#6 The “IF Series”

IF ONLY YOU COMMITTED YOURSELF!”

 

TEXT:      Isa. 58:9-12

 

INTRO:   The easiest thing to do in life is make excuses!  And, we seem to be born with this ability; it comes quite natural for very young children!  We tend not to like rules and expectations, our natural bent is to avoid commitments, or shirk them if possible.

 

ILLUS:   One three-year old’s explanation for being in the kitchen atop a chair, eating the forbidden cookies sounds similar to our excuses for sin:  “mom, I just climbed up to smell them, and my tooth got caught on them.” - Illustrations for Biblical Preaching by Michael P. Green

 

While we smile at this cute kid, the problem with making excuses is that they tend to get even more elaborate with time and experience.  And the worst possible outcome for excuses comes in our relationship with God.

 

God’s people did this repeatedly through generation after generation.  It is part of the fruit of our sinful nature after the fall in the Garden of Eden.  Just recall the story there of how Adam and Eve fell into sin.  Eve was tempted to eat what was forbidden, and after she did the excuses started; “The serpent did cause me…”  And when Adam was confronted by God he too gave this excuse, “The woman you gave me gave me to eat…” History is replete with the continuation of this process!

 

PROP. SENT:   The Bible teaches us to avoid making excuses for not living out the life God intended; His intent is to bless us, but that only happens if we accept the responsibility to bless others and not make excuses!

 

I.   GREAT RELATIONSHIP!   Isa. 58:9a

 

A.   Favored! (By God)   Isa. 58:9a

1.   Before addressing the need of the people to stop making excuses, God entices His people with a great promise IF ONLY – they serve Him and not self!

a.   Starting with a great promise will create incentive to motivate them.

b.   The positive always sets the stage for a healthy response.

c.   God is always like this; He always started with promises first.

 

ILLUS:   If we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us?  What decisions and partings will it demand?  To answer this question we shall have to go to Him, for only He knows the answer.  Only Jesus Christ who bids us follow Him, knows the journey's end.  But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy.  Discipleship means joy. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship.  Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 5.

 

2.   God’s promise of favor if packed with favor:  “Then you will call, and the Lord will answer!”

a.   What is more wonderful than this?  God promises a direct communication, with a direct promise to answer them always!

b.   This is better than Facebook and Texting!  God’s promises response to their calling on Him.

c.   They will hold “Most favored people” status!

3.   This is the heart of love, people in love respond to each other this way.

 

B.   Friends!   Isa. 58:9a

1.   To be friends with the Almighty is an amazing reality!

a.   When we are friends with someone we love to hear from them, and to respond immediately back.

b.   The joy of friendship is that it is a mutual love and respect.  Compassion has always been a sign of God’s favor, even the world recognizes this:

 

ILLUS:   One day a student asked anthropologist Margaret Mead for the earliest sign of civilization in a given culture. He expected the answer to be a clay pot or perhaps a fish hook or grinding stone. Her answer was "a healed femur."  Mead explained that no healed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, reigns. A healed femur shows that someone cared. Someone had to do that injured person's hunting and gathering until the leg healed. The evidence of compassion is the first sign of civilization. - R. Wayne Willis, Louisville, Kentucky.  Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 4.

 

c.   Both sides care for each other enough to seek each other’s best.

2.   This has always been God’s desire with mankind:

a.   Evidence of this was the Garden of Eden before man sinned.

b.   God would meet with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, or the early hours of the day, or the early hours of the evening.

c.   God desired actual relationship and friendship with His creation!

d.   God was never interested in a slave to God relationship, or a relationship of simply powering over mankind; He created us to have fellowship with Him in a direct way.

e.   While sin removed this reality, God made plans to restore us to Himself by a blood sacrifice, which He offered Himself through His son Jesus.  His desire was to restore our friendship.

3.   As part of this “friendship” with God, our posture toward others should reflect God’s posture to us.

 

ILLUS:   We need people who, as a part of their responsibility in life, will carry the burdens and wounds of other people and be outraged by them. – Ed Danks in Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 4

 

II.  GRACOUSNESS RULES!   Isa. 58:9b-10

 

A.   Favoring!   Isa. 58:9b

1.   God expects us to favor others just as He favors us!

a.   So God addresses the way they treat others as a condition of this new “Favored status” by God.

b.   By the way, our government does this with other countries; when we grant another nation “Most Favored Nation” status.

c.   This means that a country has special status with the USA – best trade terms, lowest tariffs, and highest to no import quotas.  It is a special relationship with us that allows us to bless those nations in special ways!

2.   This is the status God holds for His people who are in right relationship with Him, and He calls us to treat others this way.

3.   The very character of those who have fellowship with God is to treat others, including sinners with a gracious spirit.

 

ILLUS:   Even if people reject the gospel, we still must love them. A good example of this was reported by Ralph Neighbour, pastor of Houston's West Memorial Baptist Church (in Death and the Caring Community, by Larry Richards and Paul Johnson):

   Jack had been president of a large corporation, and when he got cancer, they ruthlessly dumped him. He went through his insurance, used his life savings, and had practically nothing left. I visited him with one of my deacons, who said, "Jack, you speak so openly about the brief life you have left. I wonder if you've prepared for your life after death?"

   Jack stood up, livid with rage. "You -- ---- Christians. All you ever think about is what's going to happen to me after I die. If your God is so great, why doesn't he do something about the real problems of life?" He went on to tell us he was leaving his wife penniless and his daughter without money for college. Then he ordered us out.

   Later my deacon insisted we go back. We did. "Jack, I know I offended you," he said. "I humbly apologize. But I want you to know I've been working since then. Your first problem is where your family will live after you die. A realtor in our church has agreed to sell your house and give your wife his commission. I guarantee you that, if you'll permit us, some other men and I will make the house payments until it's sold. Then, I've contacted the owner of an apartment house down the street. He's offered your wife a three bedroom apartment plus free utilities and an $850-a-month salary in return for her collecting rents and supervising plumbing and electrical repairs. The income from your house should pay for your daughter's college. I just wanted you to know your family will be cared for."

   Jack cried like a baby. He died shortly thereafter, so wrapped in pain he never accepted Christ. But he experienced God's love even while rejecting him. And his widow, touched by the caring Christians, responded to the gospel message. - Van Campbell, Homer, Louisiana. Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 1.

 

4.   Jesus was called, “a friend of sinners” Matt. 11:19 – if He can be, so can we.

5.   The favoring attitude by us will happen: “IF YOU DO AWAY TIH THE YOKE OF OPPRESSION, WITH THE POINTING FINGER AND MALICIOUS TALK…”

a.   This is a big “IF”

b.   This means that we don’t treat sinners badly, just as Christ loved us while we were yet sinners, we must love sinners too while they are still sinners!

c.   Loving people is not a compromise with sin; it is a command of God when we stand in right relationship with God.

6.   Jesus clearly had said that all the law was summed up into to great loves:

a.   “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” Matt. 22:37-40

b.   “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Matt. 22:37-40

c.   And notice that Jesus didn’t say to love ONLY IF they bless us, or bless God!

7.   We never have the right to treat sinners with less than “most favored status.”

 

B.   Favored!  (By Others)  Isa. 58:10

1.   Notice here that again God says, “If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed...” 

a.   Being favored by God means showing favor to others.

b.   There are no preconditions on the call to favor others; it wasn’t only “IF they respond to you the way you like,” or “IF they are wonderful first to you.”

c.   This is a straight forward call for God’s people to love others, and treat everyone fairly, in spite of their way of living, even as sinners.  Our job is to fight for those who are oppressed and hungry, those who are hurting, and not only to fight for them if they embrace our God and our faith, but simply because they are people whom God created.

2.   IF WE DO THIS – “then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”

a.   The entire witness of God’s love and light will shine forth in a dark world.

b.   This was God’s plan for Israel as a nation of priests.  Unfortunately, like the Pharisees and Sadducees later, they instead took their favored status before God as a people of superior privilege and looked down on other sinners.

 

ILLUS:   "Say, Officer, I bet you've never been part of a real live sermon illustration about grace ..." - Cartoonist Rob Suggs in Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 1.

 

c.   It was for those reasons God often led them into captivity, to discipline them to learn to love the other nations.

3.   Literally, acceptance of the Gospel hinges on the way we live out the Gospel.

4.   And, not only will we receive God’s favor, but man’s favor will rest on us as well, hence the statement; “then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” - meaning we will bring light into the darkness of this world in a positive way.

 

III.  GIFTED REPAIRER!   Isa. 58:11-12

 

A.   Freedom!   Isa. 58:11

1.   This entire next verse describes the great freedom for God’s people IF WE COMMIT ourselves to this end, to favor others as God favors us.  “The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”

a.   What a promise!

b.   What freedom!

c.   What a powerful witness of God’s great love!

2.   Loving others as God loves us will open the door for constant guidance from the Lord, and great strength and fame in the earth, and a never exhausted supply of water which refreshes everyone.

a.   We can alter our culture more easily with love than hate.

 

ILLUS:   A story is told of Peter Miller, a plain Baptist preacher living in Ephrata, Pennsylvania in the days of the Revolutionary War. Near his church lived a man who maligned the pastor to the last degree. The man became involved in treason and was arrested and sentenced to be hanged. The preacher started out on foot and walked the all seventy miles to Philadelphia to plead for the man's life. Washington heard his plea, but he said, "No, your plea for your friend cannot be granted." "My friend!" said the preacher. "He is the worst enemy I have." "What!" said Washington, "you have walked nearly seventy miles to save the life of an enemy? That puts the matter in a different light. I will grant the pardon." – Source Unknown

 

b.   We can demonstrate God’s great love for sinners by loving them ourselves.

c.   After all, Paul recognized this when he said, “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”  Rom. 2:4 (NIV)

d.   Paul’s point is clear:  It is God’s goodness and kindness toward sinners that helps lead them to repentance, such should our behavior be toward sinners if we wish to see them respond to the Gospel.

3.   Just imagine a loving Christian community toward sinners, and the impact that would have on them!

 

B.   Foundation!   Isa. 58:12

1.   It is foundational to our faith to be a “restorer” of souls, not a judge of sinners.

2.   Isaiah here states clearly that if God’s people will respond favorably to others they will become known as “rebuilders” “repairer of broken walls, restorer of streets with dwellings.” 

a.   Meaning that we will bring healing not only to our culture, but to souls.

b.   Since God’s goodness leads people to repentance our similar action will attract people to Christ, and Christ will be able to heal and restore people, thus God’s church and His people will be known as “repairers.”

3.   Amazingly, this was all stated under the Old Covenant; yet sounds so much like the New Covenant.

4.   The final thought to all of this still hinges on one final thing:  “IF ONLY YOU COMMIT YOURSELVES…” then God will be able to act on both His children, and on this world with the best results for all.

 

ILLUS:   As Copernicus, the great astronomer, was dying, a copy of his great book, The Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies, was placed in his hands. But it was not his brilliant work that was on his mind. Instead he directed that the following epitaph be placed on his grave at Frauenburg: "O Lord, the faith thou didst give to St. Paul, I cannot ask; the mercy thou didst show to St. Peter, I dare not ask; but, Lord, the grace thou didst show unto the dying robber, that, Lord, show to me." There is no one who cannot come to God under those terms. - James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 346.

 

5.   The bottom line, NO EXCUSES!

a.   No more, “I’ll act nice to them when I see them act nice to me”

b.   No more, “I’ll show love when I see love”

c.   No more, “I’ll do something good when I see them show appreciation first”

d.   No more, “Well, they don’t deserve being treated well; did you see how they treat others?”  (Mercy and grace that we receive from God isn’t deserved by us either, but God grants it anyway!)

 

CONCLUSION:   The call for all of us as God’s people is to show the same grace, mercy and love that we have received from God – not conditioned by how they act toward us, just given freely!  When we do this, we exist not only with God’s favor, but we will also see man’s favor – and his response to the Gospel of grace!  Jesus Himself witnessed this by His own life; “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)  Can it be said of you, or do you have an excuse?