When God saved the ancient Hebrews from Egyptian captivity and slavery, he did not merely dump them out into the wilderness and commission them to go their own way. Instead, he brought them into a partnership and covenant, which meant they were to become reordered and reorganized under God's leadership, laws, and guidance.

When Jesus performed the great exodus of his cross, he did so not merely to dump those who believe in him out into the wilderness of personal desire to go their own way either. Instead, he calls us into partnership and covenant. He wants us to reorder and reorganize ourselves under his leadership, laws, and guidance.

And when Jesus returns to earth to perform the final act of salvation, he will not dump us into an eternal wilderness pursuing our own desires and fantasies—he will not leave us to go our own way. Instead, he will bring us into a full partnership with him. Everything and everyone in that kingdom will be reordered and reorganized under his leadership, laws, and guidance. It will be a time when everyone, according to prophets like Micah, centers themselves on God and his word.

I begin this way because the contemporary church is often consumed with the concept of Jesus as Savior but too readily forgets that he wants to be our Lord, our example, our model, our template. Jesus is the one who told us to deny the self, take up the cross, and follow him, but we often think of him and his gospel like we think of earthquake insurance—there when the big one hits, but not useful for much today. But, in the language of the Monopoly game, Jesus is more than just a get-out-of-jail-free card—he wants to buy some hotels! He wants to build lives, church communities, and, one day, an entire world that is governed by and in partnership with him.

And I also bring this up today because it is the issue Micah encountered. His day, roughly 700 years before the time of Christ, was a day when God's people were severely compromised. As we will discover in our passage today, the powerful in the land acted out on intense feelings of covetousness, all while over-emphasizing God's longsuffering nature and rebuffing his leadership. But against this dark backdrop, the beauty of Yahweh's heart and plans could radiate. Like a diamond on black felt cloth, God's desire to lead and shepherd his people found their luminescence while his people rebelled against him. While they rebelled, God stepped forward to say he was ready to guide them. While their leaders failed, God stepped forward to say he wanted to lead them.

This is big gospel talk. What I mean is that small gospel talk reduces the good news Jesus brought personal salvation and not much more. But Jesus came to create a new humanity, comprised of all the nations of the world, centered upon Yahweh and his law, occupants of a kingdom where we rule and reign forever with him. This requires personal salvation—you must yield to Christ—but he is producing so much more than personal salvation. One day, everyone will know him as the absolute ruler and righteous king. He will lead and guide every affair of everyday life. Micah knows this and will bring it to the forefront of his prophecies today—his hope is that God's people will start acting like they are under the Shepherd-King's leadership already. And how does he lead us?

1. Into Contentment and Generosity (2:1-5)

1 Woe to those who devise wickedness

and work evil on their beds!

When the morning dawns, they perform it,

because it is in the power of their hand.

2 They covet fields and seize them,

and houses, and take them away;

they oppress a man and his house,

a man and his inheritance.

3 Therefore thus says the LORD:

behold, against this family I am devising disaster,

from which you cannot remove your necks,

and you shall not walk haughtily,

for it will be a time of disaster.

4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you

and moan bitterly,

and say, “We are utterly ruined;

he changes the portion of my people;

how he removes it from me!

To an apostate he allots our fields.”

5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot

in the assembly of the LORD.

---

For the first time in his prophecies, Micah gives us a vivid description of the main sin he saw rampaging throughout the land. Micah, you might remember, is from Moresheth, part of a set of villages in the valley lands to the west of Jerusalem. Whenever enemy invaders attacked Judah, they set their targets on Jerusalem, but to get there, they would plow through the villages of Micah's region. And since Yahweh promised enemy invaders if Jerusalem abandoned him for long-term, obstinate, unyielding, and unrepentant rebellion, the people in Micah's region cared a lot about the spiritual health of Jerusalem (see Deut. 28:45-51). If Jerusalem rebelled, Micah's town and others like it would be ravaged by invading armies on their way there.

And as Micah observed Jerusalem's spiritual health, he saw the rich and powerful oppressing the middle classes in the valley below.[^1] Their crime was covetousness, which for them was much more than a mere feeling of jealousy. They saw fields and houses and lay on their beds dreaming of ways to steal them (1-2). They saw men they wanted to oppress and inheritances they wanted to confiscate (1-2). And Micah portrays them as quite successful as they looted the populace. Everything they devised, they executed. No plan was thwarted. All their greedy dreams turned into nightmares for the villagers below.

But Micah saw how Yahweh was also planning—they devised wickedness while lying on their beds, but the Lord said he was devising disaster in the form of the disaster of war (2:1, 3). They would sing a defeated song about their own ruin, and the very fields they stole from their fellow Israelite brothers would be captured by apostate invaders (2:4). When God said they would have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the LORD, he meant they would lose their ability to define property lot lines because none of the land would belong to them anymore (2:5).[^2]

So, this movement describes God's promise of discipline because of the covetousness of some of his people almost three thousand years ago. What are we to do with God's massive rebuke? It is tempting to merely critique the way we often cave to materialism and greed. Some would even say our entire economy is bolstered by covetousness—if consumer spending slows, our economy limps along, so we need to incentivize consumers to consume. Therefore, covetousness.

For as bad as all this is, there is more at play in Micah's words than mere warnings against covetousness. If this book is the call of the Shepherd-King, we must think about how Christ the Shepherd-King did not come to abolish or destroy the law and prophets but fulfill them (Matt. 5:17). As the perfect man, he did not relax even the least of the commandments, but fulfilled them by living out their purest intention (Matt. 5:19). So he took "you shall not murder" and turned it into a reconciling and forgiving heart; he took "you shall not commit adultery" and turned it into a focused pursuit of a pure inner thought life; he took Moses' guardrails surrounding divorce and remarriage and turned them into a lifelong honor of the marriage covenant; he took "you shall not swear falsely" and turned it into becoming a person of your word even when it hurts; he took "an eye for an eye" and turned it into turning your cheek and going the extra mile; he took "love your neighbor" and turned it into a love for enemies, praying for those who persecute you (Matt. 5:21-48).

This means that as God rebukes his people for covetousness, if they had listened to their Shepherd-King they would have become content with what they had while elevating others around them. Micah was talking to people who were not content with the lines God had drawn for them. We, too, must accept what God has designed for us (2:5). This does not mean we cannot work hard, earn, or climb in life. The Apostle Paul is a good example of this healthy mixture of godly ambition with personal contentment. I know of no man more driven than Paul—he wanted to get the gospel to the ends of the earth and, to that end, no one worked harder than him (Rom. 15:20, 1 Cor. 15:10). But he had also "learned the secret," "in whatever situation" he was in "to be content" (Phil. 4:11-12).

What lines must we receive from our Shepherd-King? What situations are we in that we must embrace? What elements of God's word have we bucked against because we want to be like Frank and do it our way? What facets of our reality do we continually try to escape when it is simply a line God has drawn for us? The sooner we accept the station God has given us, the sooner we will become generous with those around us, and if we are in a position to do so, we will begin to elevate others rather than oppress them as they did in Micah's day.

In 2020, Netflix released a popular show called The Queen's Gambit. Set in the 1950s and 1960s, it is the story of a tormented young woman who became a chess prodigy after a janitor at her orphanage introduced her to the game. As she grew older, she ascended the ranks in the chess world, but her personal life spun out of control, and her inner demons got the best of her. Then she heard news that the janitor, Mr. Scheibel, had died. On a lark, she went to his funeral, only to discover he had been tracking her entire career over the years, saving every article and news clip he could find about his long-lost student. He had rooted for her even while she was self-destructing. This new information about him impacted her deeply, and she pivoted from that moment into the life the janitor had likely envisioned for her.

In a similar way, Yahweh is presented here as rooting for his people while they self-destructed. He wanted them to live beyond their covetousness and greed. He wanted them to be content. He wanted them to help others when they could. He wanted them to overcome. And our Shepherd-King wants the same for us.

2. Into God's Word and Nature (2:6-11)

6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—

“one should not preach of such things;

disgrace will not overtake us.”

7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

Has the LORD grown impatient?

Are these his deeds?

Do not my words do good

to him who walks uprightly?

8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;

you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly

with no thought of war.

9 The women of my people you drive out

from their delightful houses;

from their young children you take away

my splendor forever.

10 Arise and go,

for this is no place to rest,

because of uncleanness that destroys

with a grievous destruction.

11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,

saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

he would be the preacher for this people!

---

This movement of Micah's prophecy tells us that not only did the people acquire forbidden idols and fields, but they also acquired false prophets. When these false prophets told Micah, "Do not preach," they used a word that means "drip" or "secrete"—it's like they were telling Micah to stop his drivel (6). He was like a broken record replaying the same old lines without stopping, a loop button set to "repeat one" playing the same song over and over again.

Besides telling Micah to stop preaching, they also preached their own message. "Disgrace will not overtake us," they said (2:6). It seems they questioned Micah by pointing back to what they knew of God. Hadn't Yahweh revealed himself as slow to anger? Had he now grown impatient? Did Micah think God's nature and character had changed?

But Micah knew better. He saw how these rebels were only highlighting one side of God's nature. They were overemphasizing God's grace and longsuffering nature as a ticket to live however they wanted. He is in agreement with Paul's question in Romans, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Romans 6:1–2). From his side of the cross, Micah would have asked, "How can we who died to Egypt and who were rescued by Yahweh live any longer like the Egyptians?" Micah knew that God had given his people a long time to turn, but they were entrenched in their evil, so a flood of invading warriors would force them to arise and go if they did not turn (2:10). The false prophets taught that God was a cosmic grandfather who would forever turn a blind eye to the cancerous evil of his people. But they were destroying the lives of others and ruining their witness to the nations, so God had to act. He is longsuffering—incredibly patient—but he can be moved to discipline his wayward people or judge wickedness.

What we learn in this movement is that they had rejected the fullness of God's word and nature by dishonestly overemphasizing only part of God's word and nature. Micah said the content of their message was of wine and strong drink (11). They ignored good theology to become masters of mixology. They preached ease and prosperity rather than the kingdom of God—and the people were black-out drunk off their message! They presented the capital city's residents with a message of the good life, all while they destroyed the lives of others through their opulence and oppression. This was not free trade, it was abuse and theft, but all their favorite podcasts and feeds reinforced the idea that they were God's special people and in no danger of discipline.

But Yahweh asked them, "Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?" (7). Micah fought against the hypergrace perspective of the populace with the truth—when we submit ourselves to God's way, the result is the true good life.

We must be careful not to overemphasize only part of God's nature and word while neglecting the parts that call us up into righteousness and justice. This might be one reason the prophets are largely neglected in the modern church; they called God's people up. And we must be careful not to accumulate teachers who never challenge us—every one of us has perspectives and values that are out of step with God's nature and word, so we should welcome voices that call us up to our true identity in Christ. This is especially important in our age because Paul warned that a "time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions" (2 Tim. 4:3).

You need the minor keys to get the full range of musical beauty, and you need the minor prophets to get the full range of God's majesty. In the gym, they say not to skip leg day because to develop well-rounded strength, the lower half must get worked. But the people in Micah's day had skipped out on so much truth that would have grown and helped them become who God wanted them to be. We need all the truth, all of who God is. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable to make us complete people, equipped for every good work—as Micah said, doing good to those who walk uprightly (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

3. As Your Shepherd-King (2:12-13)

12 I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob;

I will gather the remnant of Israel;

I will set them together

like sheep in a fold,

like a flock in its pasture,

a noisy multitude of men.

13 He who opens the breach goes up before them;

they break through and pass the gate,

going out by it.

Their king passes on before them,

the LORD at their head.

---

After long speeches of judgment, Micah pivots to some relieving words of grace, a proclamation of salvation. Remember the question of this book (it is found in the name of the prophet): Who is like Yahweh-God? All throughout the book, we learn that he is willing to judge and discipline his people when that is required for their health or his mission, but the final words of the book tell us how he inevitably gravitates back to his forgiving, longsuffering nature. He is the God who saves (7:18–20)!

It is in this final movement of Micah's first oracle that we get our first glimpse of the Shepherd-King. Micah mentions a remnant flock here, and this remnant will be mentioned in all three of Micah's oracles (4:7, 5:7-8, 7:18). Each time, this Shepherd-King is with them, watching over them because they are his flock.

But how does Micah describe him in our passage today? He opens a way for his people to break through and pass the gate (13). He does all this after he regathers his people—there are so many of them Micah calls them a noisy multitude (12). The idea is that God's remnant was taken into captivity, but this Shepherd-King gathers them up, breaks them out, and sets them free. He is their king, the LORD who leads them (13). He is their Shepherd because he gathers his flock and King because he leads his people.

This is abundantly good news, especially in light of the doom of this chapter. Micah berated the power structures of Jerusalem for their oppression of the people. Their covetousness and theft evaporated the middle class and pushed them into poverty. In short, the leadership of Israel—the kings, prophets, and priests—had failed the people. But Micah's news is that a great Shepherd-King would one day arise to set his people free. He would bring them out of their captivity and lead them into his glorious reign.

From a New Testament perspective, we know this figure is Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Even in Micah's prophecies, he described as being born in Bethlehem, the very prophecy Jesus fulfilled when he was born in Bethlehem centuries later (5:1-4). Do you see Jesus this way, as the great delivering Shepherd who gathers his flock, sets them free, and becomes King? He is the one Moses prefigured in Exodus, the one who came to set us free from our captivity to sin, and one day, he will return and rule over all things.

This should be a reassurance to every one of us who have been disappointed, let down, or frustrated by leaders and others in positions of power or authority. And it should certainly comfort those who have been abused, oppressed, or marginalized by those with the power to do so. One day, a leader of all leaders, a pure and good king of all kings, will arise and express his good sovereignty over everyone and everything. You will never be disappointed, discouraged, or disillusioned by him. He will open the breach and make a way out of all the messes dysfunctional and delusional leaders have made for us.

But Micah did not have all these visions of the future universal reign of Christ just so that we could sit back and pine for those days. Instead, he would want us to engage today, to live as we will be in that kingdom. He is the Good Shepherd—not just as a nuzzler of tender little lambs, but as a Shepherd-King who is worthy of one day remaking the world, submitting all cosmic powers under his dominion, and guiding every affair of a new humanity. If that's who Jesus is, then he is certainly qualified to help us navigate chaotic schedules, prepare a monthly budget, or choose our friends. He wants to lead our lives, not just because he is supreme, but because he loves us and is really good at it. His leadership leads to our flourishing.

So, if a day is coming when we all rush to God's mountain to hear God's voice, we should rush to our Bibles to hear God's word today. If a day is coming when we will be under the jurisdiction of a perfect King who reigns in righteousness, we should strive to increasingly submit to his rule of our lives today. And if a day is coming when he will systematically cut off all the idols that permeate our lands and hearts, we should walk with him so he can systematically cut them off today. Let's be big gospel people. Jesus saved and will save, so let's allow him to continue to save us—right now, today—from all that harms us.

[^1]: Martin, John A. “Micah.” TBKC, pp. 1479–80.

[^2]: Waltke, Bruce K. “Micah.” NBC, pp. 824–25.

Study Questions

Head (Knowledge, Facts, Understanding):

1. How does Micah contrast God's desire for leadership with the actions of the powerful in the land?
2. What role does Jesus play as the Shepherd-King in both the ancient and contemporary context?
3. In what ways does Micah propose the gospel goes beyond personal salvation?

Heart (Feelings, Impressions, Desires):

4. How does Micah 2 challenge your perception of Jesus as merely a Savior?
5. Reflect on your feelings towards the concept of being led by Jesus in daily life aspects like decisions and commitments.
6. How does the notion of God's steadfast love and forgiveness, as described by Micah, resonate with you personally?

Hands (Actions, Commitments, Decisions, Beliefs):

7. What practical steps can you take to align your life more closely with Jesus' teachings and leadership?
8. In what ways can you combat covetousness and embrace contentment and generosity in your life?
9. How can you incorporate the fullness of God's word and nature into your daily walk of faith?