This is The Living Word Bible Study for small groups and individuals based on the Revised Common Lectionary Bible readings for August 7, 2022 (TLW31C)
Theme: Real faith is amenable, active and assured
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 — Worship that doesn’t change us is insincere
Luke 12:31-40 — Disciples attend the Lord with faith and expectation
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 — Learning how hope and faith work together
• Read also this week’s linked article Be Real, Be Attentive, Be Ready In Faith…
• And watch this week’s video which uses excerpts of the Bible readings to tell the story of God’s quest for people who would relate to Him in faith and in partnership.
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
1 The Mighty One, God, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to where it sets.
2-3 From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before Him, and around Him a tempest rages.
4-5 He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that He may judge His people: “Gather to Me this consecrated people, who made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
6-7 And the heavens proclaim His righteousness, for He is a God of justice. “Listen, My people, and I will speak; I will testify against you, Israel: I am God, your God.
8 “I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before Me.”
22-23 “Consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you: Those who sacrifice thank offerings honour Me, and to the blameless I will show My salvation. ”
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 — Worship without any change of heart is insincere
The Lord says that bringing offerings while doing wrong is meaningless
1 The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
“The vision… during the reigns”… presents Isaiah’s prophecies from 740 to 685 BC as a unified whole. Most were directed to the priests and rulers in Jerusalem but some spoke to the northern kingdom of Israel which fell in 722 BC.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
“You rulers” — with irony, Isaiah likens them to the inhospitable cities of the Dead Sea plain that were destroyed because of their persistent sin.
11 “The multitude of your sacrifices — what are they to Me?” says the LORD. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
“Your sacrifices” — insincere worship dishonoured the Lord, as Samuel said: “To obey is better than sacrifice,” 1 Sam. 15:22-23, later reiterated by Hosea, Amos, Micah and taken up by Jesus, Matt. 23:23. God sees through actions to the attitude of our hearts, 1 Cor. 4:5.
• Read further:Hosea 6:6, Amos 4:4, Mic. 6:6-8.
12 “When you come to appear before Me, who has asked this of you, his trampling of My courts?
“Trampling” — wrong attitudes within the temple courtyard defiled it.
13 “Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations — I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
14-15 “Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide My eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!
“I hate… I hide… I am not listening” — wordy but faithless, hypocritical rituals are “detestable” (v.13) to the Lord.
16-17 “Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of My sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
“Stop doing wrong… learn to do right” — mercy and justice are the Lord’s defining characteristics, Exodus 34:6-8, and He expects His covenant people to reflect the same values..
18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
“Your sins… shall be… white” — there is grace and forgiveness, predicated on a change of attitude. Turning again to obedience does not earn forgiveness but shows sincerity in repentant faith.
19-20 “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
“If you are willing… if you resist” — Isaiah’s prophetic word, like Deut. 28, sets out a choice between experiencing blessing or absence of blessing, or curse.
Reflection
SUMMARY Isaiah brought prophetic words to the court of Judah, and some to the northern kingdom of Israel before its conquest by the Assyrians. This opening section introduces his prophetic message as a whole — how worship had become a ritual rather than an expression of love towards God, and was not being matched by compassionate and righteous living.
APPLICATION The Lord has stern words to say about rituals which are more about form than they are about faith. And where the church has offered public worship while acting judgmentally or with discrimination behind closed doors, the result is the opposite of blessing, seen in declining influence and numbers.
QUESTION Sincere faith is demanding! How ready are we to give God what He really wants — our hearts?
Luke 12:31-40 — Disciples attend the Lord with faith and expectation
We are to seek God’s kingdom where His values are honoured and upheld
31″ … Seek His kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
“Seek His kingdom” — follow Jesus by upholding His values, His purpose and His authority.
32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
“Little flock” — references the OT idea of Israel being God’s sheep, Ps. 23:1, Isaiah 40:11. By using this saying for His disciples, Jesus makes the church the new flock, the new Israel that takes hold of His kingdom as it is coming now.
33-34 “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“Sell your possessions” — not a command to sell up everything (elsewhere in the NT it is assumed the believers own property and have income to share), but recognising that all we have comes from God and is for serving Him. The “purse that will not wear out” is our deposit in heaven from meeting needs of others, the safest of investments.
35-36 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.
“Keep your lamps burning” — a picture of active, not passive, readiness for whatever the Lord will do before or at His expected return.
37 “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.
He will… come and wait on them” — provocative: no Middle Eastern master would ever serve his servants. Jesus redefines the role of master and value of servants, giving Himself for them.
38 “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak.
39 “But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
“The thief” — not the predictable spoiler of John 10:10 but an expression of what is unexpected, v.40.
• For further study, see 1 Thess. 5:2 and 4, 2 Peter 3:10, Rev. 3:3, Rev. 16:15.
40 “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.”
“You also must be ready” — spoken to His disciples, a reminder that greater privileges bring greater responsibilities and temptations, James 3:1.
Reflection
SUMMARY Kingdom of God living is all about readiness. It is not encumbered by possessions but agile, anticipating God’s move before it comes.
APPLICATION We are called to live in an active awareness of God’s kingdom, prepared both for His return and for local moves that start to establish His rule and reign now.
QUESTION How does being prepared for Jesus’ return change how we are aware of Him and talk about Him day to day?
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Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 — Learning how hope and faith work together
Abraham, who believed without seeing what was promised, is a great example
1-2 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
“Faith… confidence in what we hope for” — hope in the Bible is a confident expectation of God living up to His good reputation and bringing a good outcome. Faith is more specific, believing God for what He is saying but is unseen except with spiritual eyes.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
“By faith we understand” — God spoke creation into existence out of nothing that could be seen. He declared that it was to be, and it was, Genesis 1:2-34.
8-9 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
“Abraham… obeyed and went… by faith” — becoming the “father of all who believe”, Romans 4:11, the model for us as we learn to live by faith.
10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
“The city whose architect… is God” — which Abraham never inhabited, nor experienced the land of the promise. He knew his destiny was the heavenly city, and through faith, it was.
11-12 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
“By faith… from one man… good as dead… came descendants” — some versions relate the “good as dead” to Sarah, well past childbearing age. The meaning is the same. What simply couldn’t happen, was released to happen, by faith in what God had said, Gen. 15:4-5, Gen. 17:16 and 19, Gen. 18:10.
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
“Saw them… from a distance” — sometimes what we see by faith is a better fit into an eternal timescale than ours.
14-15 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 Instead, they were longing for a better country — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
“Their God” — an allusion to God referring to Himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob”, a covenant with the people-group represented by the individuals.
Reflection
SUMMARY Faith adds its specific assurance to what God indicates He is going to do, to the general confidence we have in His best intentions for us. Abraham heard from God about where he should live and that he would be the founder of a great dynasty – and so he was able to exercise faith in what God had promised.
APPLICATION Both hope and faith are spiritually demanding, but in different ways. Hope requires us to know God in a personal way, an experience which arises through our receiving and trusting in Jesus as our Saviour and Lord. Faith requires us to be hearing God, through particular words, pictures or spiritual patterns as well as the inner witness of His voice of encouragement. “By faith we understand” on a spiritual level beyond intellect, which brings clarity to what could not be discerned before.
QUESTION Now, with reference to this passage, how would you explain the difference between hope and faith in your own words?
PRAYER Loving Father, I want to know You better, to be more confident of Your good intentions through hope.
I want to be hearing You more clearly, through Your word, through worship, through the promptings of Your Spirit.
And I want to be pleasing You as I learn to live by faith and respond to what You are preparing for me — enabling Your kingdom to come in my life and in others. Take my life and let it be — to the glory of Jesus, Amen.
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