Talk is Cheap
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Introduction
Introduction
This sermon is a perfect pair with this morning’s sermon from the parable of the sower (). is an extended exhortation to Israel to listen to God. Babylon has been defeated (or is about to be), Israel are on their way back home, but unfortunately a change of address as not produced a change of heart (Motyer). Their religion is all words. And, as they say, talk is cheap. And nowhere is talk cheaper than when it comes to our relationship with God. It is one thing to talk up a good religion, it is quite another to practice one.
Why should we listen to God? Perhaps you think the question is superfluous. I mean who would ignore God? Who would be so stupid? And the answer is you!
Because of Who God is?
He is our Covenant Lord, We belong to Him. Ignoring this is a sin with deep roots. .
He is the Eternal God, When we ignore HIm, we are ignoring ultimate reality.
He is our Creator. We are not living in the real world when we ignore God.
He is our Redeemer: The purpose of redemption is to give us our lives back, our freedom back, our peace back. When we ignore God we rob ourselves of all these benefits.
Because We are Prone to Ignore God
Hypocrisy
Israel’s religion is like a painted egg.
Beautiful on the outside, dead on the inside.
Christmas Tree Religion- Decorated but dead. The longer this state of affairs goes on, the more of a fire hazard it becomes....
1 Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right.
1 Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. 2 For they call themselves after the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is his name.
Contumacy
Idolatry
How deep within our hearts is the instinct to honor our idols, how slow we are to honor the one from whom, through whom, and to whom are all things....
When people start playing golf they often think they are much better than they really are. So they judge themselves by their occasional good shots. Their bad shots are just momentary blips. Which explains why they are angry so much of the time. Their constant bad shots aren’t the truth about their game. They think they should be doing much better.
When people start playing golf they often think they are much better than they really are. So they judge themselves by their occasional good shots. Their bad shots are just momentary blips. Which explains why they are angry so much of the time. Their constant bad shots aren’t the truth about their game. They think they should be doing much better.
\So it is with human beings. We think our occasional moments of kindness tell the truth about our character, not our more depressing record of continual misdemeanors.
So it is with human beings. We think our occasional moments of kindness tell the truth about our character, not our more depressing record of continual misdemeanors.
Because God will not let us ignore Him Forever!
To be sure His posture towards us is one of grace… a grace that restrains His wrath.
It is also a grace that sends refining fire down upon the stubborn and the intransigent.
Too much is at stake for God to allow us to prosper in the way of sin
If you are in Christ, whatever God is doing in your life right now is not an experiment that he might abandon if he gets fed up with you. You need to know that God would have to stop being God before he’d quit on you. And why is God devoted to you? It’s not because you risk looking like a failure. You already do. So do I. It’s because God will never let his purpose fail. The defeat of grace to sinners would be the defeat of God.
If you are in Christ, whatever God is doing in your life right now is not an experiment that he might abandon if he gets fed up with you. You need to know that God would have to stop being God before he’d quit on you. And why is God devoted to you? It’s not because you risk looking like a failure. You already do. So do I. It’s because God will never let his purpose fail. The defeat of grace to sinners would be the defeat of God. Ortlund Jr., Raymond C.. Isaiah: God Saves Sinners (Preaching the Word) (pp. 315-316). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
Do not think of God as a frustrated deity scratching his head as we checkmate one divine move after another. We do grieve his loving heart, but we do not defeat him. Take all our sins and gather them together into one vast stinking pile of garbage, and God is still the King of an infinitely greater realm. He is, in himself, “at home in the land of the Trinity.”2 He has no need that we could satisfy. He is a personal vastness who rejoices to give. And out of his fullness we all receive, grace upon grace (). This gospel is the only message true to the glory of God. He still confronts us with our sinfulness. The most striking feature of is its confrontational tone. All the commentators mention it. But what sets God apart from the vengeful idols of our minds that demand everything and forgive nothing is the dying love of Christ for sinners who don’t even listen to him carefully. God will never give that glory away, whatever it takes — even death on a cross.
Do not think of God as a frustrated deity scratching his head as we checkmate one divine move after another. We do grieve his loving heart, but we do not defeat him. Take all our sins and gather them together into one vast stinking pile of garbage, and God is still the King of an infinitely greater realm. He is, in himself, “at home in the land of the Trinity.”2 He has no need that we could satisfy. He is a personal vastness who rejoices to give. And out of his fullness we all receive, grace upon grace (). This gospel is the only message true to the glory of God. He still confronts us with our sinfulness. The most striking feature of is its confrontational tone. All the commentators mention it. But what sets God apart from the vengeful idols of our minds that demand everything and forgive nothing is the dying love of Christ for sinners who don’t even listen to him carefully. God will never give that glory away, whatever it takes — even death on a cross. Ortlund Jr., Raymond C.. Isaiah: God Saves Sinners (Preaching the Word) (p. 319). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
In New statesman: Tom Holland Why I was Wrong About Christianity.... ''We preach Christ crucified,” St Paul declared, “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” He was right. Nothing could have run more counter to the most profoundly held assumptions of Paul’s contemporaries – Jews, or Greeks, or Romans. The notion that a god might have suffered torture and death on a cross was so shocking as to appear repulsive. Familiarity with the biblical narrative of the Crucifixion has dulled our sense of just how completely novel a deity Christ was. In the ancient world, it was the role of gods who laid claim to ruling the universe to uphold its order by inflicting punishment – not to suffer it themselves."
Ortlund Jr., Raymond C.. Isaiah: God Saves Sinners (Preaching the Word) (pp. 315-316). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
Ortlund Jr., Raymond C.. Isaiah: God Saves Sinners (Preaching the Word) (p. 319). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
''We preach Christ crucified,” St Paul declared, “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” He was right. Nothing could have run more counter to the most profoundly held assumptions of Paul’s contemporaries – Jews, or Greeks, or Romans. The notion that a god might have suffered torture and death on a cross was so shocking as to appear repulsive. Familiarity with the biblical narrative of the Crucifixion has dulled our sense of just how completely novel a deity Christ was. In the ancient world, it was the role of gods who laid claim to ruling the universe to uphold its order by inflicting punishment – not to suffer it themselves."
Because of Who God is?
He is our Covenant Lord,
We belong to Him.
Ignoring this is a sin with deep roots. .
He is the Eternal God,
When we ignore Him, we are ignoring ultimate reality, the One History is all about.
CS Lewis
Every faculty you have, your power of thinking, or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give God anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell what he is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, “Daddy, give me a sixpence to buy you a birth day present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.
He is our Creator.
We are not living in the real world when we ignore God.
He is our Redeemer:
Because God Will not Let us Ignore Him forever!
He will give us grace, but it will be a severe grace!
The purpose of redemption is to give us our lives back, our freedom back, our peace back. When we ignore God we rob ourselves of all these benefits.
In New statesman: Tom Holland Why I was Wrong About Christianity.... ''We preach Christ crucified,” St Paul declared, “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” He was right. Nothing could have run more counter to the most profoundly held assumptions of Paul’s contemporaries – Jews, or Greeks, or Romans. The notion that a god might have suffered torture and death on a cross was so shocking as to appear repulsive. Familiarity with the biblical narrative of the Crucifixion has dulled our sense of just how completely novel a deity Christ was. In the ancient world, it was the role of gods who laid claim to ruling the universe to uphold its order by inflicting punishment – not to suffer it themselves."