Trinity Matthew 15:7-9
Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with [their] lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain, they do worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men.
The churches and sects of in our world are full of praying and sermons and ceremonies and sacraments, but how much of it is right? How much of it is pleasing to God? Isaiah, the prophet, answers for us. At his time, 700 years before Christ, people were just as religious as they are today. They prayed and preached and kept the feast days and yet Isaiah told them their worship was wrong. He said, “You honor the Lord with your lips and your mouth but your heart is far away.” Their heart wasn’t in it, and therefore what they said had no value with God. Their worship was vain because they were teaching human precepts as if they were the word of the Lord.
When you think about it, you realize that the people of Isaiah’s age were more interested in form than they were in substance. The act of praying was more important than the prayer itself; the act of going to the Temple was more important than hearing God speak to them there, keeping a host of man-made laws was more important than doing what God wanted. The result is a worship that is no worship. They tragically deceived themselves into believing that they were pleasing God with a man-made religion that actually led to their own destruction.
A reformation was necessary and Isaiah was the reformer. He pointed out how wrong and harmful their worship was and repeatedly urged them to give up trying to win heaven by their self-conceived rules and regulations. He presented the Savior to them. It is Isaiah who gave us this magnificent prophecy, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6. He prophesied that this Son would be the Savior of the world. He urged a heart-religion, a religion of sin and grace. He wanted people to recognize their sinfulness and look to Jesus as their Savior. Isaiah was pleading for a reformation.
The results were not dramatic. Albeit, a small following of confessed believers followed him, people who placed their faith in Jesus Christ for their redemption. These men and women kept the spark of faith alive until Jesus arrived on earth 700 years later. They were among the few who were on hand to welcome Jesus at His birth.
What about the other people at Christ’s time? Most of them, and particularly their leaders, the Scribes and Pharisees, continued with the false and heartless religion that Isaiah had condemned. In the place of a heart religion, they taught a deed religion; not salvation by grace, but salvation by works. They would pray loud and often, they would recite all the good things they had done before God and their fellowman, but the prayer of the repentant soul pleading with confidence for God’s forgiveness, was totally foreign to them! A reformation was necessary, and Christ was the Reformer. He reminded His people that they were no better than the people at the time of Isaiah. “Isaiah described you beautifully when he said your heart is far from me and your worship is vain.” Christ called for repentance, for a return to God’s word and the abolition of the laws and traditions of the fathers. His reformation, however, was no more spectacular than was Isaiah’s. A small group believed and followed Him, but the majority found His remarks offensive and they ultimately put Him to death.
Many calls for reformation followed the death and resurrection of our Lord. Especially significant to us is the reformation of Dr. Martin Luther, significant not because he espoused the rights of the individual toward the established church, but because he, like Isaiah, called for a heart and soul religion.
In an age where public preaching and praying was done in Latin, when going to church was more important that what was said there, when the forgiveness of sins was sold for money, and the tradition of the fathers was made equal to if not more important than the Word of God, Luther stood for a reformation. He put the Bible into a language that people could understand so that they could personally become involved and be the priests and kings that God wanted them to be. He introduced hymns into the worship service so that the man in the pew could sing with all his heart to the Lord. He swept away the laws and traditions that had been made equal with the Bible and argued for a return to God’s Word alone. The effect was not a new religion, though it was called Lutheran, but a return to the faith and worship that is based on Scripture. The effect again was not dramatic, for after the excitement of the reformation had died down, only few remained faithful to God’s word. History tells us about how the reformer would get depressed because the crowds that formerly had come to church to fulfill their Sunday obligation dwindled to the few who came to hear the word of God he preached.
Should we expect anything different in the 21st Century? Any thinking believer will be ready to admit that many people who call themselves Lutheran know nothing or very little of the heart-religion that Luther called for. A heart-religion is not very popular; it was not popular at the time of Isaiah or Christ or Luther and isn’t popular today. People prefer deeds to creeds, they prefer self-esteem to self-denial, and they prefer works to grace. A religion of repentance and remission of sins, a religion based on the premise that we are by nature sinful and unclean and need the redeeming blood of Christ will always be an offense to the world and will never be popular.
It is significant that every reformation of the church has taken place at a time when there was plenty of religion, when there were prayers and sermons and sacraments in abundance. Our text tells us that is not enough. Saying prayers is not enough; going to church is not enough; listening to sermons is not enough. All this can go on and yet it is worthless if it does not come from the heart. A reformation is always in place in the life of the believer.
There is also a danger. We can go on to complain how liberal other Lutherans are and how they seem to ignore the precious Gospel, how church growth in the eyes of the world is more important than growth in faith, and yet the devil can use this to our harm. “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” 1 Corinthians 10:12. By nature we are just as tempted to lose sight of what our church is all about, to look more at the externals that at the heart. By nature we are just as tempted to let our pleasures and our lusts get in the way of our worship. A reformation is in place for us.
Where does this reformation begin? I think it is obvious that any return to a heart-religion has to begin with the heart. It is a very personal thing. Every day of our lives each of us needs to remember the words of the Psalmist, “The sacrifices of God [are] a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” Psalm 51:17. Our Lord, in response, does not merely reform our hearts. He transforms our cold and stony hearts into hearts warmed by the love of Christ. He transforms them into hearts that confess their unworthiness and look to the Savior for forgiveness. He transforms them into hearts that cling to the word of God as its most precious treasure. He transforms them into hearts that do more than hear, but respond to the Gospel with a godly life that is well pleasing to Him. He transforms them into hearts that are patient in tribulation, that hold firmly to the word when many are giving it up, that are not discouraged because we are few. Finally He transforms our hearts into hearts of love, hearts that love each other, that encourage each other in our Christian faith and use every opportunity the Spirit presents to witness our faith to others. All this the Lord offers us in His Word and for all this we pray.