GOD IS ON THE MOVE! ARE YOU?

Isaiah 58:6–12 NIV

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

INTRODUCTION

A little boy was waiting for his mother to come out of the grocery store.

As he waited, he was approached by a man who asked, "Son, can you tell me where the post office is?"

The little boy replied, "Sure, just go straight down the street a couple of blocks and turn to your right."

The man thanked the boy kindly and said, "I'm the new pastor in town, and I'd like for you to come to church on Sunday. I'll show you how to get to Heaven."

The little boy replied with a chuckle, "Aww, come on; you don't even know the way to the post office!"

You know, we chuckle, but we have to wonder - how well can people count on us to show them the means by which they can find salvation and get to Heaven? (P)

And understand, I’m not talking about knowledge here. This isn’t about whether or not you have mastered the scriptures. It helps to know them, and that’s why we study, but the newest Christian with the least amount of biblical knowledge, but the most amount of devotion to God, can do this effectively.

It’s about our heart, our love for God, and the compassion and genuine concern we have for others. That’s why love is the first part of our Mission and Vision.

It’s about being so close to Christ that we carry His glow, that we can be a shining beacon in someone’s discouraging darkness, and we can show them the light that comes from Christ. (P)

When done right, we sometimes don’t have to say much of anything, onlookers are just so in awe of what they see you do and how they see you live that is so different from the rest of the world - not just in the Bible you carry, the prayers you aren’t ashamed of offering, the verses you display on your desk or walls, but then the way you live life and show kindness that is consistent with those practices.

That’s when people want to know more. Being light can be a very passive but effective way to share the love and light of Christ with someone. (P)

And then sometimes, there is more of an active effort on our part - that’s where the Living Water comes in.

We move like God does, we are people of action like God is, and that can be the hardest part of our job as Christians, but it doesn’t have to be that terrifying. We are forced into facing scarier things every day - diseases, the general public, traffic, and sometimes our own children, depending on what they’re getting into. (P)

But to be willing to share Christ with others requires a genuine love, care, and concern for other people - we have to care about what they are going through and be concerned with where they are headed, especially spiritually. (P)

Our passage in Isaiah 58 helps us to see what this looks like. In short, to be the channel by which the living water flows requires more than just good intention - it requires intentional action. It’s the difference between stagnant ponds and flowing streams.

Have you seen some of the ponds around here this time of year? The muck and the grime?

That’s what James says is the problem with some Christians, those supposed byways of living water that actually aren’t moving. (P)

Listen to what he says in chapter 2: {CLICK}

James 2:14–17 NIV

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? {CLICK} Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. {CLICK} If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? {CLICK} In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

(P)

The prophet Isaiah gives us a different way, combining the prophecy of what Jesus would do with what we would be called to do in His place.

To help us get a grasp on this calling, he offers these considerations for our consideration.

First, as both James and Isaiah suggest: {CLICK}

1. We must consider the need.

Have you ever had a need? (P)

Of course, that’s a silly question - we all have them.

When you’re hungry and need nourishment, you eat.

When you’re thirsty and need hydration, you drink.

When you’re tired and need rest, you sleep.

When you're cold or hot and you need respite from the elements, you go into your homes.

And those are a few of many examples - you will see that in a minute. (P)

But have you ever had a need like that that was unable to be met? Have you ever been terrified because you didn’t know where your next meal was coming from, or you had a medical emergency and maybe couldn’t get to a phone, and you had to rely on someone else? What if that someone else had not been there to help you? (P)

If you have ever been in that position of having unmet needs, how did the stress of that affect every other aspect of your life? (P)

That’s our primary motivator - if we love others and we love God - truly - the way He loves us - then we find the compassion Jesus had for others to meet their needs. That’s what this first point is all about.

Just three chapters past our text for today, in Isaiah 61, we find a prophecy of one of the things Jesus would come to accomplish. Jesus would later declare Himself the fulfillment of that prophecy, and would go on to prove it in the way He served others. (P)

If your Bible is open to today’s passage in Isaiah 58, it would be easier for you to skip forward a page or two to the first two verses of Isaiah 61 than to jump to Jesus’ statement. So you look at Isaiah 61:1-2 while I read from Luke’s gospel, chapter 4, and verse 18: {CLICK}

Luke 4:18–19 NIV

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, {CLICK} to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

At the end of Jesus’ ministry, He would say this in verses 34 and 35: {CLICK}

John 13:34–35 NIV

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. {CLICK} By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

(P)

And so as we come back to Isaiah 58, we see what God says this looks like as we consider the specific needs we are being asked to help meet, and it’s here that I want to draw your attention to something:

I’ve told you before about my fascination with science, that I love when science and faith come together, and I especially love when scientific theories and models that are only decades or centuries old confirm what the scriptures, written long before, have already said.

We’ve talked about it with creation, but it also works in the psychological and physiological realms. In 1943, Abraham Maslow introduced his now-famous hierarchy of human needs. Some of you may be familiar with this. {CLICK}

Here’s a picture of it - the bottom layers of needs are foundational, and top priority...nothing else at the top of the pyramid matters much if these survival needs at the bottom can’t be met. Look at the bottom two layers of the most basic and important needs while I read Isaiah 58:6-7 again.

Isaiah 58:6–7 NIV

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

(P)

Now, it’s interesting that Isaiah uses the word fast in here to express this point.

Fasting isn’t something we’ve spent much time on here, and it’s not for lack of importance. Perhaps we need to take a bigger look at that after the first of the year. But the first thing most people think of when they hear the word fast is the idea of skipping a meal, but that’s only a small part of it.

In the simplest of definitions, the idea of a fast is two-fold. We sacrifice something (usually a meal):

to make you aware of the needs of others, what they may be going through when they have to go without meals, for example, kind of like the 30-hour famine was, if you ever did that, and

That sacrifice of something that takes space in your schedule gives you some extra time for other necessary things, like spending time with God. (P)

Think of the name given to the first meal of your day. A breakfast, literally spelled as a break-fast, is the first meal you eat after what usually becomes a 10-12 hour fast. If the last thing you ate was 7 or 8 at night, when you either had a snack or a late dinner, and you don’t eat breakfast until 7-8 in the morning, you actually go the longest time without eating during those overnight hours (as opposed to the four or five hours between the daytime meals.

And if you’re awake any length of time, you know your body literally doesn’t want to go more than a few hours without something to munch on. But at nighttime, you sacrifice eating to put in its place something also important, several uninterrupted hours of sleep. When you wake up, you break that fast with your first meal of the day, hence the name breakfast. (P)

When we fast, it’s not just a religious practice - remember last week - it isn’t just a ritual we do to satisfy some list of regulations for our religion. It is to carve out a chunk of time to spend quality time on our relationship with God, and through that time, allowing the discomfort that overtakes our bodies from not eating to bring us to a more empathetic state, so that we can feel a little more compassion for others in their time of need.

As God would say, it helps us to love others the way I, God, love you by helping to supply some of their needs, just as I have done for you. (P)

Marilyn Brown Oden suggests that a fast is an opportunity to feast. In essence, she says that fasting means feasting on all that God would choose to show us in that time we spend with Him, including what our discomfort might be telling us about what we need to do for others.

And Isaiah 58 gets specific about what this looks like. (P)

Food

Shelter

Clothing

Showing love and kindness to people who are being mistreated. (P)

The people you know in your spheres of influence have all kinds of needs...everyone is different. Some are just down on life emotionally and spiritually - and so to help them, you might have to look higher up that pyramid.

But others are having trouble even knowing where their next meal is coming from, or where they are going to sleep tonight - and frankly, as horrible as it may sound, the last thing many of them will be worried about is who we say Jesus is and why they should know him - when we can’t even help them with their most basic needs.

In most cases, a hungry person is only thinking about food, not faith. (P)

That goes right back to what we heard in James at the beginning - godly words don’t mean much if we can’t back it up with godly action - because it’s through those godly actions that we show them godly love, showing them, as Isaiah suggests, that they are our own flesh and blood, fellow human beings, and brothers and sisters in Christ.

That’s why Jesus talks about the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, and the difference between being a blessed sheep and a cursed goat was whether or not you met the criteria Jesus gave in verses 35 and following: {CLICK}

Matthew 25:35–40 NIV

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, {CLICK} I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ {CLICK} “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? {CLICK} When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? {CLICK} When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ {CLICK} “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

{CLICK}

Hebrews 13:2 NIV

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

We will bring this together in a bit as we close, but think about some simple ways you can meet the needs of those around you, just the way Jesus would do if He were physically present today. (P)

The reason He takes this so personally is because that’s what He came to do. You heard that a moment ago, and now we are called to be His hands and feet in His physical absence. We can’t carry the living water if we are going to change the direction of its flow - deciding to redefine what Christ’s mission was when the mission of His church is His only to define. (P)

And so when we agree to take this step, we can also think about some of the benefits of our obedience. First, number 2: {CLICK}

2. We must consider the immediate benefits.

It’s interesting how we start to see this cyclical approach here with our Mission and Vision.

Isaiah reaffirms that after we love people enough to want to care for their needs, we are called to do what? Remember the second part of our mission and vision, and hear again verses 8-10: {CLICK}

Isaiah 58:8–10 NIV

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. {CLICK} Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, {CLICK} and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

You love people, you care for people, you love and follow Jesus closely, and you want to obey His commands to continue His work. And through that kindness and willingness to aid in providing for people’s needs, you become a light for them, and the first person people will trust to have that conversation about Christ with when they are ready to have it.

And that procedure from Isaiah is perfectly consistent with what Jesus said in: {CLICK}

Matthew 5:14–16 NIV

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. {CLICK} Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. {CLICK} In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

{CLICK}

It’s very easy to go about our daily business, minding our own business, and walking right past the people we could be doing a little something to help. And of course, none of us can help everybody, but my challenge a few weeks ago was to identify at least one person you can take under your wing and begin working this process with. (P)

Have you been able to do that? (P)

It’s time for us to put the values and gems of truth we absorb on Sunday into action through the rest of the week. (P)

I love what Jon Stewart once said:

If you don’t stick to your values when they’re being tested, they’re not values. They’re hobbies.

Is our faith a series of Christian hobbies, or is it what drives us to be the church Christ has called the church to be? (P)

Do we love people?

Do we shine our light for people?

Do we trust God to, as He promises through the prophet Isaiah in verse 9, to give us everything we need and ask for to accomplish this task? (P)

If so, we will see the immediate benefits of someone’s life being blessed by having one more need met, and being able to witness one more ray of light and hope in their darkness.

The immediate benefit is that you become the dawn in their night - and unless you have been through that darkness, you can’t fully appreciate what that means for them, but I believe that’s why this concept of fasting is so important for Isaiah. A fast allows us to experience that need in a minor, but real way, and it gives us the time to draw our assignment, strength, and provisions for that task by being in fellowship with God.

And in time, after lighting up that person’s life through your care and concern for them in this way, you begin to see number 3: {CLICK}

3. The long-term benefits.

Do you remember our first message on living water, talking about how our relationship with Christ lets us experience that living water for ourselves - a first and necessary step in channeling it to others, and we used the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.

In that conversation, Jesus told her this: {CLICK}

John 4:14 NIV

“Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

(P) {CLICK}

A spring.

If you have ever seen one, you know how powerful that image is.

Driving up 616 out of Seven Valleys, heading toward Route 30, many of you have seen that spring coming out of the side of the hill along that road, and some of you have gotten water from there. There is a similar spring where Rhonda grew up, coming out of a pipe in the hillside in Clymer.

I’m sure it happens sometimes in the most extreme of conditions, but it is rare - to see that spring stop flowing. Many of those springs keep running, even well into a drought, because the water underground is always moving, and so the spring is always being fed.

I think if a spring were to stop, it probably means we are in a bit of trouble.

There are no on/off valves to that spring - nobody worries about the water being wasted with it running all the time, because for all intents and purposes, it is a never-ending stream of water. (P)

That’s exactly how Isaiah describes the faithful as he concludes this section for today.

Verses 11 and 12: {CLICK}

Isaiah 58:11–12 NIV

The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. {CLICK} Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

(P)

What are you building? (P)

You’re building God’s church - by being, not the water, but the channel through which the spring or creek or river of living water flows.

That is - through your love and compassion, through being the light that reflects the love of Christ - you are creating a relationship and building trust with someone who may one day ask you point blank:

Why do you do what you do?

What or who inspires you to treat others with this much kindness?

Perhaps knowing your faith, they may ask you directly about this Jesus you follow and serve.

CONCLUSION

And there it is. That’s the door you have been waiting to have opened to you. That’s how you tell others about Christ. And what He offers are the long-term benefits. (P)

You don’t beat them over the head about this stuff on the first encounter.

You find that person you feel God is leading you to take under your wing. Be aware that that person, as the relationship builds, will be watching you for cues as to your genuineness. A person who hasn’t found Christ may not be aware of this exact terminology, but what they are looking for is whether you are carrying the Fruits of the Spirit found in Galatians 5 - fruits that only grow in a well-watered garden. {CLICK}

Galatians 5:22–23 NIV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, {CLICK} gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

(P)

Is that what they see coming out of you in your compassion, love, willingness to help them with whatever needs they have - maybe food and clothing for their physical needs, maybe a friendly shoulder for their emotional, and in time, when they trust you, the door will open for you to help them with their spiritual needs as you share with them the source of your joy and hope, helping them to find that life-saving relationship with Jesus Christ. (P)

Some of you here have had the opportunity to help someone with that process, and I hope that one day you feel led to share that experience, which could inspire the rest of the folks here.

Do you love and care enough for others to accept this challenge?

Do people feel that in the ways you relate to them? (P)

I came across this story this week that, despite the humor component, hit me hard about some of the things I have done in moments when I was frustrated and forgot myself.

What am I truly showcasing to others?

And I hope it gives you something to think about, too, as we prepare to go out and put this into practice.

A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard, when suddenly, the light turned yellow just in front of him. He did the right thing and stopped, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection.

As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station, where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell.

After several hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk, where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate, the 'What Would Jesus Do?' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk.

Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.

(P)

Do people feel loved by you?

What are you willing to show others?

How are you willing to help others?

Love. Light. Living Water.

It’s our vision.

It’s our mission.

It’s our challenge.

May we pull these statements out often? In the near future, you will see many reminders around the church. With the miracles of modern technology, you can go to YouTube anytime to hear these messages again.

May we keep our Mission and Vision front and center as we take the love, light, and living water of Christ out these doors, through Dunkard Valley, and beyond.

Look at the things that have been happening around here. Remember what happened in last week’s service. Those are the kinds of things that can happen when this model works well. So keep it up. Find those souls. See them through God’s eyes as your own flesh and blood. And see what a genuine relationship with them can accomplish. Maybe it won’t be long until that baptism pool is full again. (P)

Maybe it’s you, if you need to commit your life to Christ.

OR maybe it’s others we encounter as we walk this journey.

Make it a matter of prayer. Let’s take this work seriously and see what God can do.