Heart Check

The following was preached at Veedersburg and Hillsboro UMC on Sunday, August 8, 2010.  The text for this week's sermon is Isaiah 1:1, 10-20.

Over the next few weeks, we are going to be looking at several passages that explore what it means to live a Christian life.  Last week, in Colossians, we hit the practical application portion of the letter, and saw that we need to focus our minds on things that are worthy of the kingdom of God.  If we fill our lives with junk, then we are going to have a very empty spiritual life, but if we focus on the heavenly things, we can have a more fulfilling spiritual life.

This week, we are jumping to the Old Testament and the opening chapter of Isaiah.  Isaiah was a prophet who lived in the 8th century B.C.  The book opens up by letting us know that Isaiah’s ministry took place during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.  Tradition tells us that Isaiah’s ministry extended into the time of Hezekiah’s son Manasseh.  Many believe that the writer of Hebrews is referencing Isaiah’s death at the hands of Manasseh in Hebrews 11:37.

Besides being told the timeframe of his ministry, we are also told that Isaiah is the son of Amoz.  We don’t really know who Amoz is; he is not mentioned in Scripture.  I think this is an important point for us to reflect on for just a minute.  Isaiah, one of the most well known Old Testament prophets comes from an obscure background.  Isaiah is quoted numerous times in the New Testament, and the writings found in this book of Scripture cover a lot of very important topics, and yet, we know relatively little about his personal life.

So, what’s the lesson here?  God doesn’t need us to be famous, or to come from an influential background, in order to accomplish His will through us.  We don’t know where Isaiah came from, but that’s not important when it comes to being faithful to God’s call.  God equips those whom he sends.  We have to be willing to answer God’s call, and God will take care of the rest.  This is definitely the case when it comes to the difficult things that we have to do, and when we come to the opening chapter of Isaiah, we see that Isaiah’s ministry was going to be one that would be filled with difficult times.

The opening speech of Isaiah’s book is scathing towards the people of Israel.  In verses 2-9, Isaiah refers to the people of Israel as a people who have rebelled against the Lord.  He calls them a “sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.”  Can you imagine hearing this for the first time?  Being the target audience?  The people of Israel were probably pretty happy with the way that things were going at the time, and along comes this hot-shot prophet, calling them out for the sins that had become so normal in their lives.  And he continues this scathing word in today’s reading.

He refers to them as rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah.  If you don’t know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, I want to invite to you take a look at Genesis 19 when you get home.  To give you the quick summary of what happens there, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were filled with wicked people.  In fact, the people there were so bad, that God decided to bring judgment upon them, and both towns were laid to waste.  

Here, in the opening chapter of his book, Isaiah is basically saying that the people of Judah and Jerusalem are just like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah – far from being the best of the best, as the chosen people of God should be, they were being compared to the worst of the worst.  It was only by God’s grace that these people did not suffer the same fate as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

But here’s the sad thing: the people of Judah and Jerusalem thought that they were doing all right.  They brought their sacrifices to the Temple.  They performed the rituals that they were supposed to perform.  By the external measures, they were doing all right.  And yet, their sacrifices were meaningless.  Their rituals were empty.  Why?  Because they didn’t back it up with their hearts.  It’s pretty easy to say all the things that we are supposed to say.  We can go through the motions and say and do the right things; however, in the end, it all comes down to the question: where is your heart?

In verse 11, God speaks through the prophet, “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?”  Did God really need the sacrificial system?  When we read through the Old Testament, and get to the part that starts talking about the sacrificial system, we tend to gloss over it.  We don’t think it matters.  We think it is outrageously boring.  The truth is, we just don’t understand it.  We’ve never seen the sacrificial system that is described in the Old Testament in practice.  It is weird to us, and so, we don’t pay attention to it, but the sacrificial system was put in place so that the people would know the severity of their sins.

If you sin against your neighbor, or if you sin against God, it’s costly.  It’s costly not just because of the expense of purchasing or losing an animal for the sacrifice.  It’s costly because something had to shed its blood to cover that sin.  But eventually, the people lost sight of that.  Sacrifices became ways to make up for the wrongdoing in one’s life.  That is a significantly different perspective, isn’t it?

It reminds me of what happened in the Christian Church prior to the Reformation.  The Reformation was a time when people were tired of a corrupt leadership in the Church.  At this point in history, if you were a Christian, you were either Catholic or Eastern Orthodox; those two had split ways hundreds of years before over a political and theological dispute.  There was no such thing as a Protestant Church at the time.

In the early 16th century, a man named Tetzel was very aggressive in selling what was known as indulgences.  Without getting into too much detail, an indulgence in Catholic theology is a pardon for sin.  People were purchasing indulgences for family members who had passed away and were spending time in Purgatory, another aspect of Catholic theology in which one “works off” the sins they committed during their lifetime.  Others purchased indulgences for themselves, so that they could be forgiven of the sins that they had committed.  And you can see the downward spiral.  

Some people began purchasing indulgences for sins that they would commit in the future.  In one of my classes in college, we were talking about indulgences, and the professor told us a story of a guy who approached a priest selling indulgences, and he asked, “If I purchase an indulgence, will my sin be absolved?”  To which the priest replied, “Yes.  This will absolve your sins.”  “Well, what about sins, I’ve yet to commit?”  “Yes, it will do that as well.”  So the man purchased an indulgence from the priest, and then robbed the priest knowing that his sin would be absolved.

Originally, this is not at all what indulgences were supposed to be, but it became a system by which a person could do whatever they wanted, as long as they sought forgiveness for their sins.  The same happened in the sacrificial system.  Eventually, the sacrificial system became a way to work around certain sins in one’s life.  It no longer was seen as a teaching tool to let us know about the serious nature of sin.  It became a Get Out of Jail Free card – not at all what it was supposed to be.

What God is saying here is, “Look, I don’t need your sacrifices.  I don’t need your empty rituals.  I need your hearts to be in the right place.”  God didn’t depend on the sacrifices of the people in order to live.  Earlier this year, a remake of the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans was released in theaters.  I enjoyed it, but let’s be honest, it doesn’t take a whole lot for me to enjoy a movie; put in a lot of action, and I’m in good shape.  Near the beginning of the movie, the Greek gods are getting weaker because humanity is no longer praying to them.  Their strength came from the adoration and prayers of humanity, which is fine for a movie, which is fine for Greek mythology.  But, as we read Scripture, we are not reading mythology.  We are reading about God, Yahweh, the Creator of the universe, the Almighty Lord, and God is not dependent on humanity.  God is self-sustaining and eternal.  God is not in need or want of anything.

Empty, worthless sacrifices don’t do anything for God.  In fact, they don’t do anything at all but reveal what is truly in our hearts.  Let’s put it in today’s context.  Coming to church on Sunday morning doesn’t mean anything unless you are coming with a heart that is open to God.  If you aren’t here to take in the Word of God, if you aren’t here to worship God, then why are you here?  Empty actions do nothing for our spiritual lives.  We can fake it all we want, but we will never fool God, who knows what is in our hearts.

Now, does this mean that non-Christians have no place in the Church?  Absolutely not!  A non-Christian has the potential to be more open to what God is doing than somebody who has been attending church for decades.  A non-Christian may not be in a right relationship with God, but that doesn’t mean that their heart isn’t moving in the right direction.  Look again at what God is saying through the prophet Isaiah.

In verses 16-17, He says, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”  He’s saying that it’s important for us to not just go through the motions.  In Leviticus 11, God doesn’t say, “Act holy for I am holy.”  He says, “Be holy, for I am holy.”  The actions are nice, but if the heart is not behind it, then they are empty and pointless.

In the closing verses, God says, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword.”  God doesn’t want our empty and pointless actions.  God wants us to be obedient.  If we think that we can do whatever we want in this life and get away with it because all we have to do is ask for forgiveness, then we are going to find out that we are sorely mistaken.

God will not grant us forgiveness if we are not serious about it.  God will not just shrug off our sin.  Again, the point of the sacrificial system was to show the people that sin costs dearly.  In the end, sin can cost our lives.  On the flip side, even though our sins are as red as blood, they will whiter than snow because of God’s forgiveness.  When we come to God with our hearts in the right place, our sins are wiped away.

Do you ever wonder why there is no sacrificial system any more?  There is no sacrificial system because the ultimate sacrifice was made in Jesus Christ.  Sin is still costly.  In fact, it is so costly, that it takes the blood of God’s only Son to atone for it.  When we come asking for forgiveness, we are able to do it because of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross.

If we think that we can just take that forgiveness for granted, then we are no better than the people of Judah and Jerusalem to whom Isaiah is addressing in this passage.  They were no better than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and their sacrificial system was built around doves, sheep and bulls.  How much worse off are we who take advantage of a sacrificial system built around the only Son of God?

The call that we hear from the opening chapter of Isaiah this morning is difficult.  It is a call for us to examine our hearts in light of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness that is made available because of it.    The Christian life is not about going through the motions.  It is about living with your heart in the right place.