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We've all tried to manage our relationship with God on our own terms—keeping up appearances, going through the motions, assuming good effort is good enough. Isaiah 1:18 cuts through that with a direct invitation: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord”—and the question it presses is whether we'll actually stop and think about what he's offering.
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
The cleaning fairy broke into homes and did genuinely good work, yet was still treated as an intruder because she had no relationship with the homeowners. In what ways do we bring our good works to God in a similar spirit—competent but uninvited? How does this reframe what it means to approach God on His terms rather than our own?
The sermon contrasts regret with repentance using Peter and Judas as examples. Both betrayed Jesus, both felt the weight of what they had done—but only one turned back. What is the difference between feeling sorry about consequences and actually turning away from sin? Can you think of areas in your own life where you have confused the two?
God calls Israel to “reason together” in Isaiah 1:18, yet the people keep offering sacrifices without changing their behavior. Why do you think people—then and now—settle for outward performance instead of actual relationship with God? What makes genuine repentance harder than ritual?
Isaiah presents a stark choice: eat the good of the land or be consumed by the sword. Yet the sermon notes that people still choose the harder path. What makes God's offer of grace seem less appealing than trying to control things ourselves? What would it take to truly believe the blessing is better?
The sermon emphasizes that we cannot do it on our own—that trying to earn God's favor is like a branch cut off from the vine. How does accepting that limitation become liberating rather than discouraging? Where do you still struggle with wanting to prove your own worth to God or to others?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
People who are dumber than an ox. I have an interesting example tonight for us, and that is a woman by the name of Susan Warren. Now, Susan Warren, from what I understand, was someone, or is someone—she's still alive, as far as I know—who is excellent at her craft of cleaning homes. Really good at it, right? Which, not the real field, actually, not the little things that the rest of us miss, and clean them up, that should be, if you're somewhat entrepreneurial, a pretty good job for you, where you can always find people who need help, right?
Well, as good as she was with cleaning homes, it seems her marketing abilities were less developed. And so she came up with this plan—how would she get new clients for her cleaning business? She would break into people's homes, clean them, and leave a bill.
And so it was in 2012. She broke into someone's home, and she didn't realize anyone was there. The daughter actually was asleep in the house. She cleaned it, she backed in the living room, cleaned up the family room, I think, cleaned the kitchen, put everything in order, took a hand, wrote down $75 in her contact information, and left. The owner reported to the police. She woke up and noticed the house seemed clear when she went to sleep. Indeed, it was. So the cleaning fairy had struck. That was what they called her. And she thought this was a way that she could develop a connection with future clients, right?
You realize your house has been burgled by a maid. You say, Wow. This is great.
Well, the homeowners weren't so amused, and even aside from the $75 bill, I don't think even for free they really wanted anyone to break into their home to clean it. And so it was that Susan Warren went to jail. She got out of jail, and Fred's thinking is no shoveling. Yeah. Back to you.
Needless to say, there was an issue, right? She was doing something actually pretty well, right? She was cleaning the home, and from everything I read, she didn't steal anything. She actually did a good job cleaning. If she had gone by the right approach, and actually formed a relationship with her future clients, it might have worked; but most people don't like they have a cleaning fairy breaking into their home, cleaning it, and leaving a bill. She didn't have a relationship, and the fact that she did a good job didn't matter.
She mentioned, you know, I tried to do a really good job. It didn't matter, because since she didn't have that relationship, it was trespassing.
When you think about what I say to the people of Israel, they've been acting a lot like the cleaning fairy. I don't really have a relationship with the Lord. They don't pay attention to what he says they ought to do most of the time. But they burglarize their way into the temple and offer some sacrifices and say, But God, look at these great sacrifices we do.
I said, but you're not in a relationship with me. I don't know you. You're trespassing. That's what I've been seeing over the last few weeks. Israel didn't get it. By all accounts, it didn't sound like Susan Warren got it.
And here's the part that's challenging for us. So often, we don't get that. And the next few verses in Isaiah, what God's going to say to us is we need to stop and think, saying to Israel, we need to stop and think. Exactly what, I think most of us, if we were friends of Susan Warren's, would have told her before she went on her marketing scheme.
Susan, you have a talent for this. Why don't you stop and think, because this is not a way. And in fact, at one point, your probation forbid her from cleaning as a profession. She lost the very thing she was good at because she didn't stop, I think.
Let's pray tonight, that God would help us to stop and think, and to see what it is that he has to pay for, okay?
Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for your word. Would you help us to be those who are faithful? Help us stop and think. Realize where we're trespassing and thinking we're doing a good job, but instead, see what you've actually called us to do and to do it. We pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen.
Let's go ahead and turn to Isaiah 1. We'll turn to verse 18 to start tonight.
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.
Well, snow is a beautiful picture, right? That's why we have it up here, white as snow. We've been talking about that over the last few weeks, but here we actually get that metaphor. God says, you're this messy. You're this messed up. You are as dark as these black cloths here with sin. You have wrapped up an incredible debt of sin. But it can be made pure. It can be made right.
Now, some commentators have looked at this passage and said, Well, maybe this is ironic. Maybe God is saying this sort of sarcastically. You know, a couple less reason. You're so messed up you can be white as snow. Ha.
But clearly, if you look at the context of this, that's not what God is saying. God is saying, I'm offering something to you. I'm offering you something different.
We looked at verses 16 and 17. I asked Wednesday, I just want to take us back there for a moment.
And notice here that God says three things that we should do: stop, learn, and seek.
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.
So God says, stop, learn what you should do, and then listen to it.
And here then, in verse 17, verse 18, says, Okay, I've given you this. Now I want you to stop and reason with it. Here's the things you should be doing. You haven't been doing it. Your sin is covering up the whiteness of this pure, freshly fallen snow.
What do you want to do about it? Keep on?
Every time you get out of probation, you go break another house and see if it works better this time. And maybe every once in a while, it seems to work, right?
Susan, the woman that was the cleaning fairy, she actually, I guess, continued in the business afterwards. And when she went viral for this, some people left Yelp reviews attacking her for what she had done in the past, but some people said, Well, anytime you want to break into my house, just go ahead. I'd love for you to break into my house and clean it.
So it's not that it never happens. It's that it's not really the way to go, right?
Sometimes you do something, and you're not really paying attention, and it works out well. Sometimes that happens here. But not every time.
And God's saying, I really don't want that to be your approach. I want you to do something better. Susan, since she had a talent, clearly could have done something better. She could have picked up a few clients, maybe cleaned their house for free once, knocked on their door, done the normal cold sale pitch, and found a couple of clients. They would have really liked her work, and they would have recommended her to other people, and she would have built up an actual rapport that would last, as opposed to hoping you broke into the house to someone who's so desperate to have their house cleaned, they don't mind that you broke in.
The Israelites say, Well, sometimes it works when we just ignore God, but we give sacrifices. Well, that's not the way to live. But there's a way out. I want you to know there's a way out.
So often, we're standing at the window trying to see if we can jiggle it open to break in. God saying, Come, let us reason, saying to Israel. You've been jiggling a lot of windows, trying to break in. Come on, there's a reason. It's a better way.
Not to despair. You just have to repent. You have to actually turn to me. That's what I want.
I've listed out the things I want you to do. You can't do them, you don't do them. But even though I'm saying, you always get it wrong, I'm saying, I will purify away the sin for you. I'll make you as white as snow.
But you actually need to respond.
Posted yesterday on Pastry Social, this really wonderful little consideration of the difference between repentance and regret. I thought it brought it to such a fine point.
I don't recall the original author's name, but it was just really good. And it was looking at the lives of Peter and Judas. And they're picture perfect examples of the difference between regret and repentance, because sometimes we conflate the two. And we think what repentance is, I feel really bad about getting caught, or even I feel really bad about what happened.
And at least part of the time during Isaiah's lifetime, Israel did feel really badly about circumstance, right? This is a lousy circumstance. And maybe even occasionally, and we regret that we didn't follow the word. But were they going to turn to him?
It's a remarkable difference that we see played out in parallel in the lives of Peter and Judas. They both betrayed Jesus. And yes, Judas tips off the enemies of Jesus were to find him. But Peter runs away and denies he even knows them, even though Peter isn't just even one of the 12. He's one of the inner circle.
So they both, they're both in deep into their sin of betrayal. What they do next is the key difference between regret and repentance.
What does Peter do? He comes back to Jesus. Ashamed as he is, broken as he is, humiliated as he is, he comes back. He seeks the restoration. He receives that restoration. We see that beautiful scene as Jesus restores Peter at the end of the gospel of John.
And Peter goes on and he proclaims the gospel. He goes around and travels and establishes churches and disciples people into the faith, and we still benefit from the outworking of the Holy Spirit in Peter's life today.
What does Judas do? Well, he's not pleased that what he's done has led to Jesus' death. And we can play all kinds of games on what did Judas really think? Do you think somehow Jesus would slip away? Do you think that Jesus would do a giant miracle and smite everyone trying to get him? I don't know.
If Judas had thought about those things, if he had a plan, maybe he didn't care, and then he realized he did care. We don't, we're not given that information.
What we do know is that he does regret what happened. He gives back the coins, tosses them to the leaders and says, I don't want them. And they say, Too bad, so the deal's a deal, it's done.
And what did he do? He kills himself.
Critical difference there.
They both, they both regret, but Peter repents.
That's a crucial difference.
Judas becomes convinced there isn't any way out. It's too bad. It's just too broke. And as God confronts the people here in Isaiah one, there's the possibility that they can do that too, right? We're so sinful. We can't care about justice. We can't care about mercy. We can't even get the rituals right. We just give up. We might as well just all die. God, bring in an invading army and kill us because we can't do it.
That's basically what Judas does. I know this was good. But there's nothing I can be done about now. What's done is done. So the best thing that I can do is just end my life so that it can't get any worse.
It's not that what Peter did was somehow not as bad. It's that Peter realized that what makes the difference wasn't himself. It was Jesus.
Because God calls the people to reason here in Isaiah, what he's saying is, look at it. You can't do it. So why are you trying to persist in claiming that you're good and trying to layer things so that you can say that you're the one who's good? Doing all these rituals even though you don't seem to care? And all you need to do is knock on the door and have a relationship with me, instead of trying to burglar your way into the temple.
Not say that we give up on good deeds, but we need to give up on the idea that we're earning our way. I can't. We won't.
God thinks, people, how about trying something different? Can't you see this isn't working. Stop and think.
Verse 19: If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
So one commentator put it, God says here, eat or be eaten. Would you like to come to my buffet of blessing and experience the beauty and plenty of that? Or would you like to die by being the dinner? It's your choice.
What God's saying here isn't dog eat dog, right? That's not his point. I think he's saying that the big dogs want to have hope in Him, that yeah, we can't do it. But we can turn to Him and He can do it.
When we look at that, doesn't that seem like this should be really a no-brainer? Do you want bountiful blessing or do you want to die?
This is not even a mafia, easy way and a hard way kind of deal, right? Do you want to suffer a little and pay some protection money, or do you want us to blow up your shop? It's not that. It's, do you want me to bless you and love you and take care of you, or do you want to bring your own destruction upon yourself?
It shouldn't be a no-brainer.
John Calvin reflected on this call to reason: “If only our ingratitude and enmity hinder us from receiving God's birth is forgiven.” I think it's such an interesting way to frame that.
And I think it hits exactly what's coming up here because God is saying, I want to forgive you. I want to bless you.
And too often they say, and we say, I don't know, God. Can I try it on my own for a little while longer, the outward foul? That might be better. You do it my way.
As people love the Sinatra method, it doesn't work.
He says, just think about it. Doesn't make any sense. That's the point of this passage. It's that what God offers us, it makes no sense. Zero sense, absolutely not a jot of sense to turn it down.
And yet, both directly and indirectly, we do, directly and just saying, Eh, I'm not interested in that. I'm too busy doing other things in my life. I don't want this, Lord. I want to believe what you're saying.
And in the less direct ways, where we say, Okay, I'll superficially plaster that on my life, but I'm going to live still that I'm the one who's earning it. I'm really a good person. I'm really the one doing it, and I'm really the one who deserves credit.
Yeah, theologically, I don't, but practically, of course I do. I'm a pretty good person. I haven't murdered anyone this week. You're probably gonna be a pretty good person.
Last week, I was going to wrap some laundry and I saw something move on top of it. That's never the most pleasant thing, right? And sure enough, as we have here certainly in Missouri, we have these friendly little spiders known as brown recluses. Yeah, plenty of those around here.
And, you know, they're called recluses for a reason. They'd rather be left alone, but they also like crawling in things like laundry. And here was this little brown recluse perched on top of the laundry.
And I looked at that and thought, Well, this is not good.
I mean, the good news with the brown recluse is they're generally not aggressive spiders. They don't really want to have a battle with us. The problem is when we excel at reaching someplace they are, and they think we're attacking them, and they respond, right? That's the problem, which also means you can't just say, Oh, well, you're just a harmless little spider. Here, just stay in the laundry pile. I ignore you, right?
So I was trying to decide what to do with a spider placed there. And I thought, Well, I could step on it and probably hit it. Or I could try to grab a cup and see if I could knock it into the cup and take it outside, which I'd rather do, right? Because they insects, they're useful creatures outside. I just don't want them inside.
But the challenge, when you're dealing with something like a brown recluse, is that you can't say, now, Mr. Recluse, would you like to eat your meat and would you like me to smash you or give you freedom?
And, of course, I would say freedom because I don't want to kill you. I just want you to come into the cup. I'll take you outside. You'll be able to do what brown recluses are made to do. You will eat, feast on the spring bounty of insects.
But you can't say that, right? As far as I know, brown recluses don't speak English. I can't dialogue either.
Now, I did actually succeed. I got him into the cup and off skurried the little spider, and he can eat all the whatever insects happen to hit little spider taste buds in the spring.
Did he freeze last night? Hopefully crawled in someplace nice and warm. Yeah, I don't know. I think he's in your laundry, yeah, back on it, I'm back in the house.
Oh, hold on. I confess, I have not researched exactly how brown recluses weather the winter although they do, even when there aren't houses, right? Many of them are outdoors.
But this got me thinking about what God's saying here to his people, both then and now. Because we're an awful lot like brown recluses.
We really kind of want to be left alone. And oftentimes when God calls us to follow his way, what do we do? We lash out at God, we bite him.
We bring a bite of death just like a brown recluse, one that it will kill you more than likely, but it will make your skin rot, right? It's not so much fun.
But there's a key difference—a key way we're far worse than a brown one, please. Could you see that little spider? That spider is tracking insects, trying to do what a little spider is supposed to do, and there's a misunderstanding of language barrier there that ends up leading to humans and venomous spiders not getting along so well.
Otherwise, if we could just reason with each other, it could probably work out pretty well.
Yeah, I don't want those ants and stuff crawling inside either. Go ahead, Beast.
But I can call out to the people of Israel, come, let us reason, because he actually can speak our language.
He can speak to us. This is, every bit is absurd for God to speak to human beings is for a human being to speak to the spider, but God does it. So we can understand.
And here's how we're worse than the spider. We still bite, even though he's speaking to us in a way that we can understand.
That's what God's saying here. You can understand this. This is not that hard. Do you want to die, or do you want me to bless you wildly for eternity? Not the heart.
Let's see if I can write you. Nothing. Not if this is anything better than freedom.
You know, put us out in the winter weather, and hope that we can find a warm spot outside.
He brings us into the warmth of his blessing every single time.
I've got the thing is, do you want the death that you already have, or do you want something better? I want to give you something better.
My goal isn't to smash you. My goal is to love you. You need to turn to me. You need to recognize that I'm the source of your strength, not yourself.
Because you think you're the source of your strength. It's like little spider, assuming that its source of its strength is going to be to bite me. Well, no, it might hurt me, but it's not going to live if it bites me, right?
And when we were all against God, and we say, I'll just do it my way, God, I don't need you. It's not going to even rot Dad's hand away a little bit. You're not going to have an allergic reaction. It doesn't do anything to him. It's nothing to him other than the fact that he invites us to something better.
Do we hear that and do we respond?
John 15:5: Jesus said to his disciples, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. Keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.”
But Jesus was saying here is, you don't have to try to do it. You can't. You cut the branch off the vine, the branch is dead. It does nothing.
And here's the thing for us. We start off in the state of being cut off. We're already cut off by our sin. Russians, do you want God to heal us?
What about trying to buy his favor? We can't do it.
But there's something better to be had, offering hope and grace.
As Christians, we are called, indeed, just as He's calling the people here. We're called to do His will. We're called to care about justice and mercy and to be people who exemplify that.
But people exemplify that because we're attached to the vine and being fed and empowered by the Holy Spirit, not trying to do it on our own.
God calls people to reason. Like, don't you understand the absurdity of what you're trying to do? It won't work. Never has, and it never will.
Can I have something better for you?
My life that tells us to realize that. Can you pray with me, please?
Father, thank you for this evening and thank you for these friends that we can gather together and read your word and study it.
Thank you for not just the gathering of people, but gathering of people connected by your Spirit, adopted by the blood of your Son.
We can't do it on our own, even as a group, as a church here in this particular church or the church around the world, we can't do it, Lord.
But you offer us something better than a wedding being smashed you off for us blessing.
You offer us a relationship with you.
You call to stop and think.
Would you help us to stop and think? But look at our sin and our failure and to turn to you; to stop and think and look at, even as we go through life as Christians, that we are reverting back into wanting to trust in ourselves, and we're failing miserably.
But if we stop and think about your promises, if we stop and think about what you've done, there's the right way forward, there's hope.
Would you help us to grab onto it and to hold onto it? Because we can only do in your strength.
We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
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