How much religious activity would it take to make up for the parts of life we still withhold from God? In Isaiah 1, Israel brings a multitude of sacrifices, gathers for solemn assemblies, and makes many prayers—yet God addresses his people as Sodom and Gomorrah and says their worship has become a burden to him.

Study Questions

The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.

The pastor uses the Burger King lettuce incident as an analogy for hidden sin. How does this illustration challenge the idea that “what nobody knows won't hurt them”? What are the spiritual dangers of trying to cover up sin with outward acts of righteousness?
God rejected Israel's sacrifices and rituals in Isaiah 1 even though He had commanded them. What does this reveal about the relationship between outward religious activity and heart-level faithfulness? How does this challenge the assumption that doing the right things automatically pleases God?
The sermon describes how both the Israelites and the Pharisees tried to “average out” their faithfulness—excelling in some areas to compensate for failures in others. Where do you see this temptation in your own life? How should we respond when we realize we're using one area of obedience to cover up disobedience in another?
The pastor contrasts a dead lemon cypress decorated with ornaments against a plain but living plant. What is the difference between being genuinely “alive” in Christ versus maintaining only the outward appearance of Christianity? What does it look like practically to offer your whole life rather than simply going through religious motions?
The sermon calls God's silence in response to hollow worship one of the “most sobering things we ever read in God's Word.” Why would God's silence be more frightening than open judgment? What does this teach us about the importance of genuine relationship with God rather than ritual performance?

Transcript

This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.

But I know him, I know him, I know him.

As we start tonight, I want to ask you about a picture, okay? So, I'm not gonna say anything about it. I just want to have your reaction to this picture, okay? Here we are. If you're online, go ahead and jump in the chat and say a little context. This is a Burger King. So, everyone ready to go get some Burger King afterwards?

Here is someone who is dumber than an ox because what they decided to do—this person—he decided, I guess he was bored while at work. So he went on to an infamous part of the internet where you're supposed to be able to post anonymously and posted this picture of himself and a coworker staging standing in the lettuce that goes on your whoppers, entitling it as such. And failing to remove the geolocation information on the photo when he did. It quickly went viral, and needless to say, Burger King didn't decide to retain the employment services of the people involved in the incident.

It did raise a lot of questions, right? Because there were plenty of people that day who went in and ordered a whopper, and it probably tasted fine. They probably enjoyed it. I don't know, maybe they said it seems like it just has a little extra zest today. I have no idea. They might have actually enjoyed it more. But no one said, you know, my whopper tastes like someone's shoes were in it. No, the only way it came out was the fact that later on, the person inadvertently exposed himself as being the culprit who stood in the lettuce by posting that photo.

I thought about all the different things we potentially consumed that we don't know about and don't oftentimes want to know about, right? There are plenty of times where we think, “I don't know, can't hurt me.” Because if I do know, oh boy, it'll drive me nuts. Right? But some of those things can actually hurt us, right? If he'd just been in the restroom facilities and there were certain bacteria on the floor and then stood in that lettuce, someone very possibly could have gotten sick from that lettuce. Those sorts of things happen.

And the person eating it was none the wiser until suddenly, there was a lot of wisdom being forcefully shown. We'd always know the things that are faults. And a lot of times when it comes to our own sin, we are very blind to that. We're the ones actually standing in the lettuce, and somehow we still don't know when we put the lettuce on the sandwich. There's something wrong. And we think, well, if no one really knows my faults, keep them anonymous. If I maybe even remember to remove the geolocation information off the photo so someone can't figure out which Burger King I work at, it'll be okay.

People of Israel here in Isaiah 1 had fallen into that trap. They believed that if they could just cover up their faults with lots of pious activity, do all kinds of things that God had called them to do, that it made up for the things they weren't doing and they didn't do well. God says over and over that's not the case, but we're dumber than oxen. We still believe our own lie, that we can step in the lettuce, and it won't hurt. They say, “Well, look at all my faithful activity. Look at how faithful I am. Look at how great I am.” Because it doesn't work that way.

So as we come to His word tonight, we're going to be in the next part of Isaiah starting at verse 10. Let's go ahead and pray that God would help us not just to say such things but to instead be convicted and to understand what He really is calling us to do. Pray with me, please.

Father, thank you for this evening, Lord. I thank you for these friends and the opportunity we have to study your word together. We pray that by the power of your Spirit, as we hear these words, that you would show us the places where we fall into this trap, where we've been standing in the lettuce and thinking we can get away with it. And would you help us to quit doing it, to quit believing that we can cover up our faults, and instead to trust in the only one who can make our faults right. We pray this in Jesus' precious name. Amen.

Well, if you want to turn with me in your Bible, it's Isaiah 1, verse 10. Here's what we read:

“Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the well-fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. When you come to me, when you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations, I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feast, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers. I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.”

Here's the basic context here. You have the temple ongoing at this time. And remember, we're in a period where the kings are relatively good. So the temple's actually doing at least part of what it should. It's not constantly being used as a place of false worship, doing the sacrifices for the Lord.

How does God look at His people in this time? Well, last week we saw something remarkable and sobering which was in verse 9. He said, remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? And as he brought that up, one of the key things here, it said something is different because this is His people. Verse 9: “If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.” And yet the implication is, but we're not. He has left those survivors. He's like, whew.

Until you turn to verse 10, because, well, Isaiah says, well, we're not quite like Sodom and Gomorrah because God actually hasn't utterly destroyed us. God then addresses His people as Sodom and Gomorrah. He says, oh, don't let the fact that I haven't wiped you off the face of the earth instill in you a false pride that you're somehow better than Sodom and Gomorrah. You're not. You are Sodom anymore. You do the things they did. You ignore my commands and my statutes and my love like they did.

Well, the difference is me, not you. I've shown you mercy. Israel, the chosen people, the people called to be a nation of priests, the holy nation to the world, to show the world who the Lord is and His love and His majesty and His wonder, that says, you're exactly like those places that were so wicked that I wiped them off the face of the earth. And for eternity, people will know the name Sodom and Gomorrah and know what that means, and you're them.

It's not because the people quit sacrificing to God. You know, God says you're doing plenty of that. But it's grating to me that you are. Why are you doing it? Well, that's what you do to deities, right? You give them sacrifices, and God makes it clear: I don't need it. As He says also elsewhere, I'm not some giant superhuman being in the sky that needs to be fed. I am the Lord. I made everything.

So if you're giving me sacrifices, I don't starve to death. You don't understand who I am. I don't need the food. Yes, the other nations around us, they believe that the gods need food and they will starve if they're not fed, but they're wrong because they're worshiping human imaginary idols that can't actually do anything. I'm the Lord. The one who brought you out of the land of Egypt. The one who's rescued you time and again. I don't need food.

Now, as we've been beating this drum for the last few weeks, we need to come back to, again, it's easy to say, how are they so stupid in this time? They have a temple, the Lord has instructed them how to build it, they know exactly how to worship him. How could they be so foolish to do this? But it doesn't stop then. All we need to do is fast-forward to the New Testament. We see it's still going on, right? A little different. The people here, they bend the rules and worship other gods, they worship in the wrong places, they do all those sorts of things.

That's not happening amongst the New Testament remnant of the Jews. No, but they've still missed the point. But do the Pharisees do? Well, the Israelites a few hundred years before said, well, if we just offer enough sacrifice, we check off that box. Yeah, we messed up in all these other ways. We checked off these boxes. We just have to do enough ritual. And in a sense, the Pharisees, what they do is they take the law itself and turn it into ritual.

If we just do enough law, if we add to that law so we can do even moral law. They had a time where they couldn't use the temple because they'd been destroyed and made them scattered around the world and were far away from the temple, couldn't go there all the time. But they could keep the law, and then they could add more law to it. They could say, well, yeah, I know I break this law or that law, but I've done all these other laws, God. Look at all the laws I do do. I do lots and lots of laws.

And so… average it out, God. I'm giving 150% in these areas. So the fact that I only gave 50% of this, do the math, God. It all averages out, and they look pretty good on average. That's how we think of keeping God's law. It's not just the Pharisees. We do this today, right? We bargain with God. Yeah, God, I'm too busy for what you've called me to do here, but look at what I'll do over here. It'll average out.

We're like students who, nearing the final exam, think, “My grade's too low. I wonder if I can get some extra credit,” and we can just add it in. And the fact that part of it's too low won't really matter. I said it doesn't work that way. When you're keeping my law to somehow cover up the fact that you don't keep my law the rest of the time, that doesn't please me. That doesn't make me think that you're devoted to me. It makes me think that you're trying to cover yourself.

Like what Trent Butler says, “Worship must not shield people from God's claim upon their lives.” This is what Israel misunderstood. This is what the Pharisees misunderstood, and this is what we so often misunderstand. We think, if I just do enough ritual or I just do enough of these certain defined neatly compacted things I can hold on to, if I just hold on to these things, I don't have to give God my whole life. I'm just part of it.

But like that broken jar shattered on the ground, you don't want to repair half the jar and say, “Oh, just only look at the front of it.” Well, that might look fine if you were putting it on a shelf, but as soon as you pour water into it, what happens? Well, it just goes all out in the back. I thought, you can't do that. I thought more ritual is better, but God says no, more ritual isn't better.

In fact, it's just like screeching your fingers on a chalkboard for me. If you don't have faithfulness, no increased quantity of ritual, of legalism, of anything you do is going to make up for it. Sort of like when it snows, we hit temperatures this week that pretty much cleared out all but maybe the most compacted snow plowed into a pile of snow in the area. It looks like spring all of a sudden.

Something always strikes me about snow though. I think most of you know I actually really love when it snows, at least if I don't have to go out. And I don't like going out, and I certainly want to stay away from shoveling it these days, but I love when you just look out the window and it's just beautiful and white and pristine. We're gonna come to that image in just a few weeks here in Isaiah. That's why we have plenty of snow here.

But you know, it looks beautiful and white and pristine, but if you have, say, the snow came in a little quickly and you were carrying the trash out and you left it out on the porch, and then it snowed, and you had this beautiful what looked like beginning of a snowman out there. When it starts to melt, and the trash bag starts to peek out from underneath the snow. Still trash, right? It looked okay. But actually, if anything, when it melts all the stuff that wasn't quite orderly underneath, I think almost looks worse, right? Because sometimes it's been knocked over more, but also, we had this illusion of something good, and now we're back to the dirty normal reality.

That's what God says is going on here. You can snow all you want with beautiful rituals. You can cover up every rough and jagged edge, every bag of trash, every dead plant. You can cover it all up and make it look like a winter wonderland of pure white. But I'm interested in what's underneath.

And when we go about trying to elevate ourselves as Christians by living through ritual or law, we read God's word, we read what we should do, we say, “I'm going to do that.” That's a great thing, by the way. It's good to do what God calls us to do. You say, “And now I'm good because I do these things.” I says, well, I have a layer of that, but do you see what's going on in your heart as you're doing it? Do you see all the things you don't do?

God wants us to actually care about what's underneath the snow that we do. Because no matter how much we might try to snow righteousness, we can't make ourselves righteous. Israelites say to God here, “Look at all the sacrifices we're giving. We're just, we're keeping the livestock industry booming because we're sacrificing so much. Look at our righteousness.” And God says, “Look at all your faithlessness.”

Verse 12: “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my court? Bring no more vain offerings, incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure iniquity in the solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feast, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you, and even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.”

I say, look at your faithfulness. I think you're doing all these amazing things, and you're doing a lot of things, yes. God doesn't say, “Well, you don't really ever show up at temple and offer sacrifice.” You're there? But have you looked at what I actually called you to do? And just doing a lot more of one thing doesn't cut it. We like to do that though. We like to think, “Well, I'll pick the thing in here that works for me, and I'll do a lot of that. I'll become a specialist, right? I'll be a righteous specialist in this one area. And then the other areas? Well, there are other specialists. They can do it.”

Now, that works to an extent, right? If we're talking about who has gifts to do this and to do that, that's fair and good and true—if actually biblical. But if it's in the sense of where are we going to avoid sin, we can't be a specialist in avoiding sin only in certain areas. And when we think that we can, we're covering up the trash heap with a little snow and hoping that God says, “Oh, look at this beautiful righteous person.”

Those people of Israel, they come and they say, “Look, look, God, we're giving all these sacrifices. You should bless us abundantly because we're doing all these wonderful things.” God says, “But have you loved your neighbor? Have you shown mercy as you want me to show mercy? Have you acted justly? Or when you're doing dealings at work, are you willing to cut corners a little bit to raise the profits a bit?”

You say you're faithful to me, but are you willing to toss a few coins into the temple down the street if you think it might grow your crops a little more? The answer to all those things for them is yes, they are willing to do this. And the answer for us is often, and actually always in one way or another, the same. We might not all have the same ways we cut corners, but we all cut corners. We all find ways to avoid doing something God's called us.

And if we're coming to God and saying, “Look at the overall scale of my faithful deeds and look at how beautiful my faithful deeds are. God, you should love me. You should bless me.” God says, “Your faithful deeds are not even just short, they're a burden to me. Just stop it.”

Some people have incorrectly read this passage and said, “Oh, Isaiah's saying that the sacrifices that were established earlier in Scripture really shouldn't be. He was disagreeing with the earlier part of the Bible.” That's not the point at all. Isaiah is not contradicting a single jot of what the Lord has already said elsewhere in the Bible. What he's saying is if you don't actually get the heart of what's said in the rest of the Bible, simply covering up by some really nice rituals isn't enough.

Look at verse 13 again: “Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feast, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. And when you have spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.”

If we think we can do enough ritual to please God, we're wrong. And if we think that ritual justifies sin, we're wrong. God isn't pleased by ritual.

Now, let me just pause a moment here. I realize we have a congregation of a lot of different backgrounds, some more ritualistic, some less ritualistic. And for some of you, you're saying, “Yeah, that's exactly right. Down with the ritual. Purify the church.” Well, Isaiah's not exactly going there, right? Isaiah's point isn't to say whether you should do ritual or not. He's saying what you should do in your heart.

They're not really giving us a leg to stand on whether we are the anti-ritual folks, where our ritual is not doing ritual, or we want to do everything exactly in order that's been passed down from generation to generation. His point isn't really to engage in that, but to say whatever you're doing, whatever you think is your offering of piety, of faithfulness to the Lord, make sure what you're actually doing is offering your whole life to your heart. You're not doing that, whatever else you do isn't going to work.

The problem for the people here, in this context, yes, God actually commanded there were precise ways they should worship. And one of the problems is actually how they're being unfaithful in their ritual, right? God said, only worship me in the temple. And they say, “Well, but this high place is really nice. It's phony and convenient and politically expedient. Let's include this too.” And God says, “No, I told you how to do it. You can't even, you say you're faithful, you can't even do the slightest thing as I told you to do.”

I don't know how much it matters how much you offer me.

Again, if God were starving, if He needed a meal, if you're starving to death, you're not picky. But God isn't doing this for the meal. He's doing this because He wants His people to actually commit themselves to Him. And in the way they're doing it, their alleged commitment is actually the opposite. So God says, “Well, I'll give you a deal. You want to treat me like an idol that you offer food to, a deity, that's how you'd like to treat me, right? I'll respond to you like an idol: silence.”

This should be one of the most sobering things we ever read in God's Word. What do they say here? That the people will pray, and they'll be silent. Maybe idolatrous? You want to worship other gods? You want to count on your own strength and your own ritual and your own pureness? Fine. You get the same response that you would from those that tell you that will work: nothing.

Because you're gonna come before me, and when my people come before me, I have an intended way I tend to respond to them, but it's not going to be that anymore. Take a look at Numbers 6:25: “The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.” An ironic blessing. Blessing that the people were to hear as they came to the priest. And God says, if you won't actually commit and be my people, you just want to do some things to clear your conscience, but instead of my face shining upon you and being gracious unto you, you're going to get… nothing.

But God doesn't give us Isaiah so that He can say, “Look at what you've done. It's hopeless despair.” He gives it because of exactly the thing that we saw last week: yes, the people are like Sodom and Gomorrah, yes, they've been unfaithful. But they're there to hear about it. There's mercy. And even as God corrects them and says this isn't working, He's saying that why? Not because He wants them to despair, because He wants them to repent. Not to repent by saying, “Okay, I'll double my order of cattle for next year to offer at the temple. I'll go to Costco and get the wholesale mega pack of sacrifices.” No, He doesn't want that.

He wants them to say, “Lord, I want you to have me. I want you to shape me. I want to do what actually matters to you. I want to have your heart. I want to value what you value. I realize the things that I commit myself to for you even oftentimes are hollow and empty.”

You know, I enjoy taking some different plants from outside and getting them to survive over the winter with grow lights and watering and so on. I haven't been doing quite as well this year with my tomatoes and such, actually. That's an understatement. They're all gone at this point. But some of the years I'll get to tell you, in February, “Oh, I have a tomato, actually ready to pick, Italian kind of fun.”

I also have always really enjoyed, ever since I was little, the little different Christmas trees that you can get, the little live trees. And for the most part, it's almost impossible to get those to survive, right? Um, almost, unless it's the Norfolk. And if you have followed Steadfast over the years, you know I have that giant Norfolk behind me. It's from Christmas, it's long, long ago and it's made it through so many things and just makes me smile every time I see it.

But this year I had an idea. I thought, “Well, I'd love to get another one growing, and I'd like it to actually have a shot.” So rather than getting it from like Walmart or Target or grocery store, what if I went on Etsy? And I ordered a little Christmas tree. And they had a lemon cypress, beautiful little lemon cypress, about this tall. And it came with a little stocking and a little ornament, and it just looked like it was coming for Christmas, a little snowy bucket.

And I thought, well, you know, if it's been nurtured by someone on Etsy, it's gonna be so much better, right? So I ordered this little tree. It got delayed in shipping and it finally arrived on Christmas Eve. Perfect, right? And then I opened the box. And it had this full ornament, it had full bucket. It was wrapped with pretty confetti-like paper around it. It was completely dried up. There wasn't a single branch on it that felt alive.

So I wrote the seller and said, “You know, I received the plant. Here's a picture of it as it came out of the box.” This is like 20 minutes after it arrived, well, or at least an hour after it arrived. This is exactly how it came. It's just not alive. So I wrote back and said, “Well, I paid $18 to ship this.” That was way more than I thought it was going to be. And there was the pot and the ornaments. And goes on and on. We went back and forth several times, but I did all these things.

I wanted to say, but the one thing I actually cared about was getting a plant that was alive. My, you know, it's nice to have the snowy pot, but with a dead tree in it, it kind of leaves you a little empty, right?

But that's how we are with God. We come before Him and say, “God, look at my snowy pot, look at the ornaments. Look at the growing instructions included in the careful packing and the extra shipping I paid to get there.” And God says, “But are you alive?” Those things are nice. Some of them are even pleasing to me if done in the right way. You know, if you have a live plant and it has all the right little trimmings around it, it looks nice.

But God says, what I really want is for you to be alive. I'm the source of life. I'm offering it to you, but you need to actually be mine. I thought about that little tree. I thought about our lives, and I think the question we need to ask ourselves is: Are we trimming ourselves with Christ where we put some nice decorations on, or, you know, in a month or so when you can plant outside, are we putting the mulch down, putting some nice fresh mulch down around our plants? Are we actually living plants in Christ?

Because one looks really good for a moment, and we mistake that for being successful. God says, I don't care if it's just plain dirt with no mulch. I just want you alive in me. That what we're doing? We're trusting those other things. The checklist of things we can name off to people. “Look, all these things I do.” Well, some of those are good. Yeah, yeah. Where are you alive in me? Do you care about me? Do you want to be mine?

He wants us to care about Him, not to just show Him off and look impressive in the moment. People of Israel have forgotten that, and they thought they could just show off. And over the history of the world, that's what we've done time and again. We fall into that temptation.

God says, quit showing off and just be mine. Let's pray that that's what we are tonight.

Father, would you help us not to be those who show off and put down the mulch or put on the ornaments? But those who are alive in our Savior.

Would you help us not to hold back thinking we can just do some things to make up the gap but instead be yours. Would you make our lives a living sacrifice to you?

Lord, in the end, we realize that's better for ourselves as well, but somehow we forget that. Somehow it seems like it's better the other way. You help us to have the priorities that you have. Would you help us to have the sense of value that you have? Would you help us to do it all because we know we have the God who loves us? We pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen.

But that's how we are with God. We come before Him and say, “God, look at my snowy pot. Look at the ornaments. Look at the growing instructions included in the careful packing and the extra shipping I paid to get there.” And God says, “But are you alive?”

Those things are nice. Some of them are even pleasing to me if done in the right way. You know, if you have a live plant and it has all the right little trimmings around it, it looks nice. But God says, what I really want is for you to be alive. I'm the source of life. I'm offering it to you, but you need to actually be mine.

I thought about that little tree, and I thought about our lives, and I think the question we need to ask ourselves is, are we trimming ourselves with Christ, where we put some nice decorations on? Or, you know, in a month or so when you can plant outside, we're putting the mulch down, putting the nice Christ mulch down around our plants. Are we actually living plants in Christ?

Because one looks really good for a moment, and we mistake that for being successful. God says, “I don't care if it's just plain dirt with no mulch. I just want you alive in me.”

Is that what we're doing? Are we trusting those other things, the checklist of things we can name off to people? “Look, all these things I do.” Well, some of those are good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where are you alive in me? Do you care about me? Do you want to be mine?

God wants us to care about Him, not just to show Him off and look impressive in the moment. People of Israel have forgotten that, and they thought they could just show off. And over the history of the world, that's what we've done time and again. We fall into that temptation. I've got this, quit showing off and just be mine.

Let's pray that that's what we are tonight.

Father, would you help us not to be those who show off and put down the mulch or put on the ornaments, but those who are alive in our Savior. Would you help us not to hold back, thinking we can just do some things to make up the gap, but instead be yours? Would you make our lives a living sacrifice to you?

Lord, in the end, we realize that's better for ourselves as well, but I probably forget that. Somehow it seems like it's better the other way. Would you help us to have the priorities that you have? Would you help us to have the sense of value that you have? Would you help us to do it all because we know we have the God who loves us? We pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen.