KNOWING GOD RIGHTLY
LIFEWAY QUARTERLY FALL 2020 SESSION 12
ISAIAH 58:1-12
One of my favorite comic books is Archie and Jughead. One strip shows Jughead running down the hallway of Riverdale High School being chased by “Moose” the school’s star football player. Jughead runs by Archie shouting: “Archie, help! Moose is trying to kill me!” Moose comes flying around the corner: “I’m not gonna just kill ya Jughead… I’m gonna break every bone in your body and stuff your remains in your locker and sell tickets as I do it!” Archie steps in front of Moose: “What happened Moose? Why do you want to kill Jughead?” “He gave me a bad student peer review on my term paper! He said my subject and title was lame!” “What was the title and paper about Moose?” “LOVING THY NEIGHBOR!!!”
Do we see any discrepancies here? Do you think somebody’s written a paper and missed the point completely? As humorous an example as this is; many times as Believers we can miss the point of our Faith. Our daily worship, spiritual disciplines, “obedience”, and praise become empty mindless ritual that is neither pleasing to God nor effective in our lives to becoming more like Jesus. We want to please God but we are completely ignorant of what pleases Him. We find ourselves going through “motions” of worship, “the letter” of spiritual discipline and praise thinking we are pleasing Him trying to manipulate more than to know. When we fail and are not successful (see James 1:2-8; 4:1-10) we become delusional, confused, and angry at the distance between ourselves and God- completely unaware of our own hypocrisy and motives. Instead of blessing, closeness, growth, reconciliation, forgiveness and harmony with God and our neighbor we experience judgment, loneliness, atrophy, contention, and strife. This is precisely where Israel (the Southern Kingdom of Judah) found themselves before the exile, and it is the place Isaiah is reminding them not to return to after the exile. Within Isaiah’s exhortation lies the personal and corporate choice of either more wearying judgment for Israel or the future hope of closeness with God, righteousness, and mutual encouragement, restoration and blessing for Israel and the nations and neighbors they have been called to be a “light” to. What can we learn from this passage to help us in our worship and in pleasing God? What can we learn that will help us, help our neighbor and fulfill our Great Commission Calling towards the redemptive power of the Gospel in our lives and serve as a catalyst of Godly Faith, Hope and Love in the lives of others? Let’s find out…
Orthodoxy (true and proper doctrine) must be congruent with Orthopraxy (true {integral}and proper practice). God has called Isaiah to speak Truth (facts) to the people, because they have been practicing proper things, but ignoring more important priorities and doing so with wrong motives. Isaiah is there to remind them that Truth that has no thorough integrity across its doctrine, practice and motive is not obedience at all in God’s eyes. The people are seeking God but they are not seeking His justice, they are seeking the power and works of His hand on their behalf but not His righteousness, they are seeking God to grant their desires but not interested in His desires or His desires for their neighbors and the only way this can be corrected is if the people will hear the Truth. Truth was vital to their restoration and healing, Truth was vital to their forgiveness, their mission and their knowing and closeness of God. Just as we cannot build close, sincere, and lasting human relationships on the foundations of lies we cannot build a church or a godly and spiritually pleasing life on hypocritical conduct fueled by impure motives. The people needed a dose of truthful reality not just away from their ignorant and imperfect focus but towards God’s wise and perfect focus. Israel was doing the appropriate letter and practice of “fasting” and God was still not pleased with them… They wanted to know: “what are we doing wrong?” And God’s answer was “What you are NOT doing right.” What they have sinfully committed is their omitting of righteousness and justice towards their neighbor. They have brought to God an empty gesture of self-denial (fasting and depriving themselves of food for personal piety) instead of denying oppression, wickedness, and injustice a foothold in their community by going out of their way to advocate for their neighbor’s and own family’s needs.
As believers we need to be careful in not practicing a “self-absorbed” religious piety. We need to be honest, and humble in examining our motives and our practices in light of God’s Truth, the holy, gracious and loving character of His person, and genuine concern of others. Our eyes need to be wide open to the needs of our community and those around us and constantly be examining those needs in light of God’s Word, His commands, mission and calling over our lives. In short we must not only do no harm to our neighbor to be pleasing to God in our “piety” and service but we must not dare ignore their need we must be attentive to and for others in order to keep from being self-possessed and absorbed in ignorance. This is something Israel and we ourselves constantly struggle with as we seek to follow God and be more like Jesus. So what are some practical things we can do to safeguard our hearts from such spiritual blindness and ignorance? How can we “root out” hypocrisy in our churches and in our lives according to the text?
The first way we have already discussed: not only know the Truth but value it more than our own desires. Align our hearts with God’s heart by knowing His Word, His person and putting the love He has shown us into practice. Secondly, be aware of others around us: the great irony in this passage is that it is not about “proper fasting” but proper biblical hospitality (see verses 6-8). It is not about the “scarcity” and self-denial of food, but the abundance and liberal distribution of God’s spiritual treasures that He has stored up in our hearts being freely given to others. Biblical hospitality is more than just a party or fellowship. Isaiah makes clear that Israel (and us) know that we are to welcome the poor, the stranger, the deprived, the downtrodden, and alien among us and advocate for them… Why? They are precious to God and we were once one of them. The Israelites were aliens and slaves in Egypt and the Old Testament is full of sermons and reminders of God graciously seeking and bringing them out into His blessing. God’s children are to behave and immolate their Father the same way in actions, conduct and attitude towards others. When I was a kid my parents, church, school and community used to stress: “STRANGER DANGER”! “Don’t talk to strangers!” My 18 year old daughter will laugh and roll her eyes at me when I tell her not to talk to strangers and be careful as she goes with her High School Robotics team into a board room with strange adults to present their robot. The truth of the matter is that what happens when we welcome and care for our estranged neighbor, that person who is different from us, or in need of our help is they are strangers no longer and they might be just one step closer to God not being a “stranger” in their lives and we ourselves will know God better as well.
Finally, when we disconnect the two greatest commandments (Love of God and love of neighbor Mark 12) from each other by indifference and apathy towards others we show that we truly don’t know and understand the love of God at all and our witness to the World is suspect. When Christians are known more for what they are against than whose they are and who they are for (God and neighbor {in that order}) when they are known more for their anger than their love, for what they want and the extremes of compromise they are willing to go to get it more than the extremes for what they are willing to give and sacrifice like Jesus did they will not only be estranged from their neighbor and groping in darkness but as Isaiah says they are estranged from God (see the last 6 verses) and His blessing. On the other hand, Isaiah offers the people GREAT HOPE in God’s blessing. When they understand and know the love of God as displayed through the way they love Him and others then their darkness will turn to light, and their land and people will be restored and redeemed. The same is true of us, when Jesus turns our hearts from darkness to the magnificent revelation and light of His love and grace in our lives through the cross and resurrection, when we gaze upon His wondrous face and righteousness and abide in the vine of His love, power and strength we will never be the same and we can never treat anyone the way we used to without being reminded of God and His grace to us and the urgency to treat others the same as a witness of life to them. When we abide in the love of God we will find the strength to abide in love towards our neighbor and walk in better understanding and knowledge of God: His righteousness, holiness, wisdom and love.
This Thursday is Thanksgiving. I just want to say how thankful I am for all of you and your mutual encouragement that you have given me and my family. I know this Thanksgiving will be different and difficult for many of us, however: know better days are ahead of us and out of the ashes and trials of 2020 will come the restoration and revival of 2021. It might be longer in coming than we hope- but our confidence, and our expectations do not rest in our circumstances but in our loving and all powerful God. I am thankful most of all for Him and His abiding with us during this time. Let us keep abiding, let us keep loving, let us keep protecting, hoping, and persevering because His love never fails! God bless all of you and Happy Thanksgiving! We will be together soon! Praying ALL God’s best in your life! Love in Christ, Darrin…