The Lord Has Us Dead to Rights!

4th Sunday after Epiphany, 1/30/11
Micah 6:1-8


The Lord Has Us Dead to Rights!
I. His people forget his gracious love.
II. His people offer him their worthless righteousness.
III. But he acquits us in Christ.


“We’ve got him dead to rights.” We’ve all heard that phrase countless times. Often it’s used in legal cases. But we may even hear it used in a work or school setting. And we know what it means. “Dead to rights” means that there’s an overwhelming amount of evidence that proves a certain person or entity has done something wrong or committed a crime. But just how did it come to mean that?

I did a Google search on my computer and found a Web site that offers an explanation. “Dead to rights” is an odd expression, dating back to the mid-19th century. The phrase involves the use of slang from Great Britain. The word “dead” can be used to mean “certain” or “without a doubt”. We still use it that way in phrases such as “dead broke” and “dead certain.”

But what about the rest of the phrase, the “to rights” portion? Long ago “to rights” was used to mean “in a proper condition or order.” In the phrase “dead to rights” it seems to mean that every formality required by law has been satisfied. In other words, the person has done something so obviously wrong that any sane person would agree that they’re guilty.

It’s bad enough when one of our peers feels that they have us dead to rights because of something we’ve done. But it scares us to death to hear it coming from the all-knowing, holy God.

In effect, that’s what he told his ancient people, the Israelites, through his prophet Micah. The NIV heading for this section of the Bible is “The LORD’s Case Against Israel.” The words before us read like a modern legal trial transcript. The charges are leveled and the defense responds. Without a doubt, the Lord had the goods on his people. He had them dead to rights.

But there’s a lesson here for all of us because no sinner is better than any other. We’re just as guilty as the ancient Jews were. The Lord has us dead to rights. Follow with me as we see why and what the outcome is.

Part I.

If you had to describe God, how would you do it? You’d probably use words such as holy, just, faithful, eternal and almighty. But if you had to do it in just one word, what would that word be? That’s not so easy. But the Lord himself tells us through the Apostle John, “God is love” (1 John 4:16). There you have it. He’s perfect, complete, faithful, eternal love. Everything he’s about is showing us that perfect love.

But his own people often forget that. Listen to the sadness in his voice as he accuses his people of forgetting that he is love, “My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me.” In Micah’s time his people had turned their backs on him and so he asks what it is that would cause them to shun his faithful love for them. They certainly can’t blame him for the problems in their lives.

In fact, he hadn’t been a burden to them in any way. He wasn’t guilty of being a drag on their lives, a major or minor irritation, an unwanted guest, or some leach on their money or possessions. The truth is that all they had came from him. He existed to bless them, not fleece them.

But that’s all forgotten now. In fact, he had to remind them of his gracious, loving, past acts, acts so great that even the heathen nations around them marveled and trembled. About 700 years earlier he had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Recall the mighty acts. He used 10 plagues, the last of which was the plague of death on the Egyptians. And then he led the entire nation through the waters of the Red Sea. He gave them pious leaders in Moses, Aaron and Miriam. And when enemy nations tried to use black magic to curse the Israelites, he turned their words into a blessing, even into one of the promises of the Savior. What power he showed! What love he displayed!

But his people forgot. That’s why the Lord has them dead to rights.

We’d like to think that we would never forget our Lord’s gracious love, but the truth is he has us dead to rights as well. Permit me to probe a little into your life and mine. Whenever we look on what we’re doing right now as a burden or an intrusion on our free time, we’ve forgotten the Lord’s gracious love. Whenever our attitude towards hearing God’s word, studying God’s word or receiving the Lord’s Supper is that we have better things to do with our time, we’ve forgotten the Lord’s gracious love. Whenever we’ve doubted his power in our lives or his gracious care, we’ve forgotten his gracious love. When we forget that we’re God’s children because Jesus shed his blood to redeem us and we show it by living like the rest of the world, we’ve forgotten his gracious love. The Lord has us dead to rights.

Part II.

OK, OK. So he has us dead to rights. So now what? Well, one of the reactions of a guilty person is to say and/or do the wrong thing to make it up. Do you know what that’s like? The blockhead of a husband knows that we he said hurt his wife, so he tries to make it up to her by buying her an expensive box of chocolates. But she bursts into tears because she has repeatedly told him she’s on a strict weight-loss diet. Wrong response!

So the Lord had his people dead to rights and they knew it. But look at their wrong response. They said, “With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?” They offer him a quality offering, one that he had even prescribed. The burnt offering involved taking an animal and entirely burning it on the altar in the temple. They even offer their best—a year-old lamb. But the Lord doesn’t accept it. Why not?

The reason is found in the next phrases they utter. “Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?” Ah, this time they offer him quantity instead of quality. It’s the thinking that if we give until it hurts us, then he’ll be pleased. If we overwhelm him, he can’t help but shine his face on us. You see, their thinking is that they have something they can offer to God to buy his goodness.

And that thinking culminates in the unthinkable. They wonder out loud, “Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” They offer to do something which God had forbidden them to do. And it’s all because they are convinced that they aren’t so sinful, that surely they can offer God something to appease him. In other words, they offer him their own righteousness. But they had none to offer.

The Lord had them dead to rights. His people offer him their worthless righteousness.

We’d never be so foolish, would we? We know how sinful we are. We know that the Bible says that all our righteous acts are like filthy rags (Is. 64:6). We know the hymn verse that says, “Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.” We know God’s grace is amazing and his love is profound. But we forget. We try bargaining with God. We pledge to do this if God will agree to do that. We’ll polish up our lives a little and hope that God will bless us a lot. Or we think the reverse is true: things aren’t going well for us because God is trying get his pound of flesh out of us. So we’ll try to offer him something to appease him. As if we have anything to pay for a single sin. The Lord has us dead to rights because even we at times offer him our worthless righteousness.

Part III.

So what does he wants from us? The closing words of our text state, “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

He wants us to walk humbly with him. Just what does that mean? First, it means realizing what our God did for us in his Son, Jesus Christ. He sent that Son to this world in fulfillment of his gracious, loving promise to a world full of sinners. We didn’t deserve a Savior. No sinner does. But our God is gracious. And so that Savior came and lived the perfect, sinless life that we don’t live. He did for us what we fail to do every day of our lives. He lived a holy life. And then he offered that holy life for the sins of the world when he died on Calvary’s cross. He took our sins on himself. He suffered the punishment for our sins. He paid the price for us. That’s the heart and center of our Christian faith. Having a heart that trusts Jesus for your forgiveness and salvation is what God is looking for. By his grace he has given you that faith in Jesus.

And now the response he’s looking for from us comes from a heart full of love for him and gratitude towards him. Our lives as God’s people aren’t what God demands of us, they’re what we want to do out of love for him. That life of love shows in the way we treat others. The Lord talks about acting justly and loving mercy. His love and mercy towards us is reflected in the way we deal with others. God’s people shouldn’t use and abuse others; we should love them as Jesus loves them. We should speak the truth in love to them. We should rid our hearts and minds of impure thoughts about them. I realize that’s a tall order. And we fail to do it perfectly every day. But that’s what God’s love and forgiveness are all about. He washes our sins away and empowers us once again to walk humbly with him. Really our life with our God is all about what Jesus has done for us.

Yes, God has us dead to rights. But he has the final say. And thanks be to him, he acquits us in Christ! Were God’s forgiven, holy children by faith in Jesus Christ. That’s God’s everlasting verdict for you. Now that’s a verdict we can live with, eternally. Amen.