Peter Barnes: Isaiah 1:16-17 NO AUDIO
(1 July 2018)
SERMON NOTES: REPENTANCE MEANS CHANGE (Isaiah 1:16-17)
Isaiah has called out Israel for being stupider than oxen and donkeys (1:2-4), for not understanding God’s chastening of His people (1:5-10), and for trusting in religious activities (1:11-15).
In verses 16-17 we see the put off/ put on pattern that we find elsewhere in Scripture, especially in Paul’s letters.
1. Put off what is wrong.
– 1:16. ‘Wash yourselves,’ says God. The fact that we cannot do this should not lead us to say that God is just giving us commandments that we cannot fulfil so that we will trust in His grace – Jer.2:22. That is true, but that is not all that He is doing.
– Acts 2:40 for conversion; Phil.2:14-15 for growing.
– Ps.24:3-4 and Luke 3:7-9, 10-14.
– God calls on us to put off certain practices and habits – Eph. 4:22-24; Col.3:5. You cannot embrace Christ and sin. In Bonhoeffer’s terms, grace is free but not cheap.
2. Put on what is good.
– 1:17. Here is the positive, put on part. Nature abhors a vacuum. So does the spiritual life – Luke 11:24-26.
– Put on – Deut.10:12-13; Micah 6:8. Thomas Chalmers in a sermon on 1 John 2:15 spoke of ‘the expulsive power of a new affection’. He knew that sins rarely died out by a natural extinction.
– ‘Do good.’ Why? Because God is good – Ps.145:9.
– His justice and His compassion for the vulnerable go together – Ex.22:22-24; Ps.146:9; James 1:27.
– this is not moralism, but a lifetime pattern