In what is most assuredly one of the great moments of the Old Testament prophetic writings, the prophet Micah asks his people to contemplate what it is that the Lord ultimately wants from them. The assumption here is that the people seem to think that God wants more from them than they are able to deliver. But Micah explains to them that the Lord’s expectations are simple ones. He does not ask of them more than they can give. In fact, the gods of the ancient world had much greater and more costly expectations. God expects only simple and basic things like faith and loyalty. The King James Version of this passage expresses it beautifully:

Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:6, 7).

Nowhere in Scripture is this idea set forth with more power and vibrancy. The Lord does not ask more than his people have the capacity to give. He does not require what is beyond their resources or strength. What he does expect, however, even though it is simple and easily delivered, he looks for in a man’s character with absolute expectancy. He requires it of a man. He does not merely hope for it or look for it with the thought that it will probably not be forthcoming, but in the event that it does, then all is well. No. Make no mistake about it. This is what he requires. God has his mind made up on this matter, and there is no leniency or room for discussion on it.

Moreover, the prophet underscores that what God expects is not a mystery, for “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good.” Human beings are not left to guess what God wants. They are not abandoned to their own sometimes dismal mental acuity as to what his expectations might be. This is one of the great faults of modernity. Everyone seems to think that we have been left without any dependable resource or reliable guidance when it comes to these matters. And certainly this is so if the Bible is subtracted from the equation. But in point of fact this is precisely what the Bible claims for itself, and so to erase it from our memory in the face of the grandest of all questions seems slightly premature if not outrageously inappropriate! This is like the poor fellow who perishes from dehydration, with water all around him, simply because he does not possess the basic knowledge necessary to extract it from one of the sources present in his environment. Stories about of such people and their plight is pitifully sad but altogether remedial. In fact, the Lord has revealed this knowledge to all who are willing to accept it. “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee…” says the prophet.

Three elementary things are mentioned, and although within them are encompassed all of the many other spiritual duties besides, yet it cannot be denied that these are easy to be understood and rather simple to put into practice. They are not beyond any of us. And that is the point of it. Micah is saying to the Lord’s people (and to us also in our own age) that we cannot maintain the charge that God expects too much of us. What he asks, we can deliver. What he anticipates from us is not beyond our capacity. We can do these things.

It should be noted also, that the first two of these three items that he mentions have to do with how one treats his fellow men, while the third has to do with how he behaves himself in respect to the sovereign God.

1. To Do Justly. God expects that we will be good people who do good things. Unfortunately God was not getting from his people what he expected from them, as the prophesies of Micah attest (Micah 6:10; 2:1-2; 3:2-3, 9-10). Sad to say also, but he may not be getting from us what he expects, either. If we are not being good people who do good things, then we are not delivering what God wants from us. Isaiah said, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression…” (1:16, 17). The New Testament also is rife with texts that say basically the same thing: Jesus always commended the “good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21, 23, etc.); Jesus himself is depicted as “the Just one” (Acts 3:14); the Christian is encouraged to “abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good” (Rom. 12:9), and to “be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21); he is also to be “fruitful in every good work” (Col. 1:1). This is our mission in life as we live before others. We must do justly.

2. To Love Mercy. This word (chesed) is sometimes rendered as “kindness” or even “loving kindness.” Jesus condemned the Pharisees because they neglected this essential aspect of good character, even though it was one of the “weightier matters of the law” (Matt. 23:23). James said that “judgment is without mercy to one who have shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). Showing mercy to others will lead God to show it to us when we most need it. So, if we would wish God to be merciful to us someday, then we must also be merciful to others in the here and now. Thankfully, our God is a merciful God, described as “full of mercy and loving kindness”  (Ex. 34:6).  If we would see this side of his character, we must show it to others. Otherwise, we shall see only judgment.

3. To Walk Humbly with Thy God. This third requirement has to do with our relationship to God, rather than our fellow human beings. And even though the concept itself is rather simple to understand, it is challenging and even at times difficult to exhibit in human character. Humility is not a natural character trait in those who are selfish and self-centered, and most of humanity must constantly fight the battle with selfishness, unless they have already given up the war entirely. We are not born with humility in our genetic makeup. We must develop it. And it is not easy to develop.

It will be recalled that this is the very battle that King Saul fought with himself as he attempted to serve God and the people of Israel in the early days of the Hebrew monarchy. He made a great start of things, but finished his life in stubbornness and arrogance, a very self-centered and proud man. He began in victory but ended in defeat. Samuel told the disobedient king that “rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft (which Saul apparently hated intensely), and stubbornness is just like iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:23). That prophet knew the king inside and out. He knew that pride was his chief fault and stubborn resistance to God’s demands was ever a challenge for one who tended to be so set upon pleasing himself, whether it made God happy or not.

When Saul was given the office of king, he soon went beyond the realm of his authority as regent and stepped into the province of divine initiative. He played God. He did not walk humbly with his God. He thought himself equivalent with God and acted without divine sanction or permission. He was a self-willed and stubborn man who in the end proved himself to be unworthy of the high office he had been given.  Staying out of this forbidden sphere while walking with God in humility and obedience is not an easy thing. It is a challenge that has proven itself quite beyond the capacity of many otherwise good men. Saul continuous found himself afoul of God’s commandments because he was not satisfied with his own place in the world. Man is not God, and he must never pretentiously take upon himself the mantle of the Almighty in any matter. But humility is hard work, for some people harder work than for others. It involves self-discipline and genuine love and respect for God’s place in the domain of human affairs.

The case of Noah is an excellent illustration of what this text means when it says that we must learn to walk humbly with God.  It will be remembered that even in the presence of so much evil that the Lord reluctantly determined to destroy human civilization from off the earth, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8). Why is this so? The Bible explains that, “Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God”  (Gen. 6:9). That tells us all we need to know. It says that he was a good and righteous man, and that he met God’s expectations, even in the midst of a wicked and frustratingly evil generation of human beings. Moreover, after God had given him a seemingly impossible task for such an aged individual to accomplish, the text says simply, “Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded him, so did he” (v. 22). Once more, that tells us all we need to know. He was a man who walked humbly with his God. He did not try to play God. He did not step into the forbidden zone of divine prerogative. He did exactly what God told him to do without any mental reservation or physical slight.

These three simple demands provide us with a basic outline of how we ought to conduct our lives. This is the kind of people God wants us to be. The Lord expects us to act justly, to show mercy toward others in our dealings with them, and to humbly do his will in all things.  Let us be about the task of meeting God’s expectations!