Do Justice, Love Kindness, Walk Humbly with God

Devotional

Day 1: Planting Trees Whose Shade We’ll Never Sit Under

A society’s greatness grows when generations work for futures they won’t see. This theme calls us to embrace the slow, faithful labor of justice without demanding immediate results. Like farmers planting seeds or builders laying foundations, we trust God to multiply small acts of obedience. Our role is not to finish the work but to tend our part of the field. Success is measured by faithfulness, not visible outcomes. [56:35]

“He has told you, O mortal, 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?” (Micah 6:8, NRSV)

Reflection: Where have you hesitated to act because results felt uncertain? How might embracing “planting” over “harvesting” change your approach to serving others?

Day 2: When Mercy Isn’t a Feeling But a Lunchbox

Chesed—God’s stubborn, action-based love—demands more than sentimental charity. It means feeding immigrants like Deuteronomy commands, supporting food pantries, and asking why people hunger. This love climbs upstream to fix broken systems while still pulling drowning neighbors from the river. It’s the difference between pity and partnership, between handing out meals and dismantling poverty. [47:34]

“The Lord executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow.” (Psalm 146:7-9, NRSV)

Reflection: What “downstream” act of kindness comes easily to you? What “upstream” systemic issue could you begin learning about this week?

Day 3: The Humility of Not Being the Messiah

Walking humbly means carrying justice work like a backpack, not a crown. It’s the difference between “I will save them” and “God, use me.” When we confront societal brokenness, humility guards against burnout and arrogance. It lets us labor through small obediences—donating, volunteering, advocating—without needing to be heroes. The real Messiah works through our mustard seeds. [52:26]

“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:10, NRSV)

Reflection: Where does your passion for justice risk becoming pride? How could prayer reshape that passion into partnership with God?

Day 4: Bibles, Biscuits, and the Danger of Assumptions

Scripture demands careful digging, like distinguishing London biscuits from Southern ones. Just as words like “justice” shift meanings across cultures, reading Micah requires wrestling with ancient Hebrew, not modern hashtags. This work guards against weaponizing Bible verses. Every text becomes a stranger we must ask, “What did you mean then?” before assuming, “What do you say now?” [40:33]

“You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge.” (Deuteronomy 24:17, NRSV)

Reflection: When have you misapplied Scripture by ignoring its original context? What one Bible passage could you study more deeply this month?

Day 5: Orphans, Widows, Immigrants—God’s Report Card

Micah grades societies on four metrics: how they treat parentless children, grieving spouses, foreign neighbors, and the economically crushed. These groups measure mishpat—not courtrooms but communal care. It’s less about laws than about who eats. A just church doesn’t just serve these groups but follows them into leadership, letting their voices shape the community’s priorities. [44:08]

“For the Lord your God…loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19, NRSV)

Reflection: Which of Micah’s four groups feels most distant from your daily life? What’s one step toward listening to their experiences this month?

Sermon Summary

Micah 6:8 brings the question right to the front: what is good, and what does the Lord require? The Lord answers with three simple phrases that are not small at all: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God. The text asks for more than quick agreement, because words change across generations, geography, and translation. The old Hebrew words require a humble posture before Scripture, a willingness to ask what God was saying then and what God is saying now through the living Word.

Mishpat, translated justice, does not mainly mean punishment or somebody getting what was deserved. Mishpat asks whether a society is organized so that the most vulnerable are cared for, especially orphans, widows, immigrants, and the poor. Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Isaiah, and Amos all measure justice by the condition of those who can most easily be ignored or exploited. The Lord’s justice executes mishpat for the needy and stands against decrees that rob the poor of their right. Micah’s command to do justice means working to design a world that takes care of the vulnerable and finding out why people are needy in the first place.

Chesed, translated kindness, mercy, steadfast love, faithful love, and unswerving love, names love that is not just sentiment. Chesed is committed love that shows itself through action. Acts of hunger relief, mission, care, and service become ways of sharing chesed with people in need. Chesed does not only pull people out of the river; chesed also goes upstream to ask what systems and structures are causing people to fall in.

Walking humbly with God supplies the strength and wisdom needed for justice and mercy. The world remains complicated, and people can have very different ideas about what a more just society should look like. Humility remembers that there is a Messiah, and it is not the mortal servant. The means of grace keep service from becoming bitter, resentful, and burned out.

Micah’s “O mortal” reminds every servant that power, time, and ability are limited. Faithfulness refuses to measure obedience only by visible success. The image of elderly people planting trees whose shade they will never sit under names the long obedience of mishpat and chesed. Oscar Romero’s life showed what a Micah 6:8 life can cost, and the Romero prayer gives freedom to be workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs; prophets of a future not owned by the present.

Key Takeaways

1. Justice protects the exposed and forgotten. Mishpat is not first about punishment, but about the shape of a community. Biblical justice asks how the orphan, widow, immigrant, and poor are doing, because their condition reveals the truth about the whole society. God’s people are called beyond private decency into public concern for the structures that either shelter the vulnerable or grind them down. [43:37]
2. Chesed is love with hands. Chesed refuses to stay as sentiment, mood, or good intention. Steadfast love becomes visible in food, clothing, mission, care, and costly commitment to people who are suffering. Mercy becomes faithful when love keeps showing up after emotion alone would have gone home. [47:07]
3. Mercy must also go upstream. Charity lifts people out of the river, and that work matters deeply. Justice asks why so many keep falling in, and whether something upstream is broken, dangerous, or designed without the vulnerable in mind. Faithful love holds both together: immediate compassion for pain and patient labor against the causes of pain. [49:11]
4. Humility rejects playing Messiah. Doing justice and loving kindness can turn bitter when human beings imagine they have all the answers. Walking humbly with God remembers that there is a Messiah, and finite servants are not him. Humility does not weaken action; it keeps action connected to wisdom, grace, and the power of God. [52:08]
5. Faithfulness outlasts visible success. The question is not always whether the work can be proven successful in a lifetime. Micah’s “O mortal” places limits on human sight, power, and control. Faithfulness plants trees for shade that another generation may enjoy, trusting the Master Builder to finish what workers can only begin. [56:13]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[35:10] - Micah and the Word Needed Today
[35:50] - What the Lord Requires
[36:41] - Why Words Need Humility
[42:12] - Mishpat as Biblical Justice
[44:28] - Justice for Orphans, Widows, Immigrants, and Poor
[46:20] - Designing a World for the Vulnerable
[46:51] - Chesed as Steadfast Love in Action
[49:11] - Charity Downstream and Justice Upstream
[49:55] - Walking Humbly With God
[52:08] - There Is a Messiah
[54:01] - Staying in Love Through Grace
[55:02] - Mortals Called to Faithfulness
[57:31] - Oscar Romero and a Micah Life
[59:50] - The Romero Prayer and the Long View

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading

Micah 6:8

“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?” [35:50]

Deuteronomy 10:18

“He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.” [44:30]

Isaiah 10:1-2

“Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!” [45:24]

Psalm 136:1

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” [48:19]

Observation questions

In Micah 6:8, what are the three things the Lord requires, and how are they stated? [36:18]
Which groups are repeatedly named as the clearest test of whether a society is just? [43:58]
In Deuteronomy 10:18, what actions of God are named toward the fatherless, widow, and sojourner?
What words were used to help describe chesed, and what made that kind of love different from mere sentiment? [47:17]

Interpretation questions

If biblical justice is about how a society is organized, how does that deepen the meaning of Micah’s command to “do justice” beyond simply punishing wrongdoing? [43:28]
Isaiah warns against laws and decrees that push needy people aside. What does that suggest about God’s concern not only for personal behavior, but also for public systems and structures? [45:24]
Chesed includes acts of mercy for people already hurting, but it also goes upstream to ask why so many are falling into trouble. How do mercy and justice need each other here? [49:24]
Micah says to walk humbly with God, and humility includes remembering that there is a Messiah and it is not any one of us. How might that protect a person from pride, harshness, or burnout while trying to help others? [52:26]

Application questions

When personal need, local need, and world need all press in at once, which vulnerable people are easiest for this group to overlook—widows, children, immigrants, the poor, or someone else nearby? What would it look like to notice them more faithfully this month? [44:04]
Where is God inviting each person not only to help someone “out of the river,” but also to ask what is happening upstream? Is there a pattern, policy, habit, or broken relationship that needs attention? [49:33]
Steadfast love is love with hands. What is one practical act of chesed each person could offer soon—food, time, presence, money, advocacy, encouragement, or something else—and what makes that act costly enough to be real love? [49:07]
Walking humbly with God means staying connected to God’s strength. What practices most help each person stay in love with God when the world feels heavy—worship, prayer, Scripture, small group, rest, confession, serving with others? Which of those has been neglected lately? [54:01]
“O mortal” is a reminder that time, power, and energy are limited. Where has someone in the group been acting as if everything depends on them? What would it look like to be faithful there without trying to be the messiah? [55:02]
Some obedience is like planting trees whose shade another generation may enjoy. Where might God be asking someone in this group to do good work that may not show visible results for a long time? [56:32]
Justice and mercy can make people bitter if they are carried without grace. Where is discouragement, resentment, or exhaustion beginning to show up, and what would humble faithfulness look like in that place this week? [54:09]

Sermon Clips

85s

“But mishpat, which we translate as justice in most English text, it had a very different meaning than how we use the word justice today. So most of the time, when you see the word justice in scripture, it's really talking about how the society was organized. Is is your society organized so that the most vulnerable among you are cared for? Or is your society organized to keep people oppressed? Is it organized where it takes advantage of the poor? It continually lifts up four groups to say, see how these four groups are doing to know how just your society is. How are the orphans? How are the widows? How are the immigrants? And how are the poor? It was an agrarian society, and those four groups often did not have land, so it was hard for them in life. And are you designing your society in a way that cares for them?”

49s

“Because we gotta make sure that we're not playing God thinking we have all the answers. We have to remember that there is a messiah, and it's not us. when we connect with the messiah, the messiah in great mercy chooses to use us to make a more just society. The messiah chooses to use us to help those who are in need.”

56s

“Mishpat and Chesed. We are to do Mishbet. Love, Chesed. And then finally, walk humbly. So when we talk about walking humbly, in order to do those two things, the justice and the mercy, we must connect ourselves to the power of God, walking with God. Because doing those two things, trying to work for a better world, trying to serve others, be unselfish, be generous, it can be hard. It can be hard.”

62s

“``So when we are asked what are or or when Micah says what we are to do, it is talking about seek a world where there is less suffering, but where there is suffering, commit yourselves to love through action, through helping. Another way of looking at this is we are not just to practice charity of lifting people out of the river. We are to also go upstream and see what are the systems and structures that are causing people to fall in to begin with. And how do we work to prevent that so we don't have so much need in our community, in our state, in our nation, and in our world.”

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