Scripture reading: Psalm 112.

Sermon text: Isaiah 58:1-12.

Last Sunday’s sermon dealt with our ability to do good without God’s grace in our lives. In short, we can’t. No one can deal justly with others, practice godly love, and walk humbly before God without the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit indwells all who confess Jesus, the Son of God, as Lord and believes in His resurrection.

Once we confess Jesus as Lord, we must adopt His standards; we must represent Him in our lives. St. Paul told the Corinthians, “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20). The sermon passage today reminds us that this ambassadorship brings great responsibilities, responsibilities that go hand in hand with the great privileges of the people of God.

Isaiah prophesied to the Jews in the eighth century B.C. The Jews of this time believed, rightly, that they were God’s chosen people; as His chosen people, God would do whatever they asked and bless them regardless of how they behaved against one another. God used Isaiah to pronounce His truth to the people: God’s blessings come only to those whose belief reflected itself in their actions.

God told Isaiah, “Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.” God told Isaiah, in essence, to shout the truth to Israel. “Transgression” referred to the people’s rebellion against God and His covenant. “Sins” referred to Israel’s constant missing of the mark of God’s righteousness. Isaiah proclaimed to Israel that their status as His chosen people did not negate their responsibility to live according to His covenant, to accept His ways as their own.

It seemed that Israel failed to understand the situation. “Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God.” The people continued their ritualistic worship, studying their Scriptures, and acting as if God owed them favors.

Israel had gone even further in their religious farce. “Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?” The Jews had conducted all the rituals that usually related to humbling themselves before God: fasting, wearing sackcloth, and attending ritual assemblies. Why did God not answer their prayers and fulfill their wishes?

All the people’s actions didn’t demonstrate humility, that’s why. The Jews had fallen into the same practices as the pagans around them. The pagan religions of antiquity sought to appease their deities, but they also sought to insure their deities would do whatever they desired. The Jews didn’t humble themselves before God out of contrition and repentance, but in order that God would “owe” them their desires.

God saw past the rituals. “Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist.” God knew the real reasons for Israel’s fasts and refused to be bribed. The people would declare a fast, but then they would force their workers to work on the fast day while they attended worship. The people fasting never changed their attitudes towards others. Even in their fast days, the people had held onto their grudges against one another and refused to forgive one another.

Anyone could predict God’s response. “Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?” The people may as well have carried on as normally. God would not accept their outward fasts while their souls remained in rebellion against Him. No amount of fasting, no amount of wearing sackcloth would change God’s mind on this. No outward rituals would trick God into acting like Santa Claus to rebellious people.

Fortunately for the people, God did not condemn their actions without giving them correction. God told the people what He expected. “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?”

Most people, both in Isaiah’s time and today, find these words highly uncomfortable. We must understand them nonetheless.

Seven hundred years before, God had delivered the Jews from slavery in Egypt and restored their freedom in the land He promised to their ancestors. Had the Jews kept God’s covenant, slavery would have remained almost nonexistent in their nation. By Isaiah’s time, however, slavery ran rampant in Jewish society as the poor found themselves so deeply in debt they often sold their children into slavery. Only the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem ended the Jewish oppression of their own kinsmen.

We must recall the truth of our own salvation as well. Adam and Eve enslaved humanity to sin when they rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the penalty for Adam’s rebellion. When Jesus rose again from the dead, He brought freedom from death to all who would believe in Him and accept His payment of the penalty of death. Christians, we have freedom!

God expects us to live in that freedom, but He also expects us pronounce that freedom to others enslaved in sin. God expects us to work to bring freedom to others. This means far more than mere spiritual freedom. I fear that, especially here in the American Church, we’ve spiritualized our freedom because we don’t understand oppression. However, we cannot ignore the fact that people in our society need food and shelter. The Church must meet these needs. Jesus Himself, Our Lord, leaves us no choice. You can read Matthew 25:31-45 for His commands on the issue.

Only then, God says, “shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.” Today, most American Christians live as if God’s standards apply only to our personal morality. If we expect God to answer our prayers, we must live by His standards of societal justice, not merely by His standards for personal piety. “Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’”

To reinforce God’s answer, He repeated His requirements and promises. “If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.”

God then went further in His promises. “And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.”

These promises go beyond what the Jews had wanted, and they transcend what we usually desire when we pray. As we live godly lives, God guides us through the Holy Spirit. God also provides for those who believe in Jesus and live in a way that demonstrates that belief.

This passage gives us a lot to examine and apply to our lives.

For one thing, the ancient Jews weren’t the last to exchange a relationship with God for ritual. We cannot think that God will do whatever we want simply because we attend weekly worship, give to a charity, or some such. God has always expected faith as a requirement for His salvation. In Isaiah’s time, only faithful obedience to the Mosaic covenant would do. Today, ritual still doesn’t work. Faith in Jesus alone — confessing Him as Lord and believing in His resurrection — will deliver us from our sins.

If we believe Jesus has forgiven us of our sins and redeemed us from death, we must also forgive one another. For the Christian, forgiveness is not an option. If we have received forgiveness, we must — we must — forgive one another.

I’d also point out that God expects more from His people than we sometimes expect. If we’re to “raise up the foundations of many generations,” we must give the succeeding generations a godly example to follow. If we’re to serve as a “repairer of the breach” or “restorer of streets,” we must resolve ourselves to building a just society. Will we succeed? Perhaps not. I know we’ll never accomplish justice if we don’t try. As for me, I’ve resolved to do what I can, both in the Church and in my secular job, not resign myself to a failing world and fantasizing that Jesus will remove me from this world while it fails.

I believe God’s looking for believers to repair breaches in families, in communities, schools, and workplaces. I believe God’s looking for believers to restore streets in subdivisions and cities.

I’ll close with the story of William Wilberforce, one of the greatest opponents of the slave trade in British history. When he was born again, Wilberforce contemplated a life in the Church as a minister. However, he was convinced to remain in politics and fight slavery as a member of Parliament. Wilberforce fought for the end of the slave trade for 16 years until Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade bill. Wilberforce then fought slavery for the rest of his life until his death in 1833. A month after Wilberforce died, Parliament passed a bill emancipating all slaves in the British Empire.

You may think you can do nothing to build foundations, repair breaches, and restore streets. If God has forgiven your sins, you have freedom. Sin may have enslaved humanity in the Garden, but Jesus redeemed us on the cross. Carry that message beyond these walls and into a world looking for redemption.