This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back for day two of week one of our look at the book of Isaiah. We're
still in Isaiah chapter one today. We took a look starting yesterday at the fact
that there's this vision in the book of Isaiah that's for your life and it
begins with God's vision for change in your life, for growth, what he wants to
do.

And it begins very honestly with the fact that sometimes we don't want to do
what God wants us to do. We have a struggle with rebellion. These verses we're
going to look at today talk about how do you deal with that struggle?

What do you do when you find yourself not wanting to do Christian things,
wanting to do things that are apart from Christ? What do you do when you feel
like you're on the edge of giving up on your faith or maybe felt like you've
gone over the edge? You know you're involved in something that God simply does
not want in your life.

God has an answer to that rebellion in our lives. It's a prescription for
healing a rebellious heart and we're all going to need this prescription
sometimes because we all have rebellious hearts. We all have the struggle to
give our hearts to him for change.

The prescription number one. First thing you do is you stop bringing meaningless
offerings. Stop bringing meaningless offerings.

Isaiah 11 and then verse 13. The multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to
me? says the Lord.

I have more than enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened
animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. Stop
bringing meaningless offerings.

Your incense is detestable to me. New moons, Sabbaths, and convocations. I
cannot bear your worthless assemblies.

In these verses there are really three soul searching questions to ask that help
us to stop bringing meaningless offerings. The first question is, am I giving
what God wants? We struggle with rebellion in our lives as followers of Christ
because we find ourselves giving some something that God doesn't want.

God says I've got more than enough burnt offerings. Israel kept giving to God
but God didn't want what they were giving and it wasn't that what they were
giving was wrong. God had commanded them to give some of these things.

It was that their heart was wrong in the giving. They felt like they were making
sacrifices when the truth is they were only making excuses. They felt like they
were giving great things to God when the truth is they were only going through
the motions.

Meaningless offerings. Our lives sometimes are filled with them. We fill our
lives with Christian activities without Christian commitment.

Going to church all the time but we're not really growing in our commitment to
Christ. Or we have a Bible, we carry a Bible, we read a Bible but we never
really listen to the life-changing truth in the Bible. It's an offering.

I'm carrying it. I have it but it's meaningless because it's not doing anything
in my life. Or we give our money without giving ourselves.

Cold cash from cold hearts. We don't give out of this heart of love for the
Lord. One of the questions behind this is are you trying to buy God's favor by
the things that you do or the ways that you talk or are you trying to buy God's
favor?

He's saying I've had more than enough of that. I've had more than enough of what
you're trying to pass off as commitment. We both know it's a lie so let's get
back to the truth.

Start bringing meaningful offerings. A second question in this passage is why do
you go to church? Why do you go?

Isaiah 1 12, "When you come to appear before me, who asks this of you, this
trampling of my courts? " They decided what they would do and they just knew God
would be impressed. Look we showed up.

God said you're just trampling the dirt. Nothing good is happening here because
they forgot to ask what God wanted them to do. Now obviously God wants us to be
together in church and don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together.

All kinds of scriptures about this. But again why do you go? Why do you go?

Who has asked this of you? Are you going because of what somebody else might
think of you because you're there or not there? Why do you go to church?

Why do you do religious things? Because of what your parents or friends might
think, your family, because of what your guilt's telling you, because of what
your fear is telling you, or because you believe in faith that is God's will for
your life. I've found that people do all kinds of religious things for all kinds
of reasons that have nothing to do with commitment to Christ.

So why are you doing religious things? You get back to the real reason to do
those things. That's what helps you to heal this rebellion in life.

And then the third question you ask out of this bringing of meaningless
offerings is what's God's opinion of my life? In verse 14 he continues on this
theme. He says "Your new moon feast and your appointed festivals I hate with all
my being.

They've become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. " I'm not going to
listen to you God says because it's just become a burden to me.

God sent a prophet Isaiah to break through their rebellion and to tell them his
opinion of their actions. It's not a pretty message but it's an honest message.
So the courageous question for us is God what do you think of my life?

Let me just sit here for a minute let you evaluate my heart, my life, my needs,
and God would you place a finger on that place where I might be rejoicing but
instead I need to be weeping because I'm not trusting you. I'm not trusting you
in your power. So you want to heal the rebellion you stop bringing meaningless
offerings you turn them into meaningful offerings.

The second thing you do is you stop doing wrong and you learn to do right. That
may seem pretty obvious but you need Christ power to do that. So in Isaiah 1 16
to 17 wash and make yourselves clean.

Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right.

Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless.

Plead the case of the widow. You might remember some trains still have this but
most older train stations had this a roundhouse where the train would pull in
the entire train would be pulled around then it would pull out going the exact
opposite direction. You need a roundhouse in your life.

You need a place where you can point to and say I was headed one direction and
at that point I changed direction. You stop doing wrong but you also learn to do
right. It's not enough just to stop doing wrong.

Some people think that's all I got to do and then I'm not rebellious anymore.
No, you also have to learn to do right. There's this point of commitment
regarding the actions of my life.

There's this turnaround and Isaiah gives four separate pictures in this
turnaround here. He starts to get specific. He says you have to seek justice.

You have to encourage the oppressed. You have to defend the cause of the
fatherless. You have to plead the case of the widow.

To deal with the rebellion that we all struggle with, we come out of a rebellion
by looking to help those who are struggling, looking to help those who are weak,
looking to help people who might not be able to do anything for you to make you
more powerful or you feel better about yourself. They may not even have the
power to tell you thank you but when you choose to do that you're expressing the
heart of God towards them and when you choose to do that you start to come out
of that rebellion in your life. There's all kinds of actions that we can take to
be obedient to God.

Isaiah's prescription here is when you're struggling with rebellion make sure
you take actions regarding the weak, those who are struggling, those whom
everybody wants to ignore. That's one of the ways that we have the heart of God
for this world. Third thing to do, famous verse from the book of Isaiah, is you
settle your accounts with God.

Verse 18, "Come now, let us settle this matter. " King James says, "Come and let
us reason," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be
white as snow.

Though they're red as crimson, they shall be like wool. " Let's sit down, God
says, let's settle accounts. You want to come out of that rebelliousness that I
want to turn away from God in my life?

Let's settle the accounts and you settle accounts, God says, not by trying to
make up for what you've done wrong by doing a bunch of right things. You settle
the accounts by recognizing in a fresh new way what Jesus did for you on the
cross. Jesus paid it all.

"Though your sins are like scarlet, they're white as snow. Though they were as
red as crimson, now they are white as wool. " And in one sense we need to settle
accounts every day with him.

Now the moment you said to Jesus Christ, "I need your forgiveness," the first
time you said that whether you were five years old or 50 years old, that account
was settled into all eternity. You're forgiven, it's settled. But every day we
have to remind ourselves of that.

We have to look back at the ledger sheet or else we start trying to settle it
ourselves again. We try to be in God's good graces by doing good things. No
matter what you've done, no matter what you've done, God wants to settle
accounts in the way that he talks about here.

"I've messed up my life so much," you say to yourself, "I could never get back
to God. " And we think somehow it's this long complex process. It is not.

God says, "Sit down, we're going to settle this right now. I've forgiven you. "
That's what the cross is all about.

No matter how far you've run away, it's only one step back to him. I know
there's struggles because you've run away. I know there's things you have to
work through in relationships.

I understand that that's all true on a human plane. But when it comes to your
relationship with God, I don't care how far you've run away. It is only one step
back.

Settle it right now. I'm forgiven. I'm forgiven.

As you look at the need for change in your life, as we've talked about rebellion
these last couple of days, it might have struck a chord more than you'd like it
to have. The way to deal with that is to make a new commitment of your life to
him, to admit the worthless offerings, and to choose worthwhile giving to him,
to stop doing wrong and to start doing right, and to settle accounts with God
right now, listening to his forgiveness. Let's do that in prayer.

Lord, before you, we say we don't want to bring you things that are meaningless
to you. We want to give to you out of a heart of humility and love the things
that give you honor and praise. Help us to give out of that heart of love
because we know when we give out of a heart of love towards you, it will be a
meaningful offering.

Lord, we don't want to do the wrong thing. We want to do the right thing. You
know, we struggle sometimes, and so we ask you right now to show us how to stop
doing wrong, how to start doing right, and maybe to begin with those who are
most hurting, that are closest to us, that are right around us.

And right now, once again, we settle it with you. Because of what Jesus Christ
did on the cross, we're gratefully, we're gloriously forgiven. Thank you for
your forgiveness.

Though our sins were a scarlet, they are white as snow. Thank you. In Jesus'
name, we thank you.

Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look at how to respond to the injustices in this
world.