Recovering a Community of Faithfulness
Isaiah 1:21-31

I. Are We Cycling Upward or Spiraling Downward?
1. According to polls, about 60% of Americans think the USA is on the wrong track.
2. The Puritans show that there has been a serious decline in churches.
3. Isaiah prophesies to the people of God who had already gone a long way down hill.
II. Be Shocked (1:21-23)
A. Stunned With Revulsion
1. The first step to recovery, God tells us, is to be shocked, flabbergasted that things are so bad.
2. Don’t fall for the smug attitude that mature people today are supposed to be used to it.
3. Let’s not be jaded and comfortable with our failure to live up to our commitments.
B. Shocked With Prostituting Worship
1. A whore: a crude word is appropriate because God is talking about crude things.
2. They are a prostitute willing to do anything for anyone if the price is right.
3. Worship is precious. We should only give it to the One God to whom we have committed ourselves.
4. Worship should never be sold for some human agenda like politics, raising money, or socializing.
5. Stephen Charnock, “Spiritual Worship”: “Worship . . . adores and reverences His majesty”.
6. Today people use worship for whatever will get the people to come back.
7. True worship is an end in itself, the chief end of us all. It begins with a God-ward heart.
III. Be Purged (1:24-26)
A. God’s People Purged of Sin and Others Purged Out Because of Sin
1. The Lord pledges to take action. “I will” four times. It is exclusively a work of God.
2. Some are purged of their sins and others are purged out because of their sins.
3. Those who claim to be His people but deny Him by their actions, are His enemies.
4. He would be totally just to burn us all up. But He chooses to redeem some.
B. The Faithful City
1. He chooses to redeem a city, Zion, the church, the community of faithfulness.
2. God works to separate the silver from the dross. Not everyone is cleansed. Some are dross.
3. The leaders are rebels. Only in Israel would it be possible for the princes to be rebels.
4. The leaders ruled anyway they wanted. They had their eyes, most of all, on self-advancement.
5. God will purge those who think themselves “strong” (1:31) and so won’t do things God’s way.
6. The man-ward, will be purged. The God-ward will be re-established.
7. The Lord will restore, “judges as at the first,” “counselors as at the beginning” (1:26).
8. Leaders like the Apostle Paul who really believed in the ideals of the Lord Jesus.
9. In Virginia, the local sheriff flogged the preacher of a Baptist church. The preacher continued.
IV. Be Repentant (1:27-31)
A. The Repentant In God’s Community of Faithfulness
1. Not that you must be repentant to be redeemed. If you are redeemed, you will be repentant.
2. Being saved by grace is also being saved by justice and righteousness (1:27).
3. We have been redeemed by the righteousness of Christ that God now chooses to credit to us.
B. Rebels: God’s Enemies
1. Rebels think as long as they name the right name, they can worship any way they choose.
2. They were too sophisticated. They were proud of their worship centers, their gardens and orchards.
3. Those are God’s enemies. They are often respectable people. They love to grow centers for worship.
4. God has chosen to pull some of us out of that furnace. To restore us.
V. Invitation: There is a new city, a community of faithfulness. Do you want to join that city? Then be shocked – shocked at yourself when you let other things draw you away from a life of worship. Be purged. Let Him who is a consuming fire, work in your life. And let Him cleanse His church. And be repentant.