Micah 03: Come to Jesus Meeting

A hard truth can save a life, and Micah 3 brings one of the hardest truths in Scripture straight to the doorstep of leadership. We walk through the prophet’s blistering words to rulers, priests, and prophets who traded justice for bribes and truth for comfort, and we ask what that means for anyone who serves today. With a candid personal story and practical guardrails, we explore how motives shape ministries, teams, and everyday acts of service—and why God cares as much about the heart as the outcome.

We dig into the difference between fair compensation and a transactional spirit, showing how the line gets crossed when calling becomes commodity. Micah’s warnings about presumption—“No harm can come to us, for the Lord is here among us”—reveal how sacred spaces cannot shield corrupt systems. Instead, integrity, humility, and justice form the only foundation that lasts. Along the way, we highlight the prophet’s claim to speak “with the Spirit of the Lord,” contrasting power rooted in God with influence rented by favors.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your service still pleases God when applause fades, or how to lead without selling your soul, this conversation offers both clarity and courage. We end with a heart check: for those serving for the wrong reasons, it’s time to realign; for those serving unseen, don’t quit—God sees and will reward in due time. Subscribe, share this with someone who leads, and leave a review to help others find the show. What motive do you need to surrender today?

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Today’s Focus
• 0:27 What A Come To Jesus Meeting Means
• 1:04 Housekeeping And Community Invites
• 1:26 Micah’s Context And Crisis
• 3:40 The Junior High Story
• 4:49 Leaders Warned And Judgment Foretold
• 6:45 Paid Ministry Versus Serving Hearts
• 9:02 Serving Without Pay And Misaligned Motives
• 10:44 Heart Check And Encouragement
• 12:00 Prayer And Final Charge

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01: 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Micah chapter three, and we're going to call today's title Come to Jesus Meeting. Come to Jesus Meeting. Now, if you don't know what that is, you're about to because Micah chapter three is a Southern man's version of, I done had enough, y'all. And he's going to tell us about what it is. And I think that these moments that they can be very helpful for us in a lot of ways if you can survive them, because they're usually not something you want to hear, but they're something you need to hear. And so we're going to read this and just be real thankful that God's talking to them and not us. And it's going to be a lot of fun. So if you have your Bibles, want to open up with me to Micah chapter three. I'm going to give you just a moment because I know it can be kind of hard to find. But while you're doing that, make sure you take just a moment, like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help. And make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job. And you can go to the Biblebreakdown.com to get all that information. Well, if you've been with us the past couple days, we are calling Micah direction during difficulty. And during the life of Micah, he is a southern prophet. Actually, call him the country prophet. He is like he is from the south. But during his lifetime, the northern kingdom is actually overthrown by Assyria. And so he sees all these things that's going on and he is giving direction, just trying to cry out to the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom, but he's also warning the southern kingdom and Judah. And he's saying, hey, listen, we're right behind them if we don't stop. And we're going to see this today. And to kind of give you a little bit of a background, real quick, just real, real quick, um, the first time I heard a come to Jesus meeting, I was in junior high. And I've not heard something from my parents before, but this is the one I remember, right? I was in junior high. I played basketball on this junior high team, and we were really not that good. And the reason we were not that good is because in junior high, okay, that seventh grade, we had a 6'5 basketball player. This man hit a gross spurt early on. And so he was way taller than the rest of us. His name was Chad. And our job, all four of us on the court with Chad made five, we had one job. Pass Chad the ball. That is all we had to do. And our coach did not like that, but what are we going to do? Because all the other kids were as small as we were, right? And I still remember the day that Chad had a bad game. And he had a bad game because he just wasn't in the mood. He just didn't care. And the coach had one play, pass Chad the ball. And the coach also knew that Chad was playing badly just because he didn't, he wasn't trying. And I have never heard what we used to also call a butt chewing, a uh a come to Jesus meeting, a um, a helpful conversation, a difficult conversation. You get all the metaphors when he basically told Chad, Chad, you need to stop it. Pull pull pull your pants up, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, like do all whatever you got to do and get out there and do it. You got to stop this, right? And that was my first in you know, inner uh introduction to a come to Jesus meeting where you are gonna stop everything you're doing right now, everything you've been doing before now is wrong. Quit it. And that's what we're going to see today in Micah chapter three, because Israel's leaders are leading them right off a cliff. They are leading them right into this destruction that we now know is on its way. And Micah is telling them, he has come all the way from the south to wave a flag and say, please turn around. I'm I'm I'm doing a come to Jesus meeting because you're going the wrong way. So we're going to read this. We're going to see if any of this resonates with us today. So if you're ready, Micah chapter 3, verse 1 says this. I said, Listen, you leaders of Israel, you are supposed to know right from wrong, but you are the very ones who hate good and love evil. You skin my people alive and tear the flesh from their bones. Yes, you eat my people's flesh, strip off their skin, and break their bones. You chop them up and like meat in a cooking pot. Pause. This is metaphorical. Okay, there's as far as I know in my reading, there is no evidence that there was cannibalism going on in the northern kingdom. Basically, what he's saying is you are taking complete advantage of the people. Okay, just need to say that before any of us get sick. Okay, verse 4. Then you beg the Lord for help in times of trouble. Now, I I just broke that up. So what he's saying is, is you are doing all this terrible stuff to my people, and then you come to me and ask me for help. Like, that's crazy. All right. Do you really expect him to answer? After all the evil you have done, he won't even look at you. This is what the Lord says. You false prophets are leading my people astray. You promise peace for those who give you food, but you declare war on those who refuse to feed you. Now the night will close around you, cutting off all your visions. Darkness will cover you, putting an end to your predictions. The sun will set for you prophets, and your day will come to an end. Then you seers will be put to shame, and you fortune tellers will be disgraced, and you will cover your faces, because there is no answer from God. But as for me, I am filled with power with the Spirit of the Lord. I am filled with justice and strength to boldly declare Israel's sin and rebellion. Listen to me, you leaders of Israel. You hate justice and twist all that is right. You are building Jerusalem on a foundation of murder and corruption. You rulers make decisions based on bribes, you priests teach God's law only for a price. You prophets won't prophesy unless you are paid. Yet all of you claim to depend on the Lord. No harm can come to us, you say, for the Lord is here among us. Because of you, Mount Zion will be ploughed like an open field. Jerusalem will be reduced to ruins. A thicket will grow on the heights where the temple now stands. That's a come to Jesus meeting. Now, let's make sure we have context to what's going on. There was nothing wrong with compensating the priests and the different ones who were working in the temple and the prophets. That was their job. That's what they do. The problem was they were not willing to work unless they were being compensated the way they wanted to be compensated. So in other words, they weren't doing it for the Lord, and then they were compensated so that they could do the work. It was the other way around. What it reminds me of is I remember when I was talking to a guy one time, and I was in this conversation, and this one guy I noticed like you was getting it so right. And the other guy, I was like, uh, I don't think that's the way it's supposed to work, right? So in the ministry world, I'm I'm a pastor, and so in the ministry world, there was this one guy who was trying to explain what it was like to be a pastor, you know, and and and make get a salary and this kind of stuff. And the one guy said, What I do is I serve the church. I, you know, book of Ephesians, I equip the saints for ministry and I create systems to help facilitate ministry. And I can't do that and work this secular job because of the amount of time. So what my church does is they they pay me a salary so that I'm free to build up the church. Another guy says, Oh, no, no, you got that completely wrong. This is my expertise. This is what I do. And I will not build up the church unless you pay me. And I'm sitting there going, one of those sounds awesome, and one of those sounds gross. You know what I'm saying? And so it was like, okay, I realize which one, which one I need to be going toward. But can I tell you, that's not just pastors, that's anybody. I've seen that in so many different facets when it comes to honoring and serving God. I've seen people who have said, you know what, I'm going to serve God's church. I'm going to build up the kingdom of God. And as long as I can do it without compensation, I will. But if it gets to a place where I literally can't do it anymore because I got to take care of my family, okay, then I can't do it anymore or compensation. On the other side, I've heard people say, um, how much does it pay? I remember one time at our church, we we love to serve each other at our church, and I love this so much that we have just a heart to serve one another. But every once in a while we'll have somebody who don't understand that, right? And so one time we were talking about opportunities to serve one another as part of a spiritual family. And and there's this one position that I love so much in our church, and it's where people who hand out worship guides because what they're doing is they're giving people access to information going to the church and also it's it's the worship guide, but it's also the smile that they give. I just I love that opportunity to connect with people in that way. And I remember one time we were talking about this, and this guy was like, Yeah, I'd love to get involved around here and serve. I said, Okay, great. Would you like to do that? And he's like, Well, how much does it pay? I was like, What do you mean pay? You know, when we're serving each other around here. And this guy's oh, oh no, I don't work for free. I said, Well, first of all, you're not working, it's it's serving one another. And on another thing, I was like, dude, the best things in life are free, and that's part being part of something bigger than yourself. And he was like, I never thought about it like that. And I was like, Well, yeah, and that doesn't mean that we don't compensate people when it's necessary. However, the goal is to serve one another. And that's what Micah is saying. He's like, man, absolutely, but it's the heart that matters, it's the heart behind it. And he was challenging them to say, Man, listen, man, you got all the skills, but your heart's wrong. You need a heart change, or judgment's coming. Once again, spoiler alert, judgment comes. And so I say all that stuff to say, like, we can we can do the right things for the wrong reasons, and it all falls apart. We can do the wrong things for the wrong reasons, and of course it falls apart. The difference is the heart, and here's the thing only God knows the heart. So I want to ask you this question where is your heart today? And and this is a deep one because on the outside, you may be serving at a high capacity. Maybe you go to a local church, and I know there's people who literally listen from all over the world right now, so I know culture is a little bit different, but you may serve in your church and you get the dream teamer of the year. I don't know, you you serve so well, but you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Can I tell you, if you do it for the wrong reasons, Jesus said you've already got your reward. The praise you get from men, that was your reward. Are you serving for the right reason? On the other side, you may be serving with all your heart and you're serving for the right reason, but you're not being noticed. And it's discouraging. There's nothing wrong with wanting to feel like you matter to somebody. That's not that's not a sin, it's nothing wrong with that. The point is, is leave it in the hands of God. The come to Jesus meeting for you is that if you're doing all the serving but for the wrong reasons, you need to check your heart. And on the other side, if you're serving for all the right reasons and you're not getting noticed, here's your come to Jesus meeting, and that is don't give up. God sees you, and truly he's the only one that matters. And in the right moment, the Bible says that the Lord who sees in secret will reward you openly. Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you talk to us about the the deep things, sometimes the difficult things, sometimes the the fuzzy things, and sometimes the idea of serving one another can get fuzzy because there's nuance to it. But you see the heart. I'm so thankful that you see the heart and you see us in so many different ways. My prayer is today, God, that we will see you in these things. We will give you all of our heart, and we will trust you in all things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. What God's Word says in Micah 6, verse 8, he says, What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow from Micah chapter 4.