ACTING GOOD …OR GOOD ACTIONS?
Our passage in Isaiah seems contradictory at first… the prophet is told to tell the people they are in rebellion and sin even though it says “day after day they seek God out and seem eager to know his ways”!
But God says they are a nation who just “act like” they are doing what is right and have not forsaken God’s commands. They ask God to give just decisions and they seem eager for God to come near them. But then they complain that God hasn’t even noticed how much they have fasted and how humble they have been.
Oh, but God HAS noticed their fasting….they fast but expect others whom they employ to work and not take time off to fast.
They end their fasting times in big quarrels and fist fights!
God says, “You act like this and expect your prayers to be heard? Is this what I had in mind… a public show of lying around in sack cloth and ashes as if you were really humble?”
God wanted them to “fast” all the attention from themselves and take a break from self-centeredness and look at the really down- and-out ones around them who had no food, no clothes, no shelter and no one to fight for the oppression and injustices they suffered. They hadn’t even been concerned for the plight of their own kin folks!
The point was not to put on a public show of looking dismal and hungry during their ritual fasting times, but rather to actually look FOR those who were really hungry and dismal and do something to alleviate their suffering.
They were to take an inward look at themselves and empathize with those who were forced to spend every day without food and proper clothing and live in humiliation due to no fault of their own.
Fasting had become a custom, rather than a commitment and a time to become contrite before the Lord. Their external show of obedience needed to become an internal desire to extend charity to those around them.
Fasting made them bitter, not better. In their irritableness they had fights instead of faith. They prayed for profit for themselves instead of providing for the needs of others. They needed to trade in their sackcloth for some sympathy and social justice.
I think sometimes this is really not too different from our resolutions to diet and all the moaning and groaning that goes along with it and the feeling as if we are really deprived without realizing that others around us are really hungry for any kind of food and they would happily change their circumstances for ours, getting to just CHOOSE to skip fattening foods and have the finances to make those choices.
Are we THANKFUL for our food and are we willing to spare some and share some?
Verse 10 says, “and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed…”
How are we spending ourselves? That is the essential question related to all this.
The spending of oneself is not measured in terms of hours and days. It is measured in terms of energy invested.
The people in our text, as religious as they were, were in reality spending themselves on themselves. All their time and energy went into making a living for themselves and their families—promoting themselves—advancing themselves—entertaining themselves—enjoying themselves. And though they thought it was terrible that the needy were not being properly cared for by either the government or the church—they personally had no time and energy left to invest.
Fasting was supposed to be a time for self-examination. They were not supposed to be showing people how much they were suffering for God, but rather showing suffering people how much God cared about them.
God said once they were taking care of the needs of others then he would be quick to take care of their prayer requests. They would call and the Lord would answer, “Here I am!”
Look at what the Lord promises to do for them in return for their actions on behalf of the needy:
Their healing will quickly appear (prayers for illness answered)
The Lord will guide them (prayers for guidance answered)
The Lord would satisfy their needs (for sunshine and water etc.)
They would be called “repairers” and “restorers”. (Relationships would mend)
They (and we) need to see the connection between our actions and God’s commands and promises.
Now the gospel passage from Matthew this morning continues this idea of Christ-like actions in the world being a true indicator of our faith rather than ritual law-keeping.
The Christian is called “the salt of the earth.” Why?
Because salt is known for its purity, coming directly from the sun and the sea.
Pure sodium chloride does not deteriorate, it preserves and prevents putrefaction.
And salt promotes and intensifies taste.
So Christians should be out there in the world keeping it pure and keeping it from deteriorating or becoming tasteless.
How are we doing on that scale?
A Peanuts cartoon, showed Peppermint Patty talking to Charlie Brown. She said, "Guess what, Chuck. The first day of school, and I got sent to the principal’s office. It was your fault, Chuck." He said, "My fault? How could it be my fault? Why do you say everything is my fault?" She said, "You’re my friend, aren’t you, Chuck? You should have been a better influence on me."
Either our lives are counting for good and for God or they are making an impact for evil and the enemy…. The way we live, the things we say the attitudes we entertain, the life style we adopt… are continuously producing either positive or negative results in society.
When Mahatma Gandhi was the spiritual leader of India, he was asked by some missionaries, “What is the greatest hindrance to Christianity in India?” His reply was, “Christians.”
It’s sad that we are so bad that nobody wants to be like us!
Greed, lust and indifference are leading the world into ruin and decay. We must be a force for good and speak up whenever Christian values are ridiculed or disregarded by our society.
We have a recent example of how someone like Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty was singled out for banishment by the liberal media but praise the Lord enough Christians were willing to speak out and he was restored to his TV program.
We are not called to be conspicuous, but we must be conscious of wrongs and consistent in our walk and talk.
You have heard the saying…”all that is necessary for evil to triumph over good is for the good to do nothing.”
We must get out of the salt shaker and shake up the world! A small amount of salt can make a difference.
Then the scripture says we are also to be “the light of the world.”
This is endowing us with the same title as Jesus Himself, because when Jesus lives in our hearts His light is intended to shine out from us.
A pastor warned a young man in his church that the company he was joining was very worldly and could be a bad influence on him, and furthermore, they would treat him terribly for being a Christian. A few months later he heard just the opposite, that the boy’s experience had been ‘nothing but pleasant.’ The pastor asked, ‘You mean they haven’t persecuted you for being a Christian?’ He replied, ‘Nope! Matter of fact, they haven’t even found out yet!’
Are you hiding your light for fear of ridicule or rejection by the crowd?
Why do we do good works? So people will remark, ‘what a great Christian you are!’ No! The purpose of the light is not to glorify itself. You don’t turn a light on to draw attention to the light, but to whatever it is shining on. The purpose of the light is to illuminate Jesus and to glorify the Father in heaven!
Your light and your good works are because God is your Father so when people see it God should get the glory. It is not an “advertising” light about you it is an altar flame from inside you.
Light is intended to dispel darkness, reveal truth, and light the right path.
Again, I ask you, how are we doing on that scale?
Jesus said he didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.
That part about not even “a jot or a tittle” disappearing (as the King James Version always translated it) just fascinated me enough to look it up. So as one preacher used to say, this is just a little green-stamp bonus. A jot was a small mark like an apostrophe, and a tittle was that little mark that sort of extends out to the side of a “1” to keep it from looking like a small “l”.
Jesus was a strict interpreter of the REAL law of God which is to love God with all our heart soul and mind and our neighbor as ourselves.
Dr. James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, noticed a sign one day which read: "No trespassing. Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." At the bottom of the sign was, "Sisters of Mercy".
The demands of the law have a limit but the demands of love are never over.
Jesus taught not sacrifice but mercy, not legalism but love, and not so much prohibition from evil as being proactive for good.
Sin was sin in both action as well as heart attitude. That is why your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees who were the most religious law-keepers of the day.
How in the world then could you expect to enter the kingdom of heaven?
By putting your faith in the one perfect law keeper- Jesus Christ who was altogether righteous and who paid the death penalty price for all the law-breakers such as we are.
In our passage in Corinthians Paul says he is not trying to persuade folks with eloquent words and human wisdom, but rather he will just preach Christ and him crucified.
Your faith must rest on this knowledge of God’s power and God has not hidden it, but revealed it to us through the scriptures and the Spirit.
I have tried as most ministers of the gospel will be doing today to give you God’s words, but only the Spirit of God can help you understand their deep meaning for your own heart and life.
In Isaiah they fasted not only from food but from their fellowman.
In Matthew they were law-keeping instead of light-sharing.
And in Corinthians they did not have the mind of Christ to understand spiritual rather than physical things.
Have you been going through the motions but not getting into motion to spread your professed Christianity to a needy world?
Do you need some prayers answered?
God wants you to be the answer for someone’s plight and He will be watching to reward you!
You are to possess the mind, manner and mission of Christ to fulfill your purpose in the world.
How are you doing on that?
You are writing a gospel,
a chapter each day
by the deeds that you do,
by the words that you say
men read what you’re writing,
whether faithless or true
So, what is the gospel according to you?
