Foundations 4: How Should We Live? (Isaiah 51:11-16) - Calvary Baptist Cobourg

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We keep coming back to this passage where Isaiah the prophet is speaking to the people of Israel, who are in exile in Babylon. Their city was invaded. They were defeated by an invading army. They were taken away from Jerusalem into slavery into captivity in Babylon. They did not want to be there. They knew they were going to be there for a while. They were wanting—looking forward to going home. Isaiah 52:11-16 is a promise of hope to the captives; they're being told, “Yes, you are going to get to go home, and it's going to be fantastic, and it's going to be wonderful. You're going to love it. It's going to happen. So just hang on, hang on, hang on. Don't give up.”

But if we flip back to Isaiah chapter one we see the foundation of how this all came to be in the first place. What was it about Israel's life, how they were living, that made it necessary for God to take them somewhere else for a while so that they could relearn things they needed to relearn?

Chapter one of Isaiah contains a promise. But it's not a happy promise. It's the kind of promise you make to your kids when you're at the grocery store and they won't sit still: “When we get home, I promise you...” It's that kind of promise. It's a warning of something that Is. Going. To. Happen. 

Through Isaiah, God says to his people, “Yes, you obey me. Yes, you do the things I’ve told you to do, but you're doing it with corrupt and self-serving hearts.” God says, “I don't even enjoy your worship anymore.” And he says, “I will turn my hand against you I will purge away your impurities. Zion will be redeemed with justice.”

The prophet Micah spoke to the same people at about the same time and had much the same message.

“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with my burnt offerings? Will the Lord be pleased with 10,000 rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my first born for my transgression? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.” 

‘What religious obligation can I fulfill that will make God happy?’ You can just hear Micah shaking his head. “He has shown you, people, he has shown you what is good. What does the Lord require of you? Not all that stuff. But to act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God...”

Isaiah and Micah are saying pretty much the same thing at the same time to the same people for the same reason. 

They're saying, 

“You may have the coolest worship band. You may have the funnest Sunday School curriculum. All of your committees might be filled and busy. You may make the best sandwiches. Your giving may be way over budget. You may have the coolest website. You may have the best dressed pastor. 

“But your heart? Your heart is far from me.”

They're telling the people of Israel, “You have ramped up your religious activities, you have completed your obligations. You carry a bigger Bible, you memorize more verses. You've ticked the boxes, toed the lines, paid your dues, done what you were told to do. But your attitudes have shifted and you are prioritizing the activity. And your heart… that belongs to someone other than me.”

Centuries later, Jesus is having the same conversation with some of the same people. In Mark chapter 7, the Pharisees and the Scribes question Jesus, “Why do your disciples not wash their hands according to the religious tradition?”

Jesus quotes Isaiah, which is perfect: “This is what Isaiah says about you: ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain and they teach as doctrines the precepts of men.’”

The people of Isaiah’s Israel, as we do, had fallen into the well-intentioned trap of thinking that the rules and the activity are what matters, and that our heart can belong to someone else. That is what Isaiah’s Israel needed to be rehabilitated from. Their attitudes, their motivations, their hearts had drifted away from God while they were busy over there doing all the stuff. 

Man looks on the outward appearance and pats himself on the back. God looks on the heart. And weeps. 

So what does God do? He takes Israel into exile, where it is impossible for them to follow their religious forms. Where it is impossible for them to offer their sacrifices, to take their tithes to the temple. It is impossible for them to maintain the infrastructure of their religion. He shakes them loose from their traditions and their habits, and he begins the work of calling them back.  

To love him. 

In our scripture focus this morning, Isaiah is calling their attention to a future time when that work will be done. When God will have accomplished his purpose in having his people in exile, when their hearts will be turned towards him again, and it's time for them to go home. I think in that passage we can see some examples of how Israel will live when they reach that point. When it's time for them to take up their life again, as God's covenant people, the blessing to the nations. 

So how will this new generation of Israel live when they are restored?

First, they will live courageously. The redeemed of the Lord will return and enter Zion with “singing.”

 In the original language, that word just means ‘a shout.’ a noise. A shout of joy or a cry of grief. So I wonder. I wonder what it was like for those people walking back to Jerusalem, being the first generation in so long to walk through the gates, along the broken streets, up that hill and towards their broken temple. With their wall that is torn down leaving them at the mercy of any passing raiding party. When they walked through that gate, was it a cry of joy? Or was it cry of grief? Regardless of which it was, they knew that when they took that journey back to Jerusalem, they were going back to hard work. They knew that when they got there, they were not going to be thrilled with what they saw. They knew that their homes were damaged, their fields were burned, their wall was torn down, their temple had been looted and damaged. They knew what they were going back to, but they went anyway. Because it was what God had called them to do. So, they lived courageously. 

As they returned to Jerusalem, they would live humbly. They would live with humility. Through Isaiah, God says to them, 

“Have you forgotten the Lord? Your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth? You live in terror all day long because of the fury of the oppressor. It was bent on destruction,” but God says, “where is it? Where is the fury of the oppressor? Because I’m not seeing it.”

But God says, “I'm here.” He says, “You can't possibly have forgotten me. You can't possibly have forgotten all of the comforts and the deliverances that I have given you generation after generation after generation.” God says, “It was me. It was me. Your God, over here. I brought down Goliath through David. I brought Egypt to its knees through Moses and Aaron. I beat the army of Midian through Gideon. I defeated Sisera through Deborah and Jael. I defended Jerusalem time and time and time again, and I gave Jerusalem to you in the first place. That was me. 

Do you honestly think that Babylon is going to be a match for me? Do you honestly think that anything my enemies can do will stop me? Do you honestly think that your failures will stop me from making you a blessing to the nations in spite of yourselves? Do you honestly think that your sin is greater than my forgiveness? I am your Maker. I am your God.

Isaiah’s Israel, coming back to Jerusalem, would be living lives of humility. 

Next, they will be living lives of freedom. Having been taken in chains, probably on foot, for over 1000 kilometers from home to somewhere they did not want to be, they would be looking forward to freedom, and Isaiah delivers the message to his people: “The captive will soon be freed. He will not go down and die in the pit, and his bread will not be lacking.”

That word “freed” can also mean ‘to open:’ a hand, a door, a bag, a storehouse. It’s translated here ‘as to be freed,’ because we're talking about a captive. The chains are going to be broken, the door is going to be open. The person who was physically captive will be set physically free. But the word for captive doesn't just mean someone who is physically bound, chained or locked behind a door that they do not have the key to. It can also mean someone who is bent over, weighed down, and oppressed and tired and unable to stand straight. 

So not only is God saying to his people you will be physically freed, you will no longer be chained, locked up, prevented from leaving town. You will also be freed from everything else. You will be freed spiritually. You will have the opportunity to stretch your shoulders and raise your arms and to let go of the burden that you've been carrying on your back,  whether that is your sin, or your despair, or your fatalism. You will be open. You will be free to be who you are. Free to belong because God's people are going to live free. 

Finally, God's people are going to live submitted. We come back to the fact that we belong to the God who made us. In verse 16, Isaiah says, “I have put my words in your mouth. I have covered you with the shadow of my hands to establish the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” 

The God who speaks has put his words in your mouth. The God who moves has covered us with the shadow of his hands. And the God who will never fail says, “You are my people.”

Israel was called to submit their lives, their actions, their speech, their shouts of joy or grief and their identity to the God who made them. 

To summarize, Israel was not in trouble for following the rules. Israel was not in trouble for doing the worship and religious things that God had actually told them to do. God's not that messed up. He wasn't mad at them for doing what they were told to do. What they were in trouble for was separating their religious activity from their hearts. They were guilty of putting the cart before the horse—I was trying to think of a good modern metaphor for this. The best one I could come up with was that they were guilty of putting the water skier before the motorboat. 

For us today, call back the words of Jesus. John 14:15. “If you love me you will keep my commands.” 

We don't get in trouble for following commandments. We get in trouble for missing out on who it is that is calling us to obey those commandments and how we are to live in knowing him. 

• Jesus commanded us to live with empathy; do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 
• He commanded us to live generously with our time and our stuff, when we read the story of the good Samaritan.
• Jesus commanded us to love people who hate us, to pray for people who persecute us. 
• He commanded us to prioritize reconciliation over religion. Prioritize people over ticking boxes. 
• To go beyond the bare minimum and do extra. 
• To serve in order to lead, to welcome the unwelcome, to seek out the vulnerable, to submit to each other. 
• To keep our hearts honest and to remember the big picture. 

And he commanded us to choose our master wisely. 

Is it God? Or money. 

Is it light? Or darkness. 

Is it truth? Or lies. 

Is it self-importance? Or is it the God who makes all things possible and has given us more than we could ever ask or imagine. 

God calls us to live courageously. To live humbly. To live free and to live submitted lives to him. 

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