One Sunday morning the pastor noticed little Johnny was standing and staring up at the large plaque that hung in the foyer of the church. The young man of seven had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up and stood beside him and, gazing up at the plaque, he said quietly, “Good morning, son.”
“Good morning, pastor” replied the young man not taking his eyes off the plaque. “Sir, what is this?” Johnny asked.
“Well son, these are all the people who have died in the service,” replied the pastor. Soberly, they stood together staring up at the large plaque.
Little Johnny’s voice barely broke the silence when he asked quietly, “Which one sir, the 8:30 or the 10:30 service?”
For some reason, sometimes when we think of church we think of it as some place that we have to go and put our time in on Sunday, and hope that we survive it.
And sometimes we come, and when we leave and have no idea what hymns we sung, we have no idea what the pastor said, and no idea how many times we technically “dozed off.”
And we’re all guilty of this, myself included.
Which is actually even worse because I’m the one that gives the message.
And it’s really embarrassing when Terri and I are driving home, and I have to ask her what the Pastor talked about.
“Hey hun, what did the Pastor preach on today…I was kind of zoning in and out of it.”
But we all have Sundays like this...Sundays where our bodies were here, but we really weren’t.
And when we have a Sunday like that, it kind of makes you sit back and think about why we come here.
What is the reason that I am in church anyway?
Well today, I’m going to tell you why you should be here.
And then you can decide for yourself whether or not you’re here for the right reason.
Pray
In order to look at today’s Scripture and what it means, you first need to understand who Isaiah is delivering this message to.
So you need to have an understanding of the history of Israel.
So I’ll give you just a short history lesson, which is kind of important.
So don’t zone out on me quite yet…okay? We just started.
The nation of Israel has been delivered from the bondage of the Egyptians.
They have wandered the desert for 40 years, and they have finally taken the land that God has promised them.
There are twelve tribes of Israel right now that have come from the twelve sons of Jacob.
They have been living under the ruling of one king.
There has been Saul, and David, and Solomon as King so far.
When Solomon’s son Rehoboam however takes over, things go south.
When Solomon was in office, he made the work load and taxation very hard on the people.
So when Rehoboam takes over, the representatives of the twelve tribes come before him, and they ask him if he can lighten the load a little bit that his dad put on them.
So Rehoboam sends them away for three days so that he can talk with his advisors.
He asks the wise old advisors first how he should respond, and they say tell them that you will make their lives easier, and they will love you forever.
Rehoboam doesn’t like that answer however, so he gets a second opinion.
So he gathers up a new group of young dumb advisors, and asks them what he should say.
And they advise him to tell them, “to quit their whining, and that he’s not going to lighten it, but he’s going to make it four times as hard as his dad ever did.”
Well when the tribes hear this they don’t take it too well, and 10 out of the twelve tribes head off on their own.
So in 927 B.C. they split, and the 10 tribes head North. So now you have Northern Israel and Southern Israel.
Well, it doesn’t go to well for Northern Israel.
They turn away from God, and refuse to turn back.
So because of their turning from God, they only make it about 200 years, and in around 723 B.C. Northern Israel is captured and destroyed by Assyria.
So only two out of the twelve tribes are left, but they don’t last much longer either.
About 135 years later the Southern tribe is defeated by Babylon.
They are eventually restored, but all of this took place because they turned away from God.
So Isaiah is a prophet that was sent right in the midst of all of this.
He sent in the middle of the split of the Northern and Southern tribes to deliver God’s message to the people.
And Isaiah was calling them to turn back to the Lord.
And if you had gone and talked to the people that Isaiah was delivering this message to, they would have said, “What are you talking about, turn back to the Lord…I haven’t gone anywhere.”
You see, they were still there in the synagogue every week.
They were saying all of the prayers that they were supposed to say.
They were making the sacrifices that they were supposed to make.
They were doing everything that a good Jew of the time was supposed to do.
So they would have said, “I’m already doing everything that God wants, what more can you want from me.”
And it reminds me of a story.
There is a story about an old village in Spain. The people of this village heard the king planned to visit there. No king had ever done that. So naturally, they became excited and wanted to offer a great celebration that would show their adoration and that would honor the king. But what could a village of such poor people offer?
Someone proposed that since so many of the villagers made their own wines – very good wines – they could offer that to please the king. And they each decided that they would all take some of their best wine, and combine them as a gift for the king.
On the day of the king’s arrival, they all came to the village square early in the morning with a large cup of their finest wine and poured their offering into a small opening at the top of a large barrel. They were excited to see the king enjoy the best wine he’d ever tasted.
When he arrived, the king was escorted to square where he was ceremoniously presented with a silver cup and invited to draw wine from the barrel. He was told the villagers were delighted to have him taste the best they had to offer.
He filled his cup from the spigot. And when he drank the wine, to his surprise he tasted only water.
Had some miracle-worker turned wine to water? Had someone stolen all of the wine that was meant for the king?
No. Each villager had reasoned, "I’ll withhold my best wine and give water. There will be so many cups of excellent wine poured into the barrel that mine will never be missed.”
After all was said and done, the king was left with a town full of people who simply went through the motions of showing their love and admiration for him.
This is what the nation of Israel was guilty of.
And that is why God told them in verse 13, “these people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
The Israelites were at the right places, they were saying the right things, but God is more concerned with the heart.
He doesn’t care as much for the how…as He does for the why?
Why were they going to the synagogue?
Why were making these sacrifices…why were they saying these prayers?
Their words sounded good, but their hearts just weren’t in it.
And it makes you wonder about us doesn’t it?
Why are you in church today?
Why are you going to stay for Sunday School?
A better question might be, why aren’t you going to stay for Sunday School?
And more importantly than that, why did you participate in the service?
We read together a confession of sin today…do you have any idea what it said?
We have sung two hymns and some praise and worship so far in our service…did you think at all about the words that were coming out of your mouth?
Did the words even make it out of your mouth?
We sung the Lord’s Prayer together today…did it mean anything to you?
I think a lot of times, we come to church…we go through all of the motions, and then we leave without ever really being there.
Worshipping God is more than your body being present, and your mouth saying the right words.
A mother took her little boy to church. While in church the little boy said, "Mommy, I have to pee."
The mother said to the little boy, "It's not appropriate to say the word 'pee' in church.
So, from now on whenever you have to 'pee' just tell me that you have to 'whisper.'"
The following Sunday, the little boy went to church with his father and during the service said to his father, "Daddy, I have to whisper."
The father looked at him and said, "Okay, why don't you whisper in my ear."
Sometimes, the meaning behind the words is more important than the words themselves.
It’s great that you’re here in church, it’s great that you are singing the songs, and saying the responses…but why are you doing it?
God knew why the Israelites were doing it, and that is why He says, “their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.”
They were told that they had to sing this song at this time, so they did it.
They were told that they had to say this prayer in this place, so they did it.
They were told that they had to sacrifice this animal on this altar, so they did it.
They didn’t do it out of Love and Respect for their God, they did it because somebody told them to do it.
They were not doing these things to truly worship God.
And this is the reason that we are supposed to be here.
To worship God.
To come before God in this church and use it as an opportunity to tell Him how wonderful He is.
To sing praises to His name.
To grow closer to Him through His word.
To truly worship God.
That’s why we’re supposed to be here…but is it why you’re here?
Is it for you?
Or is it for God?
