Stop

Based on Isaiah 1:16-18

Advent I Midweek – December 4, 2002

Pastor Richard Mau

Immanuel Lutheran – Des Plaines, IL

 

 

            STOP!  When someone shouts it, his word gets your attention.  The stop sign gets your attention.  The letters are bold and easily seen.  The bright red sign warns of danger.  We know that not paying attention a stop sign or a stop signal can mean serious harm to someone or something. 

 

            This week we celebrate the first week in Advent.  Advent is the period of time just before Christmas when we look forward to Jesus’ coming.  We look forward to his coming as a babe in the manger, as our promised Savior.  We also look forward to his second coming when he will judge the earth and take all who believe in him to be with him eternally in heaven.

 

            As we look forward to Jesus’ coming, STOP is an important sign that God speaks to his people, to you and to me.  He wants people to stop sinful lives and turn to him for the love and forgiveness he gives in Jesus.  It is a simple command.  It is not always a simple thing to do to stop sinful lives and live according to God’s commands. 

 

            It s easy to become preoccupied with worldly values and priorities that detracts us from what is good and right and pleasing to God.  Satan seems to work overtime to distract us especially on God’s messages to us in his word, The Bible.   We are distracted by all kinds of temptations in this world.  We are tempted to have things others have, things that may not be good for us.  Sometimes when we get something we want in this world, those things take us away from praying, studying God’s word, and fellowship with other believers. 

 

 

All too often we bow down to the gods of our culture, sports, wealth, recreation, money and getting “things” in stead of listening to what God tells us in his word.  All too often we submit to our selfish desires when we get lost in anger, greed, different passions in this life instead of following the commands God gives us. 

 

            If you were God, wouldn’t you be disgusted with people whose focus and energy are on pursuing things that have no lasting value, no significance as far as our relationship with him is concerned.  Think about someone you love and care about.  How would you feel if that person kept turning away from you and doing things you did not want that person to do, things that hurt you deeply inside as that person turns away from you, ignores you, and despises what you stand for.  That is how God feels each time any one of his children, and that includes you and me, continue in a life of sin against him.

 

            STOP!  God wants all, God wants you and me to stop sinning against him.  STOP!  God wants all, that includes you and me, to repent of sinful lives.  Repentance means the following:

§        acknowledging to him that we are sinful and what our sinfulness is

§        being sorry for our sinful lives because we have hurt him deeply

§        knowing that we cannot change our sinfulness by ourselves, but need his power to do so

§        trusting God to forgive our sins in Jesus’ blood shed on the cross.

§        desiring to change our sinful lives to live according to his commands, to STOP sinning.

 

God’s words in this passage from Isaiah are important.  He says to you, “Come, let us reason together.  Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.  [v. 18]

 

           

God knows you cannot change yourself by yourself.  He wants you to know that he understands your hopelessness and helplessness.  He wants to STOP worrying about that.  He wants you to know that he has made the plan so that you can be made clean of your sins again.  He wants you to know that there is forgiveness and eternal life, a free gift from him.  God is filled with love and compassion and pity and mercy for his people.  He could easily have said, “I have had it with these people,” and turned away and left all people to die an eternal death, never to rejoice in his heavenly kingdom with him.

 

            But God is a jealous God.  He wants you to be his children.  He calls you to be his children.  He sent his son, Jesus, to die for you so you can be his children again.  In the Old Testament he promised a Savior.  Today we know that that Savior came and died for all of our sins.  Today, just as Old Testament people looked forward in faith for the Savior to come, we look forward in faith for that same Savior, Jesus, to come again at the end of time. 

 

The Old Testament is full of accounts how God kept his promises to his people in miraculous and wonderful ways.  Jesus became man by a miraculous and wonderful way.  Jesus took all sins to the cross in a miraculous and wonderful way.  Jesus rose again from the grave in a miraculous and wonderful way to prove that he truly is the Son of God, Jesus who came to save his people from their sins. 

 

STOP!  God calls on you and me today to stop our sinful lives, to stop lives that go contrary to his commands, and to stop lives that forget the wonders he has done for us.  God calls on all to stop being consumed by the things of this world and instead being consumed by the desire to share his love with those who have not heard the story of his love in Jesus.  God calls on us to stop being afraid of tomorrow, and even death, but to look and listen for the coming of the Lord, both at Christmas and at the beginning of eternity.                              Amen.