I want to run a scenario by you. It’s just
a hypothetical, probably would never happen to you, but just try to imagine
it.
Your spouse wants you to do
something. And you don’t want to.
And you don’t necessarily come out and say no, but in various ways it
becomes obvious that you really don’t want to do it. But your spouse
keeps after you and so, eventually, you do it.
But you make it clear that you did not want to do it, and that you only
did it so your spouse would get off your back.
Is your spouse going to be happy, do you think?
Probably not. But why not? You did what your spouse wanted you to
do. Why is your spouse not happy about that?
Now let’s look at another scenario. Your spouse wants
you to do something. And you say, yes, of course, dear, I’ll be happy to
do that. And not only do you say that, but you actually do it. You don’t complain, you don’t whine, you just
get up and do it, and you do it with a good attitude and a smile on your face.
Is your spouse going to be happy in this case, do you
think? Probably so. But what’s the
difference? In both cases you did what
your spouse wanted you to do. Why is your spouse happy in one case and
not happy in the other?
Well, the difference, obviously, is attitude. In the
second case, your spouse feels loved, because you’ve not only done something
for them, but you’ve done it happily and willingly in a way that shows that you
love your spouse and are you’re glad to be able to do this for your
spouse. In the first attitude, your spouse does not feel loved, because
you did not do it out of love. You just
did it to get your spouse off your back.
And that brings me to our reading from Isaiah for
today. Back in Isaiah’s time, there were a lot of requirements that the
people of Israel were supposed to follow. God, speaking through Isaiah,
references some of them in our reading for today. Burnt offerings. New moon feasts. Festivals. All kinds of things.
And it appears that the people of Isaiah’s time were
following those requirements. They were offering their burnt
offerings. They were holding the feasts
and the festivals. But they were not doing any of this out of love for
God. They were just going through the
motions. They were doing these things because they thought they had to do
them. They were giving the burnt
offerings, but they were not giving their first and their best the way they
were supposed to. They were not giving thanks to God for all God had done
for them. They were not obeying God in
the way they were living their lives.
They were doing whatever they wanted, and then they were trying to
pacify God, to get on God’s good side, by performing all the rituals the law
required.
And God was not fooled. God did not feel any love
from these rituals, because God knew they were not done out of love. In
fact, what does God say? “Stop bringing
meaningless offerings! Your incense is
detestable to me….I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.” God says of
the feasts and festivals, “I hate them with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary
of bearing them.”
We’re not told how the people of Israel responded to
that. But I can imagine them saying, “But, we’re obeying the law. We’re doing what we’re supposed to do.
Why is God not pleased with us?”
God was not pleased because God knew what was in their
hearts. And God knows what’s in our hearts, too. And just like with the people of Israel, God
is not impressed when all we do is go through the motions of having
faith. Just like your spouse is not pleased when we do something while
making it clear we really don’t want to, God is not pleased when we follow the
forms of faith without having love in our hearts.
So, does that apply to you? Does it apply to me? Are we truly following God with love for God
in our hearts? Or are we just going through the motions, following the
forms of faith without feeling love for God?
I ask those questions not knowing the answers. You
have to answer them for yourself, just as I have to answer them for
myself. And I think it’s not a question we should answer right away. We need to examine ourselves. Examine
our hearts. Examine our attitudes. Examine our feelings. Think about why we do the things we do.
Think about why we come to church on Sunday.
Think about why we support the church.
Those are good things to do, don’t get me wrong. But what God was
saying through Isaiah is that God is not pleased even when we do good things if
we’re not doing them with love in our hearts. If the good things we do
are just going through the motions of faith, if we do them just to satisfy the
forms and the rituals and the traditions, they are not really done to honor
God. And God is only pleased when we do those things to honor God.
But there’s good news. God gave the people of Israel
another chance. And God will give you and me another chance, too.
Listen to what God says to them: “Wash
and make yourselves clean...Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right.”
God would not have told us to do those things if we were
not capable of doing them. And with God’s help, we are. And when we do, listen to what God says
happens: “Though your sins are like
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they
shall be like wool.”
That’s what can happen for us. And in fact, we have
an advantage that the people of Israel did not have. In Isaiah’s time,
the Messiah had not yet come. They did
not have the example of Jesus Christ that we have. Christ’s offer of
redemption and salvation and eternal life had not yet been made.
But in our time, it has. We don’t have to wash to
make ourselves clean. All we have to do is have faith in Jesus as the
Savior. If we truly repent of our sins and ask the Lord to forgive them,
if we accept the salvation that Jesus offers, our sins are forgiven. We are
made clean. Our sins are washed
away. They are white as
snow.
That’s such an amazing thing Jesus did for us.
Because, again, think about what God told the people of Israel to do.
“Stop doing wrong. Learn to do
right.” That sounds so simple. But it’s not really simple at all, is it?
Have you ever tried to improve ourselves in some way?
Maybe it was trying to get rid of a bad habit.
Maybe it was trying to change the way we treat someone. Maybe it
was trying to be a more thoughtful and caring person or something. Most of us have all kinds of things about
ourselves that we need to improve, and most of us have tried to improve at
least some of them at various times.
It’s really hard, isn’t it? We know we need to
change. We know we should change.
We know what it is, or at least what some of the things are, that we need to
change. But doing it, actually changing ourselves, is very
hard.
So now think of what the people of Israel were up
against. “Stop doing wrong. Learn
to do right.” Yeah, okay, I know I
should. But how? How can I make
that many changes?
For the most part, they could not. And for the most
part, you and I cannot, either. Not by ourselves.
But you and I don’t have to do it by ourselves. We
have God’s Holy Spirit to help us. We
can pray for God’s Holy Spirit to enter into our hearts. And when that
happens, we can change. We can stop
doing wrong, and learn to do right.
And what’s really cool about that is the way it
happens. It does not happen because God gives us a list of things to do
and not do. It happens because God’s Holy Spirit changes our
attitude. It happens because God’s Holy
Spirit leads us to seek out the right. Not because we think we have to,
not because we’re afraid of punishment if we don’t, but because God’s Holy
Spirit leads us to want to do things that please God and that honor
God.
But remember--it all starts with our prayer. It
starts with us inviting God’s Holy Spirit into our hearts. God wants the
Holy Spirit to enter our hearts. God is
eager for the Holy Spirit to enter our hearts. But God does not force the
Holy Spirit into our hearts. We need to
open our hearts to Him. We need to invite
God’s Holy Spirit in. That can be a little scary sometimes. But when we do it, it changes
everything. It changes everything
because the Holy Spirit changes us.
God does not want us to just go through the motions of
faith. God does not want us to satisfy the forms and the rituals when our
hearts are not in it. But when our hearts are in it, when we invite God’s
Holy Spirit into our hearts, when our attitude is one that wants to please God,
when our attitude is to seek to do right and to honor God, God will see
that. And God will be pleased. And
we will receive God’s blessings. Maybe
we’ll receive them in this life, but we will certainly receive them in the next
one.
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