"You Have No Idea" -Rev. David Malcolm McGruder

54:19 loves Jesus. Micah chapter 4. My soul loves Jesus. Just let that be your testimony all week long. Bless his name. Hallelujah. With all the stuff going on around you. My soul. Hallelujah. Loves Jesus, my soul. Loves Jesus, Micah chapter 4. My soul, yeah.

55:10 loves Jesus bless oh bless his name Micah chapter 4 we're going to begin at verse 11 and conclude at verse 12 I'm going to read it from the new revised standard version of the word of God and it reads like this But now, look at somebody and say, but now many nations are gathered against you. They say, let her be defiled. They say, let our eyes gloat over Zion. but they do not know the thoughts of the Lord.

56:12 They do not understand his plan. That he has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor. One more time. But now, look at somebody say but now. Many nations are gathered against you. They say let her be defiled. Let our eyes glow over what's happening to Zion. But look at somebody else and say but they don't know. They don't know the thoughts of the Lord. Look at somebody else and testify they don't know the plan of God. Come on tell them they don't know. they're trying to set you up but God is setting them up in the process go ahead and be seated in the presence of the Lord and tell somebody as you go to your seat you have no idea now that wasn't the right neighbor that wasn't the right neighbor you don't need to be sitting next to a know-it-all today you need to be seated next to somebody who's got an expectation of faith somebody whose testimony is I don't know how God's gonna work it I don't know how God's gonna fix it I don't know how God's gonna do it I have no idea and as a matter of fact I'm not worried about how because I already know who come on testify as you go to your seat you have no idea come on you have no idea you ought to testify that because people have no idea what it took for you to get to church this morning come on talk to me they have no idea how you almost turned around how you almost went back to the house and got back in the bed and pulled up the cover but like david i was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the lord tell your neighbor you have no idea

58:19 you have no idea yeah you have no you have no earthly idea i grew up in kansas city kansas uh right i got three folk in here amen who with me all um i grew up right down the street amen sister stephanie from of the harry truman library and the harry truman library is a library that we visited as kids coach grant we had to go to that library uh because and i didn't realize that it was such a big deal to have a presidential library in your backyard um but but but we would go there and i mean in middle school i we made at these three trips and then my mother was a teacher so she was going to take us in and we would go to the Harry Truman Library and and we discovered this library was dedicated to a man who was made president by accident he wasn't even intended to be the president his party was just looking for a placeholder they thought Roosevelt was going to live to to serve out a fourth term they had no idea that within five or six months of the election that a man from Missouri who had no name recognition, who had no money, who had no pool, who nobody knew would become the president of the United States. And four years later when he ran for president on his own account in 1948 against the governor of New York, a man by the name of Thomas Dewey, all of the reports, all of the polls all of the numbers said that Truman was going to lose that Dewey was going to win it was certain it was certain it was a certitude there was no doubt about it so much so that the Chicago Daily Tribune printed that as its headline story the day after election day that Dewey defeated

1:00:26 Truman I thought about that because when you walk into the Truman Library there's this big old picture of Harry Truman holding that headline with a big old smile on his face and I had to think about that how in the world could he be smiling holding a headline that said that he lost here it is they had the courage to write it but just because they wrote it didn't make it true and the next day they discovered that he had lost but he had actually won by numbers they didn't expect and by numbers that they did not anticipate they wrote it down but just because they wrote it down didn't make it true there was a problem he had won and they mistook their expectation for God's outcome come here 19 if you don't like Harry Truman let me bring you to Miami 1964 where a 22 year old by the name of Cassius Clay fighting out of Louisville Kentucky goes up against a man by the name of Sonny Liston who is the heavyweight champion of the world. They asked 46 sports writers who they thought was gonna win and 43 of 46 said Sonny Liston is gonna annihilate this kid. They had seen Sonny Liston's power. They were aware of Sonny Liston's record but they had no idea how the thing was actually going to turn out that after six rounds of fighting Sonny Liston wouldn't come out of the corner for the seventh round and a young 22 Cassius Clay who would go on to be known as Muhammad Ali would become champion of the world even though people didn't expect him to win I'm trying to help somebody you don't like Cassius Clay you don't like Harry Truman let me help you with LeBron James in 2016 LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers were down three games to nothing against our pastor's team against Dr. Haynes favorite the

1:02:35 Golden State Warriors no team had ever come back from a three to oh deficit there is no amen there is no historical precedent for what they were trying to accomplish no historical precedent for what they were able to do. The deficit was real and the opponent was dominant. But don't you know that Cleveland won three games and the championship? Because here's the witness. The scoreboard told them where they stood, but it could not tell them how the story was going to end. And I came to help somebody here in church today because the mistake that we often make is assuming that the current conditions of our life are the sum of God's conclusion over our life. Let me say that again. We make the mistake of assuming that the current conditions are the sum of God's conclusion. We look at how, we look at how things are and we, because of what we see we decide how it's going to end we see a closed door and we conclude that there's no way forward we see the challenges in front of us and assume that there can be no victory we experience setbacks and heartbreaks and conclude that the effort was wasted we look at the strength of the opposition and conclude that resistance is a futile that's why the writer had to test that people of faith have to walk by faith and not by sight because what you see can fix your convictions about the conclusion can i help you the conditions may be real but your conclusions about them may be wrong that's the word that God gives to Judah that's the word that God gives to the nations of the world in Micah chapter 4 Zion's conditions will not determine God's conclusion let me help you Micah

1:04:44 writes to to the people of the 8th century he prophesied during the reign of Jotham Ahaz and at Hezekiah. If you're taking notes, you don't want to take notes right through here. He preached to a divided nation. He preached to the kingdom of Israel to the north and the kingdom of Judah to the south. A nation that was once united that has been through a spiritual and military physical civil war. He ministered to them and during this time he witnesses the fall of the northern kingdom of Jerusalem. The fall of the northern kingdom of Israel rather and the first of serious invasions by a group of people called the Assyrians. He watches Samaria fall in 722. He watches the seas of Jerusalem by the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib in 701.

1:05:42 He's writing and prophesying to a community, watch this, that has witnessed 20 years of social collapse, 20 years of spiritual decay. There's injustice in the courts. There's violence in the streets and spiritual power that is seemingly absent. And at the same time that he's writing to his people in Judah and in Israel, Micah is also ministering during a time of international political transition. Zion, as Micah calls his homeland, is surrounded by global powers. For years, Egypt to the south had dominated the region. And now Assyria to the north has put Israel and Judah in the middle of a power contest between two rivals. And then in the east there is Babylon that is rising again to create another threat to Judah, to Israel, and to the world.

1:06:48 And Micah describes a world political situation that is increasingly antagonistic and hostile to Zion. And listen to what he says. Now many nations are gathered against you. Many nations right now as we speak, as we preach, as we prophesy right now, Micah says, many nations are gathered against you. And according to Micah, the judgment that God issues against Israel and Judah, watch this, is because Israel and Judah embrace idolatry. Yeah, watch this. Micah is writing to a people who are surrounded by enemies on all sides. They're surrounded by the Egyptians to the south, the Assyrians to the north, the Babylonians to the east, and nomadic warrior tribes all around them.

1:07:47 And so they make a decision that seems logical. They're going to adopt the gods of their adversaries as a survival tactic. They say, okay, we'll make some compromises and we'll allow them to have temples here if it means they will make us slaves. And then they say, well, not only will we give them permission to build temples, we'll even worship and make sacrifices to their gods. They believe that if they can appease their adversaries by embracing their idols, that it will save them from humiliation and defeat and there is a subtle but substantive relationship between idolatry and injustice in the history of this community what what am i saying what they worship and how they worship and who they worship shows up and how they treat each other yeah y'all don't like this i said who they worship and how they worship show up in how they treat each other so they can say that they worship God they can say that they worship Yahweh they can say that they worship Jehovah but if they don't treat their neighbors right if they put their come on if they put the people of Judah in debt and if they rob and exploit them for their personal benefit then their worship is empty because their worship is manifest in how they treat people.

1:09:20 Come here. You can be a Bible-toting, scripture-reading believer in the faith if you want to, but your worship shows up and your worship comes out in how you treat your neighbor. and Micah says God is going to take Jerusalem and Judah and Samaria to task because they have embraced idols of their adversaries. Now the problem with idolatry is that it is a signal that Israel doesn't trust God. it's a sign that that zion doesn't really believe god to be who god says that he would be god says i'm gonna make a covenant relationship with you zion you gonna be my people i'm gonna be your god you gonna have no other gods before me you're gonna trust me you're gonna believe in me you're gonna wait for me i'm gonna bless you and if you can engage in that kind of covenant relationship then you and I are going to make it.

1:10:27 We're going to be cool. But the problem is every time God turns his back. Israel is creeping with another God. This is Micah language. This is not mine. This is in the word. Micah says y'all are like harlots chasing after one lover after another when what I want with you is not a one night stand. I want commitment. All right. And they can't make the commitment because they believe that idolatry is going to help them to negotiate their challenges with their adversaries. They start making compromises. They start making compromises because they believe that their compromise is what's going to save them. And can we testify and tell them the truth?

1:11:21 Idolatry is really whenever we elevate that which is not God to the position of God. idolatry idolatry is when we elevate that which does not have god's power to a place where we assume and give it and yield to it a power that it does not in and of itself possess see we think idolatry is just about building golden calves and worshiping golden bulls but but but you do know that your love of money can be an idol y'all not talking to me you you you do know that your love for relationship chasing one relationship after another can be a form of idolatry anytime we elevate anything that is not god to a position and a place of god where we're worshiping it where where we are drawn to it more than we are drawn to god we have committed an act of idolatry and the problem with idolatry is it is a signal to god that we don't trust god to be who God said that he was going to be. Come here. All Israel had to do was trust God to fight the Assyrians. All Israel had to do was trust God to handle the Egyptians because he had handled Egyptians before. If they had been patient, their God would have dealt with the Babylonians because his promise to them is if you be my people, I'll be your God. But because they didn't trust God they adopted other gods in God's place and we ought to be careful in America of claiming to be a Christian country when we continue to practice our idolatry the idolatry of money the idolatry of capitalism the idolatry of racism the idolatry of white supremacy the idolatry of Trumpism the idolatry of white nationalism we're not a Christian nation we're idol worshipers y'all don't have to like it I'm gonna preach

1:13:26 anyway we are idol worshipers making compromise after compromise assuming that the devil won't defeat us that we can somehow trick the enemy that's trying to trick us so we've embraced idols in this nation why else would the United States of America celebrate a public execution. like we're living in Nazi Germany, like we're living in a fascist state. It's because our God is violence and not the God of the faithfulness. Why else, why else, why else would we have to endure another four years of the orange menace?

1:14:24 elected by people who claim to love God and to read their Bible. It's because they're white supremacy. It's because they're racism. It's because they're misogyny is their God and not the God of the scripture. and God says to Micah I've got an ideal world for Israel I've got an ideal world that I want Judah to live in but in order for Judah to have my ideal it's got to put down its idols can I help somebody here today you came to church and God says I got an ideal for you I've got plans for you I've got purpose for you I've got a destiny for you I've got things for you to accomplish I've got purpose for you to live in but you can't have my ideal until you lay down your idol All right.

1:15:33 Thank you. they see idolatry. The nations of the earth see what idolatry has done to Judah, what it's doing to Israel. They see the nation divided north and south. They see that the institutions of meaning are impotent. They see that the internal mechanisms of justice are corrupted. It looks like Zion is prepared to be defeated and decimated, to be humiliated and destroyed. But the mistake that the nations make in Micah 4, 11 and 12 is that they see Zion surrounded. They see Zion exposed. They then look at their own strength and they start celebrating her downfall. They start making plans.

1:16:28 They start making a party because they are convinced that Zion is not going to survive this. And the prophet has to interrupt their party making plans to give them this declaration. I see you dancing. I see you shouting. I see you planning. I see you trying to plot to destroy what God has blessed. But here it is. You don't know the thoughts of the Lord. You don't understand God's plan. Micah says that these people have correctly observed Zion's vulnerability, but they incorrectly assumed Zion's destiny. And God's word is that Zion's condition, God help me, is not God's conclusion. and that's what a word that's the word that I came to give somebody who showed up in church today who needs that reminder that your current condition is not God's conclusion you're looking at your condition you're looking at the condition of your bank account you're looking at the condition of the doctor's report you're looking at the condition of the marriage and the condition of your children but the word of God is that your condition is not your conclusion look at somebody and look them in the eye and testify your condition come on your condition come on your condition is not God's conclusion it may be somebody else's conclusion it may be somebody else's determination. It may even be somebody else's plan, but your condition, child of God, is not God's conclusion. So you ought to walk about here with some confidence in God. You ought to go to your house and just declare that over everything in your house. Declare it over your children. Declare it over your spouse. Declare it over your relationship. Declare it on your job.

1:18:37 This condition. I can't hear nobody. Y'all must ain't be in bad condition. I just need two or three who can testify. I came to church because my life is in jacked up, messed up condition. But the word of God. My condition. It's not God's conclusion. I know what they assume. I know what they said. I know what you see. But your condition ain't God's conclusion. I don't know the condition of your life after the trauma.

1:19:33 I don't know the condition of your heart after the heartbreak. I don't know the condition of your mind after what it is that you've lost the condition of your body after the procedure. But your condition is not God's conclusion. The story is one thing. How the story ends is another. So what they say don't matter. What they assume ain't your business. What they think ain't none of your bother. What they planned is not your problem. Because the conditions of your life are not the sum of God's conclusion about your life.

1:20:19 And Micah gives Israel this word because we can become so convinced by what we see. that we don't leave God room for what we don't know. That's why the writer of Hebrews said, now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things that I can't see.

1:20:45 So faith then, watch this, is learning the difference between knowing what is happening and knowing that something else can happen. I don't need everybody. I just need two or three who can testify that I'm growing to the place in my faith where I know that things are happening. I know what's happening on the job. I know what's happening in the scholarship. I know what's happening, but I believe something else can happen. I just need two or three who can just testify. God's got another move. God can do something else. I know what I see in front of me. I know what's happening to me, but God can make something else happen. Somebody came to church for that word. Because you're looking at what's happening.

1:21:45 And God's promise is despite what's happening to you. I can make something else happen. In fact, that's what God says to Micah. God says to Micah, I want to make something good happen for my people. Now, be careful about reading Micah. This is the book that we're studying in the month of October. As we reflect on the fact that God remembers the oppressed. And Micah is, we went to Micah because in Micah 6 and 8, God tells Micah the kind of worship that pleases God. It's the worship to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. As I was reading that, I was moved by Micah chapter 4 because of the prophetic witness, that prophetic promise in Micah chapter 4.

1:22:46 But you got to be careful about reading Micah because Micah is graphic. Micah is violent. Micah uses violent language. He paints violent imagery because he's trying to help Israel and Judah understand the depth of their violation of God's covenant and God's promise. And so he uses graphic language. He uses Pastor Westbrook what we would call the language of terror in his text. Some language of terror. These are texts of terror. He talks about the judgment of God's people resulting in things like cannibalism. That's the graphic nature of Micah's prophetic word. And in many ways, it reminds us and challenges us to help to better understand the operation of the prophetic in the life of the church. because of amen not just prosperity gospel but because of our failure to understand the five-fold ministry of God the five-fold ministry of the church we make the prophetic about future forecasting and so and so we go to hear prophets that operate amen like spiritual miss Cleos who who will if we give $5,000 and stand in a $5,000 line, they promise that they can look into our life and see into our future.

1:24:25 And so we make the promise and the power of God into a trick of the enemy. and it's not that God does not allow those who are gifted with sight to see into the future it's that that future that the prophet sees is always connected to a critique of the present Yeah, yeah. The prophetic witness of the prophet who sees into the future can only see into the future insofar as that future is tied to something that is problematic and that is broken in the present. And the problem is that we have reduced, watch this, the prophetic and the function of the prophetic to telling us when. When am I going to get married? When am I going to get a house?

1:25:17 When are my children going to get saved? When am I going to get a new job? We reduce the prophetic to the when. When the prophetic and the fruit of the prophetic is about revealing to us why. why does god do and produce what god produces why does god bring what god brings when god brings it the revelation is not in the when the revelation is in the wine but but we will cheapen the prophetic to make it spiritual fortune telling all right y'all didn't come for all that. And God says to Micah, I have a future for Israel. I've got a future for Judah. I've got a future for the whole, watch this, for the nations.

1:26:16 Not just the nation of Judah, not just the nation of Israel. I've got a future for the nations of the earth. I've got a vision for the nations of the earth I've got a vision for all of them to be brought together God says my vision is that Judah and Israel will be transformed from the rubble into an instrument of my justice and an attraction to the nations of the earth check that out the same nations that are set to destroy Israel in verse 11 are promised to sit under the influence of Zion in the future. Y'all missed that. Check it out. The nations that are at war in a quest for power, God says to Micah, we'll be at peace with each other through the power of God.

1:27:12 This is an ideal future outlined by God. This is an ideal future given directly from the mouth of the divine. What is that future? A world that is free from violence. A world that is free from injustice. A world without oppression. A world without lack. A world without war. A world without want. Their swords shall be beat into plower shares. This is the word. And their spears into pruning hooks. nation shall not lift up sword against another nation and they ain't gonna learn to study war no more but every man every woman shall sit under her own vine and under their own fig tree and none of them shall be afraid for the mouth of the lord of hosts has spoken it All right, you missed it.

1:28:16 Check that. That's a prophetic word, not just for one house. It's a prophetic word to all of the houses. God says, my desire is for the nations to come to receive my instruction, for swords to become plower shares, for spears to become pruning hooks, and for people to sit beneath their own vine and fig tree so that no one can be afraid. See, we would shout if that was a promise of a new Cadillac. you would shout you would shout if it was a promise of a new house and a new car and a new boot you would be tearing the church up about a promise of new clothes and new drip and new jewelry but the promise of god is a promise for the whole community God says I'm gonna gather my people together everybody gonna have somewhere to live everybody gonna have something to eat everybody is gonna have freedom everybody is gonna have liberation and then God announces watch this that this ideal future ain't gonna be built by the people you think is gonna be built by you you god says i'm not gonna use the rich i'm not gonna use the well to do i'm not gonna use the well connected i'm not gonna use the politically influential i'm not gonna use the people with big bank accounts i'm not gonna use the ballers and the shot callers they're included but i ain't gonna use them are y'all in the bible listen to know what God says. God says in order to build this future, I'm going to gather the lame.

1:30:11 I'm going to gather the displaced. I'm going to gather the wounded and the grieving. And the people who other people assume don't have what it takes to build what I want to build. God says you got a place in my future. I don't know who that word is for, but somebody showed up to church and your testimony is my life is not all that it should be. My life is not all that I believe that it can be. I don't have it all together. I haven't dotted every I. I haven't crossed every T. Everything in my life ain't cherries and roses and peaches and cream. But I'm here because I believe that God has a place for me in his future. Who am I preaching to? The wounded folk, the lame folk the displaced folk the unemployed folk the forgotten folk the marginalized folk whose testimony is god got space for me God's got space just for me.

1:31:20 God says the wounded are included. God says the forgotten are included. God says everybody treated as disposable has a place. Matter of fact, that means, watch this, you don't have to arrive without scars to belong in the gathering. you don't have to be perfect to have a place but God says I've got enough power that I'll begin with people who are hurting and my ideal is nations at peace and communities that will flourish when they yield their idols to my ideal here's the word of God for somebody God has an ideal for your life. That's the word that somebody needed. God has a plan for your life. God has ideals for your life. God has a plan that is above your plan. God has a way that is above your way.

1:32:24 God's got a purpose that is above any purpose that you can organize and strategize and plan for your life. But the question is, do you want God's ideal enough to let go of the idol? I want God's ideal for my life.

1:32:47 I don't want to settle. Watch this. As good as I think, and I'm a decent planner. As good as I think my plans are. As good as I think my plans are, as good as I think my strategies are, I got to yield my plan and my strategy to God's strategy.

1:33:10 Because God is the best of planners. Because God is the best of knowers. Because God's plan was orchestrated for my life before the very foundation of the world. I want God's ideal for my life. God says, Dr. Micah, in order for you to have that ideal, Israel and Judah have got to lay down their idols.

1:33:37 They've got to lay down their idols and trust me and embrace me. Here's the kicker, and then I'm going to move on. If God's vision gathers the vulnerable, if God's vision ensures a place for those who are laying for those who are pushed aside if God's vision is one of peace if God's vision is of communities that are empowered why is it that we don't question every public policy that pushes that to the side y'all don't have to say nothing God says I got a future that I want to bring into fruition I've got a plan I've got a future that I want to see come to pass so why is it that people call health care for all socialism God says I've got a plan where ain't nobody gonna be afraid where everybody's gonna have food everybody's gonna have some place to live so why is affordable housing something that Christians are debating about God says I want food on every table I want abundance for every one of my children so why is it that food benefits for children and women and infants is a problem for people who claim to love God it's because they want the plan just for judah they want a plan just for israel when god says i've got a plan for the whole world god says i'm planning for peace and they start planning for humiliation god gathers the vulnerable and they start gathering and planning against them.

1:35:24 God promises a future and they presume the authority to start taking it away. God says, I've got a plan for Israel. I've got a plan for Judah. But if you read the A clause of Micah chapter four, verse 11, it says, but now the nations whom I've got a plan for, the nations that I'm gonna use you to be a blessing to, they're against you. they start drafting plans of their own they start drafting plans like project 2025 designed to strip the people of their power designed to centralize authority in the hands of a fascist president they start drafting plans like the plans to redistrict judah to water down judite political power they start drafting plans to miseducate the judite children to make them ignorant of their history because of how it makes their imperial oppressors feel about them they they start drafting plans to eliminate a federal department of education plans to roll back civil rights gains plans to dismantle diversity equity and inclusion they start drafting plans

1:36:46 and here's the question whose whose futures are these plans building who is protected and who is pushed aside I'm so glad children of God that the text does not end with the plans of the powerful I'm so glad that the text does not end with the plans of the men in the White House in Assyria I said I'm so glad that the tech did not end with the plans of the Republicans in Assyria. Or the plans to do nothing of the Democrats in Babylon. But Micah says to the children of Israel, they've gathered against you. They're making plans to oppose you.

1:37:44 but they don't know the thoughts and the plans of the Lord. Can I help somebody? They might have a plan, but they don't have the final word. Is that good news to somebody? They might have a plan, but they don't have the final word. Can I get a witness here? And that's why Micah can look at the same conditions that the nations see and announce a different conclusion his conclusion is that i've heard something that the assyrians haven't heard i know something that the babylonians don't know he knows that their opposition is not to zion but their opposition is really to god can I help somebody here that's why you don't have to fight the battle on your job that's why you don't have to cuss and fuss at school I said that's why you don't have to worry about how it's gonna work out because when they fight you they're really fighting God have I got a witness here So go ahead and go to bed tonight.

1:39:12 I said, say your prayers. Pull up the covers and go to sleep in faith. Because they're not fighting you. They're fighting God. Have I got a witness here?