Intro: A pastor who took a new church soon learned he had his hands full with two of his members who were twin brothers when they began to second guess every decision he made and disagree with all his sermons. Then he learned from other members that these wicked brothers ran off the last pastor and constantly keep the church in turmoil. So the pastor being a man of integrity began to pray for the brothers and preached his heart out Sunday after Sunday. The pastor would preach the truth of God’s Word calling sin; sin and not sugar coat anything, which made the brothers even more hostile towards him. And as a result of the truth being preached God began to bless the church and it grew so much that it did not have enough space so they started a building program. Soon after one of the brothers died, and the other brother went to the pastor and told him he was turning over a new leaf in his life and wanted to donate a million dollars to the church for a new sanctuary. The only catch was he wanted the pastor to tell everyone at the funeral that his brother was a saint. If the pastor would simply say those words he would donate the million dollars. Now the pastor who was a man of integrity struggled with making such a statement. His greatest fear was misleading people from the pulpit. But he also thought how the million dollars would solve all the church’s space problems and open the door to minister to more people. So on the day of the funeral the pastor stood over the coffin and said; “this man was a rotten, vile, deceptive sinner; but compared to his brother he was a saint.”
We have to ask ourselves a question this morning. What is our whole purpose for coming to church this morning? Are we here to get something from God, or are we here to give something to God?
What kind of worship experience are most people having on any given Sunday morning?
God doesn’t meet with us when our lives are filled with strife.
(v.1-3a) The sin in our lives keeps us from experiencing God to our fullest extent.
Many of us if we are honest with God and ourselves have deep disappointment with God.
He’s not come through like you want Him to. He has not answered prayer they way you think He should. That feeling when you open God’s word and it’s so dry is real. That sense that you have that God is not meeting with you may be real. Sometimes we walk away from church on Sunday morning and we haven’t meet with God. Have you ever got to the door and couldn’t remember what the preacher preached about? You can’t meet with God here in the building and walk out the same way you walked in.
Sometimes God ignores our worship.
Many people who go to church are just going through the motions. Butt in right place, holding right book, signing the right hymns without the right results.
Why God ignores our worship is found in Verse 3b.
People have everything their hearts desire and feel no need for God. We come to church with our life so full of business burdened down with the worry of how we’re going to get everything done. Some people believe the prosperity we experience here in America is a result of the blessings of God, but I disagree. We have so much apathy in the Western world because we have all our needs meet. SELFISHNESS is the problem. Our lives are so loaded down with things to do money to make, fun to have that we don’t have any time for God. All the wheels are turning on Sunday to get all we can out of the world and God. We come to church with our lives full of worldly stuff and expect God to fill us spiritually. It’s like taking a glass full of motor oil and trying to fill it with water. It’s impossible, not only will water and oil not mix but there is no room. In this time of crises we’re praying for God to send revival to America. We have seen a revival of patriotism and Americans praying for God to lead and bless America. But we as Christians need to be praying that fellow Americans will understand that God is more than a national God, He is a personal God. He is a God that longs to have a personal relationship with all people from all nations.
Worship is not for us; it’s for God. Not what we can get out of it, it’s what we can give God.
ARE YOU HERE FOR GOD, OR IS GOD HERE FOR YOU?
ILLUS:
I have never met a soul who has set out to satisfy the Lord and has not been satisfied himself. -- Watchman Nee, Leadership, Vol. 9, no. 3.
A true fast gets "fast" results!
VERSE 4 WE ARE STRIFE FILLED
You’re fighting and feuding with people all week long and try to come to church and worship. In the middle with fighting with people you try to put some real worship together on Sunday morning. If your not right with people you can’t be right with God. Or let me say if you don’t try your best to be right with God.
WHEN WE’RE SURFACEE. When we are worried about external things. (V.5)
Everything appeared good on the surface for the Israelites.
They attended worship services faithfully. "day after day they seek me out" 58:2a
They participated in worship activities. "they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God." 58:2b
They have a concern about the direction of society "They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them." 58:2c
They fasted and prayed. "Why have we fasted …. Why have we humbled ourselves…" 58:3
While they apparently had all the spiritual practices evident, their personal lives indicated that their concept of spirituality was simply to get from God what they wanted rather than do for God what He wanted!
ILLUS:
A brand new lawyer in his brand new office on his first day in practice sees a prospective client walk in the door. He decides he should look busy, so he picks up the phone and starts talking: "Look, Harry, about that amalgamation deal. I think I better run down to the factory and handle it personally. Yes. No. I don’t think 3 million will swing it. We better have Rogers from Seattle meet us there. OK. Call you back later." He looks up at the visitor and says, "Good morning, how may I help you?" And the prospective client says, "You can’t help me at all. I’m just here to hook up your phone." -- James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 436.
The sackcloth and ashes were to tell what was in the heart. But the symbol had become more of the focus than the condition of the heart. What are our symbols of worship? Habits of coming and knelling before Him, raising our hands, voices in signing, Bibles open but heart not open.
400,000 churches in America – how many will go to church today and be unaffected. Can we come into God’s presence and go away unchanged? We look the part and we do the externals but our hearts are not right with God.
The same had been true in Jesus’ day with the Pharisees
They had learned how to show publicly how much they were hurting while they fasted.
They went around with a long disfigured face, hair messed up, ashes poured onto their heads, not so much as an expression of real grief as much as it was to impress the public.
(1. These things were done by others in the Old Testament and it was meaningful because it was the real expression of a broken heart, but the Pharisees did it deliberately to impress people, not God.
(2. Attitude counts!
THE KIND OF WORSHIP GOD IGNIGHTS (V6)
This is the church I show up in, these are the people I reveal myself to. To be unchained with sin and be yoked with Christ. When your in a yoke your locked in, when your yoked with something you going together. The ministry of the gospel is to break the yoke of sin, and to be yoked up with Jesus.
EXPRESS THE COMPASSION OF CHRIST.
1. Hungry – God is concerned with how we respond to people who are hungry. I have plenty you can have some is our way. It should be I have enough and you can have what you need and I’ll take less.
2. Homeless – Use our house to glorify God.
3. Helpless- Those who are in need more that just at Thanksgiving, and Christmas. People who can’t meet their own needs and you sacrifice to help them.
4. Homestead – It’s hardest at home to live the gospel. A family who is starved emotionally no one expresses their love and appreciation for one another. Not that we are perfect people, but we must sincerely attempt to live out these things.
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.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GOD SHOWS UP? (V.8)
Matt 13:43 Your light will shine.
There will be light.
There will be recovery.
There will be righteousness.
There will be sincere worship
There will be victory
There will be provision
Have you ever wanted something so badly that you couldn’t sleep or eat until the moment came to get it? The idea of fasting is NOT to manipulate God, it is to refocus us! It starts with a desire so great that everything else is secondary in importance - food, drink, entertainment, etc. God is moved by such focused burdens that He graciously responds. Such a powerful burden is a "fast" way to God.
Summery verse 9-11.
If you will clean on inside + compassion on outside = God in the midst.
God will continually guide you. Turn your gloom into gladness.
