Sermon Tone Analysis

This is the first Sunday of Advent.

This year the last Sunday of Advent will fall on Christmas Day.

This will be a test of the faithful.

I say this tongue in cheek.

Whether you attend church service or stay home an unwrap presents will determine how religious you are.

Would you consider yourself a religious person?

In our tradition, people are fond of saying, Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship.

And that’s true.

We have a relationship with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that doesn’t consist in religious acts or rules.

But the Bible never says religion is wrong.

It does say there is a difference between pure religion and false religion.

Religion is any set of habitual practices that form you as a person.

They can either form a self-righteous, pride-filled, unrighteous person or they can form a humble, loving person who rests in God and His righteousness.

Our passage today will show us that true religion is denying self, delighting in God, and living a redeemed life in the Spirit.

Religion as Denying Self

Isaiah 58:1 begins with a declaration of the sins of Israel.

What was their sin?

Verse 2 says they were seeking God.

I hope that’s not a sin.

But religious people miss the mark when they seek God to delight in knowledge, but not to delight in God.

Isaiah says they read their Bibles every day, but they forsake what they hear if it doesn’t please them.

Their knowledge doesn’t produce self-denying obedience.

False religion can use the same spiritual practices as true religion, but produce radically different results.

The LORD uses the example of fasting in verse 3.

Fasting is a good spiritual practice.

It is a practice of denying self.

We abstain from satisfying our bodies with food so that we can be satisfied in God.

You can use the time you would spend preparing, eating, and cleaning up your food to meditate on God’s word and pray or to serve others.

Fasting can lead to purified affections and desires.

It can lead to ordered thoughts in truth.

And because fasting is a denial of self, fasting leads to humility.

But in the case of these religious people, externally their fasting looked very religious, bowing their heads and sitting on sackcloth and ashes.

But inside, they were seeking their own pleasure, which led to the wrong result.

In fact He says in verse 4 that their fasting leads to fighting.

Why is that?

If you’re like me, we get cranky when we’re hungry.

Because their fasting was about pleasing themselves and oppressing others, they had turned humility into a religious achievement.

This feeds pride.

The fruit of this religious pride is seen in chapter 59.

There is a separation from God, darkness, and sin giving birth to more sin.

The result is a society in which, as Isaiah 59:14-15 summarizes,

Isaiah 59:14–15 (ESV)

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away;

for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.

Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

That is false religion.

Seeking knowledge, but never arriving at the truth because we seek knowledge for personal gain rather than acting in righteousness and doing justice.

What does true religion look like?

It can still be fasting.

But fasting that is self-denying.

And fasting that is more than a one-day event.

The kind of fast that the LORD accepts is a transformed lifestyle that disadvantages yourself to advantage others.

It is a life of love that does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly with God.

And not just as a religious achievement, but as a means to be satisfied in God.

When you read Isaiah 58:6-7, you see the dedication and long-term commitment God accepts as true fasting, true religion.

Isaiah 58:6–7 (ESV)

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Verse 6 has a two-fold process.

One aspect is to “loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke.”

This is could mean teaching people who have become enslaved to their sin to walk in the freedom of God’s righteousness.

We all know people who can’t get out of their own way.

They want a fruitful life, but their choices lead them into wasting their time, attention, energy, affections, and money on idols that won’t satisfy.

Teaching someone to overcome this cycle is not a one-time event or an easy three step process.

It is walking with someone as they try and fail and try and fail and try again.

It’s a relentless commitment to love, forgiveness, reminders, corrections, and encouragement to keep pursuing Jesus.

And it comes at great personal cost.

But some yokes are not self-imposed.

The second aspect of this process is “to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke”, as he says at the end of verse 6.

We don’t just want to help people get out of their yoke.

We want to break that yoke once and for all.

Some people are trapped because their lives are burdened by systemic injustice.

Verse 9(b) connects taking away the yoke from your midst with “the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness”.

This is collusion by one group of people to disadvantage or mistreat others.

To break this yoke requires advocacy for the disadvantaged and disenfranchised with people in power over some system created by corrupt ideology, or greed, prejudice, or racism.

To set a mistreated person free requires dealing with the underlying injustice causing their oppression.

There are other ways to free the oppressed.

Sometimes you provide a hand up with a resource you have that they need.

Sometimes you teach them a new skill.

But whether it’s advocacy or resources or teaching, this lifestyle, this fast God desires, comes at great personal cost.

The hope is that a corrupt, self-seeking culture, filled with false religion, can become a society built upon justice, righteousness, and truth.

To illustrate this, Isaiah links the imagery garden with the city in verses 11 and 12.

There is so much to say about this, but for now let’s say that if people are created by God in His image to be fruitful and satisfying like gardens, and cities are filled with people, then the New Jerusalem built up like a garden would be the perfect image of paradise.

Isaiah 58:11 (ESV)

And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

Isaiah 58:12 (ESV)

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.

When your religion is true religion, it’s ministry.

And ministry always costs you something.

In verses 7 and 10 it gets very practical.

Share your food with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, clothe the naked, don’t neglect your family.

(I heard someone say we can step over the bodies of our family on our way out the door to do ministry.)

Serving the Lord starts at home, and extends to all those in need.

You could paraphrase the first half of verse 10 something like, “give the needy what you would want for yourself”.

But it literally says,

Isaiah 58:10 (ESV)

if you pour yourself (your soul) out for the hungry