Who is a God like our God, so eager to forgive?

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 3

Micah 7:18-20

On Sunday, the Holy Spirit highlighted for us God’s deep desire that the lost should be found, that the sinner should be saved. We learned about the importance of repentance, whereby God carries out His heartfelt purpose of granting forgiveness of sins and eternal life to the one who is brought to turn from his sins and to seek refuge in God’s promise of forgiveness through Christ.

In tonight’s Old Testament reading, Micah also wrote about God’s forgiveness. He stood in awe before God, even as his name implies. Micah in Hebrew is short for Micahiah, which means, “Who is like Yah? Who is like Yahweh? Who is like the LORD?” The answer is, no one. No one is like Him, in any way, but especially in His awesome determination to pardon those who have sinned against Him.

Who is a God like You, Micah asks. He’s spent most of his seven-chapter book railing against Israel for their rebellion against God and for their stubborn impenitence, foretelling (like Isaiah, his contemporary) the desolation that would come upon Jerusalem and her people. Most of the book is bad news for Israel. But, here and there, we see glimmers of light, of hope, in the coming of the Messiah, who would be born in Bethlehem—meaning that, after the destruction of Israel, after their captivity in a foreign land, they would most certainly return to their land, so that the Messiah could be born. And when He came, Israel would finally repent of their rebellion against God. Not all Israel, but a remnant within Israel, a small, leftover bunch of sinners, like the tax collectors and prostitutes, who would repent and turn to the Lord and to His Christ.

And what would the Lord do for this remnant? What did He wish to do for all Israel, and for all sinners everywhere? Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? Our God doesn’t ignore sin. He pardons it. He doesn’t condone wickedness. He “passes over” it. That is, instead of targeting people for the wicked things they’ve done, He targeted His Son on the cross, enabling Him to pass over the transgressions of those who believe in Jesus, who look to the Son of God in faith. Justice would require Him to punish us for our sins, but divine justice found another way to deal with them, by punishing Jesus, our Brother, in our place, and offering us a place of refuge under the cross of Christ, who shelters us from the punishment we deserved for our sins.

Again, this pardoning of iniquity, this passing over of transgression, is done for the remnant of His heritage. For that small, leftover portion of Israel who would actually receive their Messiah, like the tax collectors and sinners did. But that remnant also extends beyond the borders of Israel, to all who hear the Gospel and look to God for pardon through Christ, and through Him alone, not for any other reason, not through any other savior, but only in the name of Jesus, where God promises to be merciful.

He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. Sometimes God allowed Israel to be oppressed for decades because of the hardness of their hearts. Sometimes He allowed them to go years without rain, because they just wouldn’t turn back to His Word and His teaching. But it’s not because He delighted in punishing them. On the contrary, what delights Him is to show mercy. And even after years of disobedience, years of rebellion and wickedness, years of impenitence, God’s desire is still to call sinners and to bring sinners to repentance, so that He can accomplish what He truly wants to accomplish, which is not punishment, but restoration.

He will again have compassion on us, and will tread our iniquities under foot. Micah, as a Spirit-inspired prophet, knew that Israel would again experience God’s compassion. He knew that the coming captivity in Babylon wouldn’t be forever, that the remnant of Israel would be brought to repentance in captivity. He knew that God would stomp on their iniquities and sins and rescue them from sin, death, and the devil. That promise is good, not only for Israel, but for all people, as long as the world endures. There will come a time when the promise of God’s compassion will expire, when Christ comes again in judgment. Until then, there is still time for sinners to repent. And when they do, God doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. He doesn’t keep digging up the past and throwing it in a sinner’s face. He will “tread our iniquities under foot.”

Or, to put it another way, You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. In other words, when God pardons, when God absolves, when God forgives, when you confess your sins in our Sunday service and I absolve you, that means that God casts your sins away from you and buries them so deep that no one can ever dredge them up again. They are forgiven, intentionally forgotten, and can never hurt you again. God chooses to see you as sinless and guiltless, as long as you stay close to Jesus, who bore your sins and your guilt.

You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from days of old.

To give truth to Jacob means to be faithfulness to the promises God made to Jacob, to Israel. To give mercy to Abraham means to fulfill the merciful promise God made to accept Abraham’s children as His own and to give them an eternal inheritance. We sing about this same thing every time we sing Mary’s Magnificat. But this faithfulness and mercy go far beyond the nation of Israel or any sort of earthly inheritance. What God swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was to send the Messiah to their earthly children, and to count all believers in that Messiah as children of Abraham and heirs of an eternal inheritance in the new heavens and the new earth that God will create when the days of this earth are through. That means that you and I and all Christians are part of the fulfillment of this promise. We have been given as children to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as part of God’s faithfulness and mercy to them, even as many of their biological children have been cast out because of their stubborn refusal to repent.

Still, for all the impenitence of man, for all the wickedness that fills the world, God continues to send out His Word, for the moment. The Shepherd is still seeking the lost who may be found, because God is still eager to pardon, eager to add more children to Abraham’s family, eager to bring more sinners into fellowship with His beloved Son. We look at the world, and we may wish that God would just quit, quit putting up with all the wickedness, quit sending all the natural disasters, quit allowing men to get away with so much evil. We may wish that He had quit a long time ago and brought justice to the world. The day will come when He does quit, when He gives up on this world and brings an end to man’s time of grace. But you dare not begrudge the Lord His patience. Because it’s His patience with you that has kept the world going long enough for Him to find you when you were lost. And the fact that the world still turns means that God knows there are still more to find, more wicked people to call, more sinners who will believe in Jesus, more condemned people whom He will get to pardon. That’s why He keep the world turning, in spite of all the evil that’s done here and that happens here, all for the sake of the lost sheep who must still be found. Stand in awe of His grace, and of His determination to forgive. Yes, who is a God like our God, so eager to forgive? Amen.