Read Micah 5:6-6:8
When you really grasp how good the news of the gospel is, that God gave his Son to liberate you from all prisons, then you will live in grateful liberty. Your heart and actions will be liberated to serve God and others, and the result will be that you will finally find the happiness that you thought you could only get by selfishness. Not only that, you will make God happy and you will bless those around you. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “you will be free indeed.”
Now let’s think about the power-packed verse at the end of this passage (6:8) that describes the grateful living that occurs when one has surrendered his or her heart to the Messiah.
First, the sovereign God sits us down, puts us in our place, and reminds us of the Creator-creature distinction: “He has shown you, O man. . .” Even in eternity, there will be an infinite gap between God’s greatness and our finiteness. We will never know everything, never be all-powerful, and never be self-sufficient. So the first step toward wisdom by anyone is to bow in fear as a mere mortal who is dependent for every breath upon God Almighty.
But immediately following on the heels of this creaturely fear is grace. This infinite and self-sufficient God of the universe stoops to reveal to us not merely how we may avoid his wrath but how we may live the “good” life. When God uses the word “good” he refers to perfectly-satisfying-good. Good is the way God created and intended life to be. Good is what he pronounced each component of his creation to be. Anyone else can only promise relative good. And not only does God announce that the good life is out there to be experienced, he shows how to enter into it. This is unique among the gods of the ancient world. Pagan religions kept their adherents in a constant state of panic, because the gods never told them what they wanted. They were capricious; one day a sacrifice might please them, and the next day the same one might provoke their wrath. But the true God has written down for us in words we can understand a very limited number of commands we must keep. And if we do, he binds himself by covenant promises that we will flourish not only in our relationship with him but with the rest of creation. By the way, this helps us appreciate the drama of the announcement of the Messiah after 400 years of silence. From the beginning of time to the angel’s announcement to Zechariah, God had given new revelation to his people every year through prophets. Then suddenly he stopped. For 400 years it was as if God had died. God no longer spoke. He became as mute as the pagan’s stone idols. He no longer showed them what was good. And then suddenly, like those cymbals that surprise us every Christmas Eve, God burst through the silence and said, “I bring you good news of great joy!”
Everything God decides to do originates in his heart of love.
Here is how Micah describes the good life in this verse:
Justice
It is first to do justly. To do justice you must first be just. And you cannot be just without turning your life over to Jesus. Jesus, the only perfectly just or righteous man, lived and died for sinners. But he only lived and died for those who receive him wholeheartedly. You have to despair of your own efforts to become good, ask Jesus to forgive your sins, substitute his record for yours, and then surrender every part of your life to his leadership. Then he will move into your life, take over the controls, and you will gradually start living like he did.
Mercy
Secondly, living in grateful obedience to the gospel is to love mercy. We have already covered the “what” of good living—it is do the right thing in every situation. Now God provides the motivation for good living. It is his “love” (hesed) which is covenantal, steadfast, absolute, merciful, infallible. This is the essential nature of God revealed to Moses in Exodus 34:6, 7 and repeated constantly in Scripture. Everything God decides to do originates in his heart of love. He is always motivated by love. Since this is the core of his being (1 Jn. 4:8), it is impossible for him to act any other way than by love. That means that even his warnings of judgment, and judgment itself, is ultimately an act of love, at least for the rest of his creatures, that they might live in a just society.
Humility
Finally, Micah provides the “how” of doing good. While “humbly” is not a bad translation, it is not clear. Literally Micah says we must live “carefully.” To live the good and grateful life requires faith. It is impossible to do the right thing out of love in every situation unless Jesus makes you able. So, actually, your first act in every decision must be to pray, “Lord, give what you command.” The apostle Paul said that the only way he could live the good and grateful life “in the flesh was by faith in the Son of God who love him and gave himself up for him” (Ga. 2:20).
Even Jesus showed us this pattern by making himself dependent on the Holy Spirit to lead him through the temptations of this world by way of the means of grace: the word and prayer (Lk. 4). Jesus’ life, empowered as it was by the Spirit, was the pursuit of right in every situation and for every person out of love for his heavenly Father. Thus, Jesus provides for us the pattern for the only life that may be called “Christian” (1 Cor 13:4; 2 Cor 6:6; Col 3:12; Jas 1:26–27; 1 Pet 1:2; 5:5).
In coming to earth, Jesus became our triumphant king by first being a humble king, one willing to be born in a manger and forego his rightful place on the throne so that you and I might become "joint heirs" with him (Ro. 8:17).