Isaiah 1:10-20 - Abhorrent and Acceptable Worship

Good morning, beloved.

Stick our Bibles and turn with me over to the book of Isaiah, chapter 1.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

For those of you that are with us or don't have a Bible, you can find a Pew Bible in front of you, and you can turn to page 600, page 600 there.

We're in the early days of a study through the book of Isaiah.

This morning we'll be looking at verses 10 to 20.

There's a Roman emperor who ruled from 361 to 363 A.D.

by the name of Julian.

He was the nephew of Constantine the Great.

His immediate family was murdered, and the too often dynastic struggles had happened in Rome, and his uncle, Constantine, forced him to study Christian doctrine as a child.

And sadly, that bred within him a lifelong hatred of Christianity, so much so that he was called Julian the Apostate as an emperor.

But despite his deep-seated hatred for Christians and Christianity, there were some things that he had to admit about them.

And in his letters, we have a little excerpt of how he spoke directly about Christians and the effect that they had had not only on him, but also on the community.

Now he uses two derogatory terms to talk about Christians.

He calls them impious Galileans.

He called them Galileans as a derogatory term to talk about the obscure place where Christ came from, didn't come from the major powers of Rome or other cities, came from Galilee.

And he also called them impious because Christians did not honor the gods.

And so they were seen as atheist, even called atheist by some of the Romans, because of their singular focus on God.

So you'll hear that in this quote.

And you'll feel his disdain as well.

Julian wrote in his letter, It is disgraceful that the impious Galileans support not only their own poor, but ours as well.

Everyone can see that our own people do not receive aid from us.

Though he didn't like it, Julian saw the meshing together of Christian devotion to Christ and love for one another and even people outside the Christian faith.

He found that refutable and persuasive despite his strong contempt for Christianity.

This demonstration of Christians who were giving sacrificial love not only for their own, but even for others, pagans who were in real need.

James chapter 1 and verse 26 says this if anyone thinks he's religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself.

James 1 · chapter mention

Then he goes on to talk about what true devotion looks like.

Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this, to look after the orphans and widows and their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

The Apostle John also wrote in chapter three of his first epistle in verse 16 this is how we know we have come to know love.

He laid down his life for us, speaking about Christ.

We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

If anyone has this world's goods and sees a fellow believer in need, but withholds compassion from him, how does God's love reside in that person?

Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.

And this is how we will know that we belong to the truth, and we'll reassure our hearts before him.

Well, that brings us into this passage in Isaiah chapter 1 in verses 10 to 20, where there is a flagrant disregard for and disconnect between the people of Jerusalem's worship and life.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

Isaiah is a book that is vital for us in the 21st century because it's easy.

The temptations that they had lay in our own hearts.

It's easy for us to get into a pattern of religious observance and have it disconnected from the way we live our lives the rest of the week.

And this passage of scripture will discover that God despises devotion to him that doesn't also draw the worshiper to others in their need.

But we'll also discover that despite God's disdain for that kind of hypocrisy, he has a full heart to forgive and to release and to receive sinners from the judgment they deserve.

We'll look a little bit later at this, but in verses 16 to 20 is one of the most famous calls to repentance and forgiveness that are found in Scripture.

Though your sins be as red as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool.

We even sing songs with those phrases.

At the core of that forgiveness is the transformation of the heart of that sinner.

Someone who was once rebellious and unyielding now becomes willing and obedient.

We'll get there.

But first we need to walk through the passage and find out how we get to that spot.

And the first thing I want us to notice is the rebuke that's found in verse 10.

When Isaiah opens up his prophecy to the people of Jerusalem, he challenges them with a reality that they're unwilling to admit.

And he does this by giving them labels and terms that speak to the reality of who they are.

They don't want to hear these words, but hear them they must.

And these hard truths speak to the people to let them know that they're not embodying what God's people ought to be like.

That they simply are speaking themselves as God's people, but not living out that life.

So last week we saw in verses one to nine that they were called rebellious children in verse two.

They were called denser than donkeys in verse three.

They were called a sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, children who deal corruptly.

They were described as sick and wounded and not seeking a remedy.

And in verse 9, they made an admission: well, we're bad, but maybe not all bad.

There's some of us still alive, and if the Lord of armies had not left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom.

We would resemble Gomorrah.

Well, yeah, we may be denser than a donkey, but we're not dead donkeys.

And now the prophet's about to make a stronger announcement.

He's about to wake them up with some turns.

He's about to shock them.

Take a look at verse 10.

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom.

Listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

Wait a second.

I thought we weren't like Sodom and Gomorrah.

But from God's point of view, they are.

People of Jerusalem, the holy city, the rulers of this place where God inhabits his presence, is actually described as Sodom and Gomorrah.

The people were just about ready to thank God that they weren't like Sodom and Gomorrah, but God says they're exactly alike Sodom and Gomorrah.

Because they really resembled those two cities that were destroyed.

What is the connecting point here?

The connecting point is that Sodom and Gomorrah and the people that are living in Jerusalem and Judah at this time are living in habitual self-indulgence.

They are concerned only about themselves.

Now, that self-indulgence can express itself in all sorts of ways.

But at the essence, its nature is the same.

And this is the connecting point.

These rulers and the people of Jerusalem and Judah were living sinful lives of self-indulgence that at the heart was exactly like the sinful life of self-indulgence of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Ezekiel in chapter 16 says, Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom.

She and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn't support the poor and needy.

Self-indulgence.

Jeremiah chapter 23.

Jeremiah 23 · chapter mention

Among the prophets of Samaria, I saw something disgusting.

They prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray.

And among the prophets of Jerusalem also I saw a horrible thing.

They committed adultery and walked in lies.

They strengthened the hands of evildoers, and none of them turns his back on evil.

They're all like Sodom to me.

Jerusalem's residents are like Gomorrah.

Here we have it: self-indulgent lives expressed in oppression of the weak and unacceptable worship.

The sins of which they were guilty are as plainly condemned in the Word of God as the sins by which the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah had polluted their towns and villages.

Someone said that all sin is rebellion.

And if you're going to rebel against God, it doesn't really matter which weapon you hold in your hand.

Second thing that we learn here is that we can be utterly unaware of our real character.

This shocking phrase, Sodom and Gomorrah to Jerusalem, made them realize that God had a perspective about them that they didn't have about themselves.

Self-delusion is universal.

It's easy for us to think about ourselves differently than others think about us.

For instance, when something good happens to us, we think, well, it's because I'm so smart.

When something good happens to somebody else, we think it's because they're lucky.

Right?

If something bad happens to us, well, the circumstances just weren't for me.

If something bad happens to someone else, it's like, well, they're just a fool.

What is it?

We estimate ourselves so much better than others.

One researcher at Rutgers University discovered that college students would rate themselves better than their fellow classmates is able to get a good job and to buy a house and to make a good living.

In a survey of business managers, 90% of them rated their performance as superior to their peers.

In Australia, 86% of people rate their job performances above average, and only 1% at below average.

This is not Lake Wobagon, where everyone is above average.

There's got to be an average somewhere.

But even in these lesser things, we see this bias toward self, don't we?

That bias toward self can make us blinded to the realities of who we are and not seeing ourselves for what we actually are.

Laodicea, the church at Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3, Jesus said to them, You say, I'm rich, I have become wealthy and need nothing, and you don't realize that you're wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

They don't see themselves for what they really are.

David was confronted by Nathan with a story about this man who oppressed someone who couldn't stand against the oppressor and stole what he had.

And David was infuriated with the man in that story and said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die.

Because he's done this thing and shown no pity.

And it wasn't until Nathan said, You're the man that David realized the story was about him.

Both Laodicea and David were at perfect peace with themselves until all of it came crushing down with the exposure of God's truth.

How often that can happen to us?

This sense of self-delusion is not only common, it's sadly disastrous.

And Jesus at the end of the Sermon of the Mount talks about the disaster of self-delusion.

That people would come up to him and he says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, is going to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

There will be people who will stand up and they will say, Didn't we prophesy in your name?

Didn't we drive out demons in your name?

Didn't we do many miracles in your name?

And he'll say, Depart from me.

I don't know you.

I never knew you.

Depart from me, you evil doers.

And that leads us to a third lesson here.

God sees us for who we are.

These people presented themselves as great, miraculous workers for God's kingdom, and he said, You're lawbreakers.

God sees us for what we actually are.

He doesn't accept our boastings as reality.

And what he sees is sometimes very, very different than any kind of term that we would give ourselves.

Jesus talked about a wealthy man in Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

He seemed to be the envy of everybody in the community.

This man had been successful as a businessman.

He had gained a lot of crops.

He worked in the agricultural industry.

And the harvest was so plenteous, he sits down with himself and he says, What am I going to do?

I'll tear down my barns, build bigger ones, store all my grain and all my goods there, and then I'll say to myself, you've got many goods stored up for many, many years.

Take it easy.

Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.

This man had built a successful business.

This man had ended his career at the peak of the market.

This man had a surplus that was full enough, so full, that he contemplated actually tearing down his storehouses to make them larger and then retire.

He didn't even have to conserve at the very end.

And just as he's planning to, you know, go off to the architect's office and pick up a few drawing plans for what that might look like, he thought he'd stop over at the travel agency and get a brochure or two for a luxury cruise that he could enjoy now that he's about to retire.

His neighbors, I'm sure, probably saw him as a, well, certainly a prosperous farmer, but perhaps a shrewd and wise one, too.

But what has Jesus called him?

You fool.

You fool.

Why?

Because that day he was going to die, and he had vested all of his life in mere earthly possessions rather than eternal reward.

God's estimate of him was far different than the estimate he had of himself, far different than what anybody in the community might have thought of him, too.

So here are these people, these rulers of Jerusalem, the rulers of the holy city, the rulers of where God dwells.

The Sodom and Gomorrah.

What is needed for them?

What is needed for us whenever we get into a position where we have to have a hard rebuke shake us awake?

Well, what we need is prayerful self-examination.

And sometimes that prayerful self-examination only begins when we're confronted with a hard reality, just like God confronts the people of Jerusalem and Judah with a hard reality, with these strong emotional terms.

And we'll look at this later, but this rebuke is not simply God wanting to condemn them for their sin and leave them there.

This isn't just him calling them Sodom and Gomorrah and walking away from them.

Take a look at verse 10 again.

Hear the words of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom.

Listen to the instruction of God, you people of Gomorrah.

These strong words are God's loving confrontation to bring them truth that would embarrass them so that he might save them.

This unflattering portrait that Isaiah brings to the people in Jerusalem and Judah in chapter one is God's way of disrupting and disturbing them until they get to the point where they start asking God-oriented questions about themselves.

Because up until that point in time they weren't.

It's not that.

It's not God simply crushing our spirit.

Conviction of sin is a health-giving injury, if I can put it that way.

It's the scalpel of the surgeon rather than the blow of the soldier.

Conviction of sin is the Holy Spirit being kind to us by confronting us with truth that we don't want to admit, with light that we don't want to see, with guilt we don't want to acknowledge.

It's the Holy Spirit kindly showing us those things.

Conviction is the severe love of God to overrule our compulsive dishonesty, our willful blindedness, our favorite excuses, and to stop them all cold.

Conviction is a merciful God declaring war against the false peace that we've settled into our heart.

He wants to bring us out of all of that to joy, to genuineness, to authenticity, to wholeness and health.

And so let's go deeper through this passage.

We've only looked at the rebuke so far, but let's see what we're getting at here.

What sin the Lord means to lay bare and confront the conscious with among the people of Jerusalem and perhaps us.

And the first thing he brings up besides this rebuke is the refused worship, the refused worship that we find in verses 11 to 15.

Now, when God calls Jerusalem Sodom and Gomorrah, people might have countered and said, You know, God, there's a big difference between us and Sodom and Gomorrah.

They were all pagans.

We worship you.

We go to the temple, we make our sacrifices, we honor you.

We're called by your name.

They never were.

But God's response to that temple worship is completely negative in this passage of scripture.

Take a look at the descriptions in verses 11 to 15.

Verse 11, I've had enough of burnt offerings.

I have no desire for the blood of bulls, goats, lambs.

Verse 12.

What is this trampling of my courts?

Verse 13, stop bringing useless offerings.

Your incense is detestable to me.

A little later, I cannot stand iniquity with a festival.

Verse 14, I hate your new moons and prescribe festivals.

They've become a burden to me.

I'm tired of putting up with them.

Verse 15, I will refuse to look at you even if you offer countless prayers.

I will not listen.

Wow.

I thought you just had to be sincere in heart, and everything would be okay.

No.

God was sick of their sacrifices.

He considered them worthless.

They were a burden to him.

He hated their feasts.

He had no delight in them.

He called it an abomination.

That's a big word in the Bible.

Now, hang on a second.

All of that was prescribed by God in the Pentateuch.

All of that was laid out as things to do.

So obviously, it's not what they were doing in the form of it all that is negative.

There's something deeper.

There's something wrong at a deeper level than just the mere operations of worship.

There was something going on inside.

And what you I find interesting about this passage is that Isaiah never accuses them of simply offering mere formal worship, as if they were just doing it by rote memory rather than sincerity of heart.

He doesn't call them to be more connected with what they're doing.

He speaks about something different yet.

So it is possible that they really did mean every hallelujah.

That they really did have a heart of urgency when they cried.

That there wasn't really a mismatch between their feelings and their expressions in worship.

No, there was something different.

There was a disconnect not between their heart in worship and their mouth in worship.

There was a disconnect between the heart of worship and the heart of life outside the worship.

That's where the problem was.

Verse 15 indicates fully God's conclusion of his displeasure with all of this.

Your hands are covered with blood.

And that gives us a clue of what God is driving at with them and what he really is finding as the source of the problem.

When their hands are raised in fervent praise, God looks down on them and says, I see blood.

Now he's not talking about the blood of the sacrifices, he's talking about the blood that they have extracted from each other.

As they spend their life in self-indulgence by callous, careless actions toward other people.

The blood is their fellow Israelites.

Now, obviously, these people are not actual murders, all of them, but they were living lives of indulgent self-pleasure, persistently looking out for themselves.

Those in the ruling classes, the priests, the princes, and the prophets, all manipulating the system, the system of taxes and laws and landholdings in order to gain more for themselves.

Enacting policies that would ignore those who had no power, refusing the care of the orphans and the widows, and depriving farmers of their ability to have a livelihood, abandoning any conviction at all that God's word meant that vertical worship must be intimately intertwined with vertical or horizontal care.

These people lived lives outside of the worship that betrayed what they did inside of worship.

And God's attitude is clear, and God's attitude is chilling.

Look at verse 15 again.

What a horrible, horrible place to be.

To actually be engaged in worship and God says, I'm not showing up.

This isn't something I take pleasure in.

Unless we think that this warning is simply tailored for Jerusalem and Judah in Isaiah's day, I'd like to draw your attention to a passage in 1 Peter 3.

You don't need to turn there.

You can if you want, but I'll read it for you.

Husbands.

Husbands.

In the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as a weaker vessel, as if she were, with the kind of delicacy you would hold up a piece of china rather than a chunky piece of pottery.

Handle her with care.

Showing them honor as co-heirs of the grace of life, listen, so that your prayers will not be hindered, thwarted, refused.

I will not listen if you treat your wife wrong, husband.

I will not listen if you don't honor your wife, husband.

I will not look on you if you treat her with disdain, husband.

Peter doesn't just leave it for husbands, though.

He continues, all of you, be like-minded and sympathetic.

Love one another, be compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult, but on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing.

For the one who wants to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit, let him turn away from evil and do what is good.

Now listen let him seek peace and pursue it, because the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to Their prayers.

But the face of the Lord is against those who do what is evil.

That was written to the New Testament church within the context of family life, saying that our worship will be affected by our life.

The reception of what we do on Sunday morning, in God's point of view, starts after the service is over, all the way until the time you show up again.

God's words indicate the importance of a proper attitude, both of Him and of others.

Merely showing up nicely dressed and well spoken in a worship service doesn't cut it in the eyes of God.

Now let's move on.

We got the rebuke, we got the refused worship, but what is the received worship?

The next paragraph, God speaks about two things.

He talks about repentance of heart and reconciliation of heart.

Reconciliation to him and reconciliation to others.

And this paragraph is filled with nine bullet point exhortations, nine commands, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, just thrown out there, rapid fire, that illustrate what that looks like.

And the prophet here is persuasively, forcibly calling us as listeners to that kind of life.

Seven of these imperatives identify positive things, and two of them are to turn away from current behavior.

Let's listen to those nine words.

Wash yourselves, cleanse yourselves, remove your evil deeds from my sight, stop doing evil, learn to do what is good, pursue justice, correct the oppressor, defend the rights of the fatherless, plead the widow's cause, rapid fire.

These nine punchy imperatives stress the basic heart decisions that we are to have.

And it begins with our orientation to God.

Talking of the word washing there, speaking of a ritual washing that is indicative of a purity of heart, that the clean hands represent the clean heart of repentance toward God.

And when our orientation to God is right, then it will flow out into our relationships with others.

We will value and look for things that are right and righteous and just.

And we will pursue those things.

And in the pursuit of those things, we will stand against oppressors.

We will surround the fatherless and the widows.

We will care for those that can't care for themselves.

We will stand up for those who don't have the strength to stand themselves.

One of the things we do, even outside the church, is to estimate one's character by what they do with people who can't pay them back or can't fight back, right?

What is your character like?

Well, if you're kind to people who can't pay you back, and you're kind to people who can't fight against your strength, that's an indication, even outside of a Christian circle, of a person of integrity.

How much more so here?

How much more so here?

When we cleanse ourselves before God, we find the overflow pouring into how we relate to others.

The acceptable orientation to God becomes a caring orientation to others.

And here in this context, particularly how the leaders, those who are in places of power, the prophets and the priests and the princes, how they took their responsibilities seriously and cared for the whole community rather than to indulge themselves in the positions that they had.

And obviously, in a church situation, that means we have equal care and regard for one another.

We love each other as a body, not just individuals.

And we're not playing power games with one another to try to attain some greater position.

In fact, our Lord Jesus said, if we want to be great in his kingdom, you become the servant of everybody.

You take care of them.

So God is calling on Israel at this juncture, using loving, biting words to awaken them to God-oriented questions about themselves, so that they might repent and reconcile themselves with God and with each other.

And he has to do it with these terms so that there might be a reunion of their worship with their life, that there be a consistency in it all, that their repentance would evidence itself in true love and true care.

People in Jerusalem's day had to wait until chapter 53 to find out who that was.

We don't have to wait anymore.

We know exactly who that is.

It's Jesus Christ.

Let's get to the reasoned response.

So we've got the rebuke, the rejected worship or refused worship, the received worship of repentance and reconciliation, and then the reasoned response.

And here in this last little bit, God's words take an interesting twist.

Up until this point in time, God has been acting as a prosecuting attorney.

And he's called heaven and earth into the courtroom.

Take a look at the first verse or second verse.

Listen, heavens, pay attention, earth, for the Lord has spoken.

All right, we're in a courtroom.

We've got a prosecuting attorney, and we've got witnesses called heaven and earth.

And we've got someone who needs to be accused, and it's the people of Jerusalem and Judah.

And God is speaking against them about their sinful state and about their wickedness, bringing indictment after indictment after indictment against them.

But then we turn to verse 16.

And in verse 16, everything begins to change.

And then in verse 18, instead of being a prosecuting attorney, we've got one who wants to be at the table of conciliation.

Come, let us settle this, says the Lord.

Instead of being a prosecuting attorney, now he's an encourager.

Now he's a reconciler.

Now he's even an advocate and lays out promises.

Come, let's settle this, says the Lord.

Though your sins are scarlet, they will be white as snow.

Though they're crimson red, they'll be like wool.

He wants them to find the solution.

Will they listen?

Will they listen?

The situation appeared hopeless until this moment, didn't it?

They seemed so indifferent, so calloused, so unconcerned, so caught up in self that they didn't know who they were and they didn't know what danger they were in.

But now God speaks with whispers rather than warnings.

And he talks about the possibility of settling this conflict between him and them.

He wants them to heed the warning before there's a complete and utter separation where there's no recovery.

And he tells them it doesn't have to end like that.

It doesn't have to end that way.

And he doesn't demean them, he doesn't demand, he doesn't act closed to their movements.

He says, Come.

Come.

The end of the book of Revelation, the very last chapter of the book of the Bible, the bride and the spirit say, Come, come.

God is still inviting people.

Come, let us determine what is right.

Let's restore this relationship.

Now, one thing you won't see in this passage is that God is not going to enter into an argument about whether or not Judah sinned.

Well, you've got a different definition of the way I live my life than I have.

And uh maybe, God, you need to just sort of welcome me as I am.

God says, no, that's that's not the point of conversation here.

Well, Lord, you you know, we really didn't mean it when we prayed.

We we we really did have full hearts when we sang.

We we we really did take animals from our flock to sacrifice to you.

Shouldn't you like accept that?

That's not part of the conversation either.

What is the part of the conversation?

Your sins are like scarlet.

That's the point of conversation.

The red like crimson.

You're guilty.

What is the let us come and let's settle this?

It means agreeing with God.

Listen to this, agreeing with God in his estimate of you.

Right?

Seeing yourself the way God sees you, not the way you think you are, or maybe not the way your best friend thinks you are, but thinking of yourself the way God thinks of you, which means coming to terms with reality that we were not willing to admit before.

That we are before a holy God, sinful people, that we really are full of self-indulgence, that we really do disconnect things that we might say about God from the way we talk about each other, that we really do only worship with words, and not the reality of a holistic life.

However, when we acknowledge that and admit that before a holy God, listen to what he says.

I'll forgive you, I'll receive you, I will cleanse you, I will wipe away the stay, as if it never was there.

You see, God is not someone to be feared unless you refuse him.

But if you realize your sinfulness and come to him, he will never cast you out.

He is a receiving God to those who acknowledge that truth about themselves.

And this is the beautiful truth that awakened my heart in 1983.

When someone opened up the Bible and it said, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

For whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And I had run from what I thought was an angry God my whole life until that very moment, and for the very first time I saw that he was not a God holding his arm stiff at me, but was calling me and willing to embrace me, as ruinous as I was, and as reckless as I was, and as rebellious as I was.

What's the promise?

Let's settle this, the Lord says.

Though your sins are scarlet, they'll be white as snow.

Though they're crimson red, they'll be like wool.

And he puts the choice before them.

Which way will you go?

If you're willing and obedient, you'll eat the good things of the land.

But if you refuse and rebel, you'll be devoured by the sword.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

If they came to that place of recognition of who they really were, and came to the God of heaven to be reconciled, they would be received and welcomed.

They would be reconciled and they would be cleansed.

But if they refused, certain judgment awaits, the day of which only God knows.

And God plays on words here.

In verse 19, you will eat the good things of the land if you come to him.

But if you refuse him, the sword will eat you.

It is there's no other option.

It's either eat or be eaten.

It's either be destroy the food and happiness or be destroyed by the sword and judgment.

There's no middle ground here.

There's no other choice.

There is the choice between it divine blessing or divine cursing.

And it lies at the door of every one of us.

This way of thinking is repeated in the New Testament by Jesus Himself.

He said, No man can serve two masters.

He will either hate the one and serve the other, or he'll be devoted to one and despise the other.

There's no new neutrality here.

There's no Switzerland to step your feet into.

You're either giving yourself to God or you're giving yourself to something else.

And you're a creation of God, and he calls you to be his.

Let's wrap this up.

God speaks harshly to help us.

He doesn't leave us in the ground.

He wants to pick us up if we'll hear it.

And sometimes he has to speak so loud and so harshly that we might find ourselves immediately offended by it.

But he comes in behind those words with a flourish of care and love that's undeserved.

He has every right to snuff us out, but he doesn't.

And at the core of this forgiveness is going to be a transformation of our hearts.

We who were formerly rebellious and unyielding, he will move within us and make us yielding and obedient.

And our regrets will not be that we gave our life to him.

Our regrets at the end of our days will be that we didn't give enough of our life to him.

But this question stands before us.

Is there sincerity between what you do here on a Sunday morning and what you do outside of this service?

Is there a consistency of life?

Is there a true regard for others evidenced by your true love for Him?

Or do you need to hear the rebukes?

And if you do need to hear them, receive them.

Because God wants to receive you.

He wants to say to you right now, let's settle this.

Let's fix this now before it becomes an eternal problem.

Right?

Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing and dividing down to the very recesses of our spirit.

We thank you that you know not only the thoughts and intents that we have, but you know the thoughts and the intents of the heart.

You know the secret things of the secret things.

And Father, we thank you that you desire for us to worship you in spirit and in truth.

To be right with you and how we understand you, but also to be right with you in the way that we regard you and your creation, which includes our fellow man, our fellow believers in Christ, our fellow church family, our family.

Lord, we pray that you would do your perfect will with your word and accomplish your good will and purposes through it, as it's been heard by us all.

May we truly heed your warnings and truly receive your promises.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.