What does God want from us? (Sunday, December 28th, 2025)

Micah 6:6-8

The Most Important Question in Life?

It's not academic advancement, vocational success, financial stability, or anything else. It's this:

What does the Creator (God) want from you?

If you get that wrong, you’ll end up in one of two places:

Pressure: “I must do enough.” (Religious)

Drift: “It doesn’t really matter.” (Secular)

Most people live by the "Golden Rule"--i.e., "Being good,” but no one seems to fully agree on what good actually means.

Is goodness, being nice, keeping rules, following culture, or what?

Micah asks:

6 “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?

Micah is asking the most important question of our lives — "What is truly good in God’s eyes?"

How did the Jews in Micah's days answer that question?

Religion without transformation

Micah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and others observed that the Jews responded with religious observance without transformation.

The prophets all spoke to religious people who were drifting from covenant life.

God’s people were active, spiritual, and even confident.

“Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob

and rulers of the house of Israel,

who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight…

Its heads give judgment for a bribe;

its priests teach for a price;

its prophets practice divination for money;

yet they lean on the LORD and say,

‘Is not the LORD in the midst of us?

No disaster shall come upon us.’” Micah 3:9-11

But justice was broken, mercy was absent, and humility was gone.

Micah exposes a dangerous assumption:

“If I’m religious, I must be good.”

In Micah 6, God opens a courtroom scene and asks, “What have I done to you?”

God is not being sarcastic. He’s not being defensive. He’s inviting honesty.

God is saying, “If I’ve failed you, say it. If I’ve broken the covenant with you, bring your case.”

And the silence that follows isn’t fear. It’s clarity. The problem isn’t that God has been unfaithful. The problem is that His people have slowly drifted from walking with Him.

What is God's definition of "goodness," if it's not found in the religion?

Micah 6:6–8 God’s definition of goodness

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God? (6:8)

• Do justice — Not theory or concept, but actually living it out.

• Love mercy (hesed) — We become what we love.

• Walk humbly with your God — Know God and know yourself, daily.

Note: This is not how to become acceptable to God, but what life looks like when God has changed you (Not prescriptive but descriptive).

What is "goodness"?

"Goodness" is not improvement—it is transformation

Our culture thinks goodness means either being nicer than before or doing better than others (i.e., improvement).

The Bible says goodness flows from knowing who God is and knowing who you are (i.e., identity).

Walking humbly means you stop performing, you stop negotiating, and you live from an approved state of being (grace), not for approval.

Goodness grows from the inside out, not the outside in.

Jesus invites you to walk with God.

Jesus lived a life of establishing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly.

He bore judgment for drifters and sinners (Micah’s hope fulfilled)

Stop negotiating with God (“what’s the minimum?”).

Start walking with God (repent, trust, take one next step this week).