Today, we begin a new four week series on the theme, “Messages from Heaven.”
For this series, we will be focusing on our appointed Old Testament readings from Isaiah and Jeremiah who God called to be prophets. In the Old Testament, prophets were people whose main task was to relay God’s messages to the people of Israel.
Contrary to popular belief, prophets were not so much about prophesying future events. They were more about relaying messages from God about how we are to live in the here and now.
And so, over these next four weeks, we’re going to be looking at four different messages from heaven that God gave to these prophets to share with the people. These messages include, “Do Good,” “You’ll Get Through This,” “You Can Do It,” and for the last Sunday of this series, the message is “Remember Who Brought You Here.”
First of all, I want to share a little bit about who the Prophet Isaiah was. God called Isaiah to be a prophet around the year 742 BCE. That’s approximately 700 years before the time of Christ. God wanted Isaiah to deliver messages to the people of Israel and specifically to the people of Judah.
Let me stop here for a moment because in order to understand the Old Testament and the Bible in general, it’s vitally important that we are aware of the historical events of the time period in which Isaiah and Jeremiah lived.
Let’s look at this brief Old Testament timeline and see where Isaiah and Jeremiah fit into that historical context and why God would have called them to be prophets during that time.
So, approximately 300 hundred years before Isaiah and Jeremiah lived, Israel was a unified nation. You may remember that the first kings of Israel were Saul, then it was David, and then one of David’s sons, Solomon. Some would refer to this unified time of Israel as the golden years because Israel was one unified nation.
But after King Solomon died, Israel divided in two and they had their own kings. These two kingdoms were known as the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was known as Israel and the southern kingdom was known as Judah.
200 years later, in 722 BCE the Assyrian Empire took over the northern kingdom which was known as Israel and sent the people away. And then in 587 BCE, the Babylonian Empire took over the southern kingdom which was known as Judah and sent the people away. This is known as the exile because the people of the southern kingdom were sent into exile to Babylonia.
The northern kingdom of Israel never recovered from that 722 BCE invasion by the Assyrians. On the other hand, the people of the southern kingdom of Judah would eventually return about forty years later when the Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire and then later allowed the people to return to their homes in Israel.
It was during the years leading up to the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles that God called upon people to serve as his prophets to deliver important messages to God’s people. Sometimes these messages were warnings, calling for the people to repent. Other times, these messages were comforting words to remind the people that God had not forsaken them. And at other times, these messages were hopeful, pointing people to a future time when God would send a Savior who would bring salvation to the world.
Think of a loving parent who needs to tell their child the right message at the right time based on the situation they may be facing. There are times when they might need some tough love because their actions have led to some negative consequences. There are other times when they need to be comforted and to be reminded that they are not alone when they are facing challenges and setbacks. And there are other times, when they need someone to point them to a brighter future that awaits them.
This is why God called upon 16 people that we find in the Old Testament, at least by my count, to be prophets and to deliver the right message at the right time for the people of God. These prophets were not delivering their own messages. They were sharing the messages that God had given them.
In our message from heaven for today, the Prophet Isaiah is warning God’s people of the negative consequences that will happen to them if they continue to worship God and fail to seek justice and righteousness for all people. This is a tough love message.
In this first chapter of Isaiah, the prophet refers to how the people of Israel have been offering their sacrifices and gifts to God through worship, but during the other days of the week, they were not seeking justice and caring for people in need. In short, the message from heaven for today is to not just worship God but to also do good.
Isaiah is saying that our worship should translate into how we live out our faith throughout the week. This message from heaven for today reminds me of why a lot of people have given up on organized religion. It’s because they don’t always see Christians who attend church on Sundays living out what they profess during the week.
Penny and I watched the recent movie, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” It’s the story of how TV evangelists, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker from the 1980s misused donor’s funds to go toward their very lavish lifestyle. As we watched this movie, there were moments when we could see that they genuinely did feel called by God and they really did want to make a difference through their ministry, but their own egos and hypocrisies brought about the downfall of their ministry.
This movie and the telling of their story not only showed how shallow our faith can become, it also revealed how people of faith who watched their televangelism shows didn’t realize that they were being manipulated by them. The truth is that we all need to be aware of how our worship needs to go beyond spiritual cliches and shallow theology and into a deeper sense of what it means to live out our faith in authentic and meaningful ways during the week.
And this is one of the reasons that we always offer a prayer of confession and words of assurance as part of our worship services. It’s because we recognize that even with our best intentions, we do not always live out what we confess with our lips on Sundays. We are always a work in progress.
A friend of mine who is a deeply devoted Christian said that he and his family attended an Ash Wednesday service one year. He said that the service had all of the components that are typically part of an Ash Wednesday service which marks the beginning of the season of Lent, like confessing our sins, receiving ashes on our foreheads to be reminded of who we are in Christ, and making a commitment to practice the spiritual disciplines like prayer and scripture reading.
Immediately after that Ash Wednesday service, my friend said that their family went to a coffee shop. As they were sitting at the table talking and drinking coffee, someone in the family mentioned how so and so, who was at the church service that night, always gets on her nerves.
Another family member agreed and offered a story about something that person did over a year ago that really mad him mad. Pretty soon, they all were saying all of these negative things about that person.
After this went on for a while, my friend who had also shared some less than charitable things about that person caught himself in mid-sentence and said, “Here we are, less than an hour after attending an Ash Wednesday service. We have just confessed our sins and pledged to be more Christ-like, and here we are already gossiping about somebody in our church. Let’s change the subject.”
My friend’s story reminds me that sin isn’t something that shakes loose that easily. It likes to cling to us. Before we know it, we are back to our bad habits where our worship doesn’t connect with who God calls us to be during the week.
If it wasn’t for seeing the ashes on the foreheads of his family members in that coffee shop, my friend probably wouldn’t have realized that they were not being very Christ-like in that situation.
John Wesley, the 18th century founder of Methodism emphasized the importance of both acts of piety like attending worship and acts of mercy like how we live out our faith during the week. It’s not one over the other. Wesley taught that the complete Christian has a well rounded spiritual life that includes worship as well as serving others.
Wesley referred to worship and prayer as acts of piety and he referred to those things we do in serving others and doing good as acts of mercy. Acts of piety and acts of mercy are meant to complement one another.
This is exactly the Prophet Isaiah’s message from heaven for the people of Israel. Don’t just worship God, but also serve God by seeking justice and doing good for those who are in need. Both are equally important.
Isaiah’s message from heaven is also a warning that if we fail to see our worship and how we live out our faith during the week as equally important, we will fail to be the people God has called us to be. This is why we exist as a church, to worship and to serve.
Our Athens First Saturday blessing of the community t-shirts have a quote on the back of them and it was part of our opening prayer this morning. It’s a quote that is attributed to John Wesley. “Do all the good we can, by all the means we can, in all the ways we can, in all the places we can, at all the times we can, to all the people we can, as long as ever we can.”
John Wesley was once asked what it means to be a Methodist. And he said that to be a Methodist, you just need to agree to do follow these three simple rules. Do no harm. Do good. And love God. That’s easy enough to remember. Do no harm. Do good. And love God.
Isaiah’s message from heaven is something like that. Love God through your worship but also do good by helping others throughout the week. Love your neighbors. Find ways to bless others. Let your actions match your words.
And here is the fun part in all of this. There is so much good that we can do as we live out our faith during the week.
I was reading about a member of a United Methodist church in Dallas, Texas who back in 2012 started a ministry called, “The Birthday Party Project,” which is a ministry that provides birthday parties for children who are overlooked and underserved because of financial hardship. This church member along with others in her church will often go into homeless shelters to celebrate a child’s birthday.
Paige Chennault, who started this ministry says, “We like to say that our parties are so much more than a celebration, but they are a loud exclamation point that children matter.” This ministry isn’t just about cakes and balloons, but it’s about offering children the stability and magic they so desperately need especially when they are facing hardships in their lives.
I think of our many ministries in which we seek to do good in our community. Monday Lunch and what we did yesterday here at the church for our Athens First Saturday Blessing of the Community like arranging and delivering flowers to the patients at O’Bleness Hospital, preparing water bottles for our water bottle give-away later this month, giving generously to our recent special offering for the Athens County Food Pantry. There is so much good that is being done through our church!
The Prophet Isaiah’s message from heaven is to do good and serve others. When our worship on Sunday matches our actions during the week, that’s when we can know that we have heard and taken to heart this week’s message from heaven.
Do good.
Messages from Heaven: Do Good!
Sermon Discussion Questions
Isaiah 1:1,10-20
August 7, 2022
We are beginning a new 4-week sermon series for the month of August on the theme, “Messages from Heaven.” This new series is based on our appointed Old Testament readings from Isaiah and Jeremiah. The primary purpose of prophets in the Old Testament was to relay messages from God to the people of Israel. These messages varied depending on the situation the people were facing. Sometimes these messages were to provide encouragement and hope. Other times, their messages were very challenging and called for the people to change their ways. Think of the prophets like parenting where loving and wise parents will offer the right message at the right time for their children depending on what they may be facing or what they have done.
Share some examples of messages that loving and wise parents might share with their children depending on their age and what situation they may be facing. What advice would you give to parents in knowing which message to share at the right time with their child?
To understanding the prophets in the Old Testament (there are 16 of them!), it’s important to know when God called them to serve as prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah lived when Israel was a divided nation (the northern kingdom of Israel & the southern kingdom of Judah.) Both of these kingdoms would end up in exile (Israel in 722 BCE and Judah in 586 BCE.) Because of this very volatile time in Israel’s history, God called upon Isaiah and Jeremiah to speak timely messages from God to the people to help them remain faithful and not lose hope.
Why do you think it’s important to have this historical context of when Isaiah and Jeremiah served as prophets? Even though, we do not live during that time of Israel’s history, how can the messages of these prophets speak to us today?
In our Isaiah appointed reading for today, Isaiah is calling out God’s people for their hypocrisy in worshiping God with their prayers and sacrifices but then not living out their faith by seeking justice and doing good for people in need. This is one of the reasons non-churched people cite for giving up on organized religion because they see how Christians can be hypocritical by not living out their faith during the week what they profess with their lips during worship.
In what ways can we guard against hypocrisy?
The Prophet Isaiah’s message from heaven is to “cease to do evil and to learn to do good.” - Isaiah 1:16-17. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism emphasized the importance of doing good to all the people we can and in as many ways as we can. He also emphasized following 3 simple rules which include 1) Do no harm 2) Do good 3) Stay in love with God.
Share some examples of doing good and living out our faith during the week.
Pray this prayer from our Sunday worship service which not only reminds us to do good but also serves as a prayer of confession for those times that we have not lived out our faith during the week:
O God, thank you for the prophets who offer us messages from heaven. We confess that we often forget to listen to your voice and heed your words. Open our ears to hear your call to rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow. Lead us to do all the good we can, by all the means we can, in all the ways we can, in all the places we can, at all the times we can, to all the people we can, as long as ever we can. Amen.
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