Ingredients for Worship: Trust and Witness
Isaiah 12
by Jim Westmoreland
Today is the Sunday before our national day of Thanksgiving. For too many in our country trust in God and telling others about our gratitude for His provision for us has been totally lost to a secular feast, to having family and friends over for the afternoon and to gathering around the TV.
If you feel that Thanksgiving should have something to do with our faith in God’s gracious provision for us as we trust Him and give witness to His influence and direction in our lives, the listen to the prophet Isaiah as we read our text from Isaiah 12, a short chapter with just six verses.
“1-You will say on that day:
I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
and you comforted me.
2-Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the Lord God is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation.
3 -With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
4-And you will say on that day:
Give thanks to the Lord,
call on his name;
make known his deeds among the nations;
proclaim that his name is exalted.
5-Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
let this be known in all the earth.
6-Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
This morning I want to focus on two things that will enrich our personal spiritual lives. They will also enrich our worship, and if you try it, they will enrich your family thanksgiving gathering. They come right out from this short reading from Isaiah. Two things we can give thought to this week that can make a difference for us and for those around us are 1) living and expressing what our trust in God means to us, and 2) making known to others how God has made a difference in our lives. In other words, giving witness to His deeds in our lives.
One of the things that America needs and one of the things that we need more of is to fully trust God for our salvation, which means our total lives. Sometimes, as I listen to people talk, even some of us, it seems like we are willing to believe anything and trust nothing! Today, we use the word “believe” lightly. We use it to mean that we are conceptually open or accepting of some idea. Some say that they believe in reincarnation. Why? How does that fit theologically with the Christian doctrine of grace, God’s offering of forgiveness and relationship with Him, even though we don’t deserve it. Reincarnation in religion is like putting purgatory on earth. You have to keep grinding it out until you get it right and are worthy.
We say all the religions believe basically the same thing? Do they? All of the religions of the world are basically systems to earn the favor or acceptance of the deity, by obedience to rules, by attaining knowledge, and by achieving a psycho-spiritual detachment from the evil and distractions of this world. Christianity differs from all others in that our faith is that, in stead of us reaching out to God, God has reached out to us. All of scripture is a story of God seeking to reach out to people, like us who have been sidetracked and blinded because of our sin and rebellion against God.
All other religions deal with our imperfections, sin, by saying try harder, try this path, listen to this latest new guru. Christianity says, “For God loved the people whom he had made so much that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish (striving for what they cannot achieve) but will have the eternal life (that cannot be measured in time).” God does for us what we could not do for ourselves. We weren’t worthy. We didn’t earn it. The Bible calls it grace.God’s grace.
For a Christian, to “believe” does not mean to give mental assent. It is not philosophizing about ideas. Our word, “believe,” comes from the same Greek word as our word, “faith.” Pistis is the noun and translates as faith. Pisteuw is the verb form and means to believe. To believe is to trust. Jesus said for those who believed in Him, who wanted to be His disciples, to take up their cross daily and follow Him.
When we come into the sanctuary to worship the Lord, we need to come with the decision in our hearts to trust and to believe. A few years ago, Our Daily Bread included a story about trust that speaks to us:
A group of scientists and botanists were exploring remote regions of the Alps in search of new species of flowers. One day they noticed through binoculars a flower of such rarity and beauty that its value to science was incalculable. But it lay deep in a ravine with cliffs on both sides. To get the flower someone had to be lowered over the cliff on a rope.
A curious young boy was watching nearby, and the scientists told him they would pay him well if he would agree to be lowered over the cliff to retrieve the flower below.
The boy took one long look down the steep, dizzy depths and
said, "I'll be back in a minute." A short time later he returned,
followed by a gray-haired man. Approaching the botanist, the
boy said, I'll go over that cliff and get that flower for you if this
man holds the rope. He's my dad."
Not only when we come to worship, but when we leave to let the fruits of our worship transform our daily living, we can say, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.”
Our spiritual lives are enriched when we accept and drink deeply of the cup of salvation that God offers to us. How many people go through the motions of faith, but never live the life of faith. When we put our trust in the Lord, there are some results that come as a result of that relationship with God. Isaiah said, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say on that day: Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted.”
God’s plan has always been that His people would be a light to the nations, that they would reveal the God that they worshiped to others through their words and deeds. When we give thanks to the Lord and call on His name, we are instructed to “make known his deeds to others, to proclaim and exalt the name and purposes of God.
We are called to witness, to share our experience, concerning what God has done. Don't we want others to have the same joy of Gods salvation that we have or is it a secret that we should hoard for ourselves? Our joy should make us want to take care of the widows and orphans: the down and outs of society. Is it a secret that the joy of Gods salvation is given to us to help us do what God asks us to do?
Can we refuse to give a witness to what God has done for us and means to us in our daily living, and still expect God to bless us and provide for our needs?
Two ingredients for worship, and also two ingredients for expressing our genuine gratitude to God, are that we trust Him as our Creator. He is the one who has made us, and our spiritual DNA is linked to God, and we are not complete until we are in relationship with God. We express our trust in Him as the One who has sought us and reached out to us, even when we were rebellious, distant and disinterested. When we trust in Him above our own efforts, we are freed and forgiven from our failures.
And the second ingredient that we must keep in our lives to be healthy and faithful is the willingness to share with others how God has made and is making a difference in our lives. Christianity is not a destination; it is a relationship! The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand. Jesus said, here are the commandments, Love God with all your mind, heart and soul, and Love your neighbor as you love yourself. We love our neighbors when we share the Good News of what faith in Jesus Christ has meant to us. We are indifferent when we are silent. We are called and gifted to be creative. We are willing to use these gifts in many areas of our lives. Why not in something that we are called to do, to make known Gods deeds to others, to make known His deeds in our lives and to share with others how God makes a difference in our lives.
Hear again God’s word for us today,
“1-You will say on that day:
I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
and you comforted me.
2-Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the Lord God is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation.
3 -With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
4-And you will say on that day:
Give thanks to the Lord,
call on his name;
make known his deeds among the nations;
proclaim that his name is exalted.
5-Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
let this be known in all the earth.
6-Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
Let our spiritual lives be deepened and enriched as we choose to live this week with a greater determination to trust and to witness to what God has done for us. Amen.
Century Christian Church, November 18, 2007 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
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