Wake Up!

Wake Up

Trinity 24 T Isaiah 55:9-16

WAKE. UP. …. Imagine telling God that. And sometimes, in indirect ways, that’s just what we do.

In our Old Testament reading, the prophet Isaiah prophesied to God’s people who did told God to wake up. In a lot of ways, Isaiah’s prophecies reveal a lot about the fool-heartedness of sinners. Like what happens when faith becomes apathetic? What happens when we only allow God to nudge His way into the unoccupied spaces of our hearts, instead of having Him dominate the whole thing?

This was mostly the problem with the nation of Judah. Through Isaiah, God listed the sins of the people, and what their apathetic, unrepentant hearts to the Word of God would earn them: judgement.

Then you come to our Old Testament reading from chapter 51. And God’s people have the arrogance to cry out to God and say… WAKE UP, GOD! Why aren’t you acting like you normally do?? “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in days of old, the generations of long ago.’ It’s awfully daring to tell God to wake up. And then proceed to tell Him how to do His job. Yet, this is what Judah was doing. The people of Judah blamed God for their wrongdoings. Just like Adam blamed God in the garden of Eden for his sin – ‘the woman YOU gave me made me eat of the forbidden fruit.’ They accused God of a misstep – that He was taking a nap while His people were in a time of need.

If they were going to be able to continue living the way they were used to, God needed to wake up. Their nation was filled with gold and wealth and prosperity! And they didn’t want to lose it! I mean, come on! The good times were rolling! They had the Temple, through which God promised His gracious presence. So nothing could go wrong, right? And for us, nothing can go wrong as long as we get our bodies through the church doors on Sunday, right? Nothing can go wrong … Okay, so Judah starts bringing in gods from the other nations. They make small sacrifices to Baal, so that they can have some of the successes those other nations have too. They let culture from a pagan society shape, mold, and influence them.

But that led them to live in the lap of luxury! They invited religious pluralism in with all the successes that might come with that. They had influence in and over the surrounding nations. They unjustly treated those among them they were supposed to protect. But MAN, they were letting the good times roll. That is, until they weren’t.

They looked to their neighbors to the north, the northern tribe of Israel. Israel had just been overtaken by a huge, mighty, ruthless nation named Assyria. Israel had been taken away from their lands, shipped off in slavery and exile from their homeland. Assyria’s next target? Judah. And who was gaining in power behind them? An even greater nation: Babylon. This judgement from God was coming, because they refused to listen and live according to the Word of their Lord.

They saw this judgement coming. So they prayed out of desperation: Wake Up God! You are the strong One, aren’t You? The one who rescued us from the hand of Egypt? The one who caused the seabed to dry up while you drowned hard-hearted Pharoah and all his hosts in the sea? Aren’t you the one who sustained us in the wilderness for 40 years by means of a miraculous provision of manna and quail, and water coming out of rocks? You are so strong, you are so mighty. But where are you for us now, while the Assyrians lay siege around our nation?? Don’t we still have the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants? Wake up, and utilize your strength once again. Get our enemies off of our back, and build up our wealth and riches once again. WAKE. UP.

It seems arrogant, doesn’t it? Telling God to wake up, as if He isn’t attentive to our every cry. Or to think that He isn’t there when bad, threatening situations present themselves to His people? To tell Him to act in a way that shows His strength, as if we doubt what the Lord is up to through our sufferings. And what happens when God doesn’t act in the way we expect Him to? Our patience grows thin, and we end up like Israel, who instead of waiting patiently for the Word of the Lord to come to us from Mount Sinai, we’d rather fashion a golden calf and worship it – forming God to be how I want Him to be.

If we can’t Wake up God, maybe we should just make a new god. And just imagine what we could do with a God like that. We could fashion a God according to our political preferences. Or fashion a God who doesn’t care how I vote at all! We could make a new God who agrees with us on a whole range of issues, like economics, military, science, immigration, abortion policy, and the second amendment. We could make a God who wants us to have our best life here on earth – a god who could solve all the world’s problems – right here and right now. A God who can fix cancer, and depression, and intolerance, and hate, and tyranny, and stress.

            If we could just form a god like that, maybe we don’t need God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit afterall. He could just step aside, and we could let our gods do with our lives what the one true God couldn’t.

But let me ask: how are your gods doing for you?

            How does the Lord respond to apathetic hearts and idolatry? He actually turns the ‘waking up’ around. In verse 17, which is right after our assigned text, God says “Wake YOURSELF, wake YOURSELF, stand up O Jerusalem.” YOU! WAKE UP!

He says, where are the priests to guide you? Who is there to guide you in my Word?

This is the one true, living God’s call to repentance. Repent of your sins, and return back to Him- your Lord and God. He is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. He is not the one who sleeps. You are.

            When the going gets tough, it’s easy to look to God and say “Wake up and do what you normally do, God. Use your mighty arm to save my bacon one more time!” Yet, we remain unwilling to submit to Him in all things. Our hearts remain unchanged by His Word. We aren’t willing to give up what in the back of our minds we know is wrong. And the gods we’ve fashioned have a complete stranglehold on our lives.

            A denial of our own sin and idolatry, is a denial of our need for Christ. Unrepentance of our sins affects the community at large. It invites others to join in your idolatry too. Whether that be apathy for God and His church. Anger towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. Resentment towards others who don’t share my political preferences. Misusing our bodies as temples of pleasure rather than as temples of the Holy Spirit. There’s plenty of idols that churchly people have fashioned to put on their living room table right next to the Bible.

Lord, have mercy on us all. And wake us up.

Our text begins by us telling God to wake up. Just after the text in verse 17, God tells us to wake up. In between, there’s a section where God speaks tenderly to His people. “I am he who comforts you.” ‘I am your God. You fear men, and you fear the world more than you fear the Lord. But they are like grass. They are here today, and gone tomorrow. But THEY have forgotten the Lord. THEY have shaped their own gods according to their liking.

            Do not fear them. Do not follow them. For they will be destroyed. Instead, follow me. I am Almighty. I’ve made the heavens and the earth. I’m the Creator, and you’re the creature! I fashion you, you don’t fashion me! I am the strong one who has delivered you through the waters. Humble yourselves before me, and I will rescue you speedily. I will not let you go to hell.  I have given you my Word, my covenantal promises, to make you MY people!’

We cannot make God. He makes us. And He did become awake. He took on human flesh, and humbled himself to live as a servant to mankind. He lived an idol-free life, free from sin. He lived in complete obedience to His heavenly Father. He heard His word and acted in obedience. He died a brutal death, to pay for OUR sins. And then He awoke from the grave, to make His people into a NEW creature, a NEW creation.

All this He did to wake us up to the forgiveness of sins that is ours in His own innocent suffering and death. He did this to wake us up through our baptismal waters, through which God has worked mighty things for us. He woke us up through the bread, that is His body, which never leaves us lacking, but fills our hunger for the righteousness of Christ.

This is your God. Turn from your sin, and listen to His calling for you. Listen to your God, who puts His words in your mouth, for when you speak; in your heart, for when you’re anxious; in your mind, for when you’re confused; in your feet, to guide your path. And He is here to comfort you. So don’t fear man. Don’t fear the world. Don’t re-fashion God into your image. Rather, let Him fashion you to be who He’s made you to be in Christ Jesus.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston