. [But why was this done? Paul answers …] This was to show God’s righteousness [i.e. that he was just in his judgment. But why was it ever in question? Paul answers …] because in his divine forbearance he has passed over former sins. [“So,” we might say, “God judged their sin in his Son to show that he wasn’t just ignoring their sins when he passed over them in the passed, for he would have been unjust to have just passed over them with no judgment of them whatsoever, simply justifying men with no justice? Exactly. Thus Paul reiterates …] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

And if we have placed our faith in Christ and (consequently) have had Christ’s righteousness credited to our account we stand in this position of being justly justified before God. That is to say, God has not simply declared us perfect, or righteous, in his sight, knowing that if he were ever to act justly he should punish us. Rather, he has declared us perfectly righteous in Christ, judging our sin in Christ, so that if he is to judge in a just manner he must declare us perfectly righteous, for he has already judged our sins in Christ. Were he to do anything other than declare righteous those for whom Christ died, then he would be an unjust judge – judging our sins in the death of his sin and then turning around and judging them again in punishing us. Even our own court system knows that is unjust judgment!

But that still doesn’t answer our question completely does it? For we know that if we have truly placed our faith in Christ, that we can know he has pleaded our cause, and we are justified, but what should be do when we sin?

I want to draw some steps out from these two chapters in Micah based on the reality that is ours in Christ.

What should we do when we have sinned, knowing we have been justified by Christ?

I will give you five steps.

1) Realize and admit that you truly have sinned and there is no getting around it.

This is the scene of 6:1-5. God has only shown them goodness and mercy, and they have spit in his face. There is nowhere to go. There are no excuses to make. They cannot sweep away their sin. They are not victims; they are sinners.

We must realize and admit this very thing when we have sinned. See your sin as sin and call it such. You can confess to God. “I have sinned in this. I have despised you in my action, thoughts, etc. I have rebelled against your very commands.” Confess your sin as what it is.

2) Realize you can offer nothing of yourself to remove your sin.

In 6:6-7 as we read their willingness to sacrifice other things, it had no bearing on the fact that they had sinned. Therefore, do not think, “Well, I’ll just read the Bible more or go witness or beat my body.” Rather, realize, I can do nothing to remove my sin. I can offer nothing and give no payment that would justify myself. Even if you did everything right from this point onward, it still would not eliminate the fact that you have sinned.

3) Realize that sin, at times, brings great consequences, and it will bring the Lord’s discipline so that you might be broken before God and walk in obedience to him.

My dad told me when I was tempted to speed upon getting my license, “If you lose your arm in a car accident because you were speeding, it doesn’t mean that you cannot be forgiven. It does mean, however, that you will never have your arm back.” Sin brings consequences. Thus, obedience is not only right but good for us.

And besides consequences, the Lord will discipline his children. Just as a child, when he sins, should expect discipline from his parents, so should a child of God expect discipline from our heavenly Father when he sins. Hebrews 12:5-6 tells us, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Just as the people of God in Micah’s day knew God’s discipline after their sin, so will we know it as we sin. But allow God’s discipline to break you, produce in you a hatred for sin, and produce a longing to obey.

4) Remember that God has forgiven you because of Christ, and that to believe he would withhold forgiveness is to believe that God would act unjustly.

The judge has redeemed us. God has punished your sin in Christ so that he might justly justify you. Thus, when you have sinned and the enemy begins telling you, “Give up. You are worthless. You cannot be used by God. God wants nothing to do with you. Do you really think God sees you as holy when you’ve done this? Do you really think God will forgive you?” you can answer, “My righteousness has not come from my good works, but from Christ himself. He has paid for my sin. And because I have placed my faith in Christ and his righteousness has been credited to me as my sin was judged in him, I can know that God is faithful and just to forgive me. In fact, God’s forgiveness is more than merciful; it is just. And therefore, I will stand now and walk, knowing that in myself I have nothing about which to boast, but my boasting is in the cross of Christ.”

5) And then meditate on God’s great mercy until you are overcome by who God is and long to worship him with everything you are.

In this way, Micah’s ending to his book is more than fitting for one who recognizes God has justly justified him in Christ. This should bring us to unbridled praise and to a longing to treasure God more than all else and live to him with our entire being.

May we rejoice then this morning in our justification in Christ. Amen.

INDEED, WHO IS LIKE OUR GOD?