Empty Habits

Having an established habit can be a very good thing. When this is a part of your life you don’t have to think through lots of decisions. They’ve already been made. So, you don’t decide each day where you’ll fit brushing your teeth into your schedule. That’s already been decided. It’s a habit, and you just do it. This morning, you didn’t work through the different issues to decide if you’d come to church. You just did it. And that’s good. Can you imagine making each decision from scratch every day? That would be impossible. Habits are a good thing. But as it is with every aspect of living in a fallen world, there is a downside to this habit thing. It is all too easy to do those habits thoughtlessly. And while that’s not a problem when it comes to brushing your teeth, it is when it comes to some other habits. This is taking that notion of not having to think about these decisions one step too far. Then they become empty habits. We are all confronted with the problem of empty habits, good things that we do thoughtlessly.

This morning’s text addresses the problem of empty habits when it comes to worship. My goal is not to talk about what happens on Sunday morning. The issue is bigger than that since worship is not this something that we do on Sundays. Worship is how you live each moment of each day. Worship is about following Jesus. This morning’s text is about how to avoid following Jesus only as a habit. In our text, Jesus describes the difference between the thoughtful disciple and one who is caught up in empty habit. In doing this He points the way to avoiding this problem. The danger is real. So, let me encourage you to think along with me as I work through the text.

Listen as I read the first six verses of Isaiah 66.

Our text is about the problem of worship as ritual done thoughtlessly, an empty habit. Sadly, this text is not unique in the Bible. There are too many places where this problem is pointed out. The reason why the Bible spends so much time on this is not simply because empty ritual is wrong. Consider what happens to those who fall into this sin. For these folk, following Jesus boils down to a checklist. Good habits, like daily Bible reading or prayer, become empty habits, things done so that they can be checked off the list. And as a result, the basis of their hope shifts. They think that they are acceptable to God because they are being religious enough. After all, the items on their religious checklist are all done. That’s what the people in our text thought. They were religious enough. They performed the rituals of worship. Their checklist was done. Jesus’ attitude about this is quite clear. Did you notice how He compared it to offering pig’s blood? He is quite specific in describing His response to all of this. ‘The sound of an uproar from the city! A sound from the temple! The sound of the LORD, rendering recompense to his enemies!’ Justice is coming and some foreign army is the means by which it will come. In our text, Jesus is making a distinction within His Church. There are those who ‘worship’ with empty ritual and there are those whose worship is real.

The key to His distinction is found in the second half of verse 2. ‘But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.’ There are two parts to this. The first has to do with knowing yourself, having an accurate understanding of who you are. So, let’s look at that word ‘humble’. If you’re looking at a New King James, you’ll note that instead of ‘humble’ it reads ‘poor’. That’s fine as long as you don’t think of it in terms of economics. This isn’t about someone who is without financial resources. This is about someone who has been brought low and is needy. So, an example from elsewhere: ‘This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.’ It’s clear that David isn’t talking about economics. The root idea is that of being afflicted, distressed, hard-pressed. So, in our text, Jesus is talking about someone who, because of some distress, has been brought low and humbled. But why is this person in such a situation? What is the source of this distress? And that leads to the other key word: contrite. This is about being stricken, that is, being struck by something. The Hebrew word can mean being physically struck by something. But that’s not what this text is about. The text actually doesn’t say what has struck this person. But what fits the context is the thought that he has become aware of his sin. He sees his sin clearly and that feels like someone picked up something hard and hit him with it. Jesus is talking about someone who is humble – or better has been humbled – and is contrite, deeply sorrowful, because he knows himself better. He sees his sin.

A good example of being humbled and contrite, of someone who has been struck with an awareness of his sin, is in one of Jesus’ parables. ‘But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”’ What a picture of true self-knowledge. In our text, Jesus is pointing out one distinctive of the person who worships and does not fall into empty habits. He knows himself. He knows that he is a sinner. And this is not just some theoretical knowledge. This knowledge pains him. It distresses him. It brings him low and makes him deeply sorrowful for his sin.

It’s important for me to stress this because of where we are as a culture. The common thought of the day is a that everyone needs a positive sense of himself. That is the key to a person’s well being. That is a theme that you hear over and over. Think: ‘self-esteem’. Now, please understand me. It’s not wrong to a have positive sense of yourself. You should have such a sense. But it’s all about how you get there. There are some facts from Scripture that speak to this. First, you have been created in the image of God. You have been made to reflect the beauty of the God who created you. And because of that you are a glorious creation. You have been made to have an incredibly positive sense of yourself. That’s one fact. And here’s another. You are a despicable sinner. Left to yourself, you would spend your whole life rebelling against the ruler of this universe. And that makes you ugly. And that ugliness shows in your attitude to life, the way you make decisions, your view of all of creation and your place in it. So, there you are, something made to be beautiful but now made ugly. Then, there’s this third fact. Jesus has come to make you beautiful again. He has come to change all that rebellion and the ugliness that it imposes on you. Now, how is He going to do that? A basic part of the plan is contained in verse two: being humbled and contrite because of your sin. That is, seeing yourself as you really are. If anyone would be made beautiful by Jesus, it is necessary that he be aware of his sinfulness. It is necessary that he knows himself.

Let me be clear. I am not dealing with the question, ’How does someone become a Christian?’ This is not about some four step plan for conversion, with acknowledgement of sin being one of the steps. That’s not what our text is about. In our text Jesus is talking about His Church and how He has divided it between those whom He blesses and those He despises. What I am talking about and what the text is talking about is not becoming a Christian but being a Christian. It is important that you have a clear sense of yourself and your sin. If you lack this, one of the inevitable results will be empty habits. And if that happens, you will then hope that being religious enough, checking everything on the list, will make God like you. And you don’t want that. That results in lots of anxious and then bitter people, many of whom end up in hell. Following Jesus, being a Christian, requires clear self-knowledge. That’s what the first part of Jesus’ distinction in verse two is about.

Now, on to the second part. How does one gain this clear sense of himself so that he can avoid the pitfall of empty ritual and the scorn of Jesus that comes with it? The answer is in the last part of verse 2. ‘But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.’ The point here is not complicated. The point is about fear. It’s about fearing the LORD, trembling as He reveals Himself to you.

Let’s go back, once again, to chapter 6. Isaiah saw Jesus high and lifted up, and the angels were shouting, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory!’ What was Isaiah’s response? Do you remember what he said? ‘Woe is me! For I am undone…’ Isaiah was afraid. Here he was, a sinner with unclean lips, in the presence of the holy God. And all of that is built into this idea of trembling at Jesus’ Word. It is by His Word that Jesus reveals Himself. It is by His Word that Jesus makes clear to sinners who He is. He is the holy God who hates sin.

We’re almost there. We have one more step to take. Let me pull some things together before we take that last step. What do we have thus far? Our text is a description of the truly pious soul whom Jesus commends. This is the one who follows Jesus not as an empty habit but thoughtfully. This person is, first of all, someone who has a clear sense of who he is – a sinner – and then a clear sense of who Jesus is – the glorious Holy One. Out of this knowledge come true humility, deep contrition, and real worship.

We’ll take the last step by asking a question. Now that you have a measure of understanding of what the Spirit has said in this text, what do you do? You see the problem. So, what are the practical steps to avoiding empty habits and embracing true discipleship as worship? One commonly expected answer is an appeal to the spiritual disciplines, things like reading your Bible, praying, and even fasting, if you’re especially motivated. If you do these things, the reasoning goes, then you will be humble, contrite and tremble at His Word. If you do these things, then everything will be fine. But that is obviously not true. Lots of people do things like read the Bible, and they don’t tremble before Jesus, not even a little. The problem with that advice is subtle but very real. If I tell you to read your Bible and the rest as the solution to this problem, then we’re back to empty habits. If I give you that advice, we’re back to the checklist. And the hope then is that if you perform this religious ritual just so, then it’s all good. And you can tell yourself and whoever cares to listen, ‘I read my Bible regularly so everything must be okay with me.’ That’s the attitude that Jesus despises. What’s behind that is the desire to be in control. And behind that is pride which is at the very heart of sin. So, I’m not going to tell you that the solution to the problem is reading your Bible or in some other way being religious. That would not be helpful.

It’s just a fact that being humbled and contrite, trembling at Jesus’ word, doing these things so that you can avoid empty but rather worship Jesus from the heart – all of that is not something you can bring about. You have no control when it comes to this. It is a gift. The Spirit gives this to whom He wills. And coming to see that clearly is so freeing. He is in control. We are not. He makes sure that things happen, not us. It really is a matter of grace.

Does this mean that there is nothing left for you to do? Are you to just sit there and hope something good happens? Let’s go back to that parable. By his actions the tax collector shows that he is humbled and contrite. But what does he say? What is his prayer? ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ We can never demand mercy. By definition, it is given to those who have no claim to it. You cannot demand it, but you can cry out for it. So, with as much awareness of your sinfulness as you have, cry out for mercy. Do not demand it, but do plead for it. ‘Lord, I deserve nothing but justice and the hell it leads to. But please show mercy. Give me the ability to tremble at Your Word, so that I might follow You with all my heart.’

Now, here we are shut up to mercy, something that we cannot demand. But did you notice what else is in the text? A promise. This shows the kindness of our God. Our text holds a promise to all who do cry out in mercy. ‘But this is the one to whom I will look…’ Jesus promises to look to, to view with favor, to distinguish from the rest, those who cry out for mercy because they have been humbled and are contrite. Please note the irony. We cannot demand mercy, and yet our God obligates Himself to us by giving us His promise. He will see us and notice us and favor us. And this makes a huge difference. Once again, back to the parable. How did Jesus describe the tax collector after his cry to God? ‘I tell you, this man went down to his house justified…’ Understand what’s going on here. The man was not just forgiven, though he was certainly that, but also accepted by the Father. That’s also included when he was justified. And that’s the promise of our text. That’s the promise of the Gospel. Jesus promises this to you.

Do you see what the Spirit is teaching you in verse two? ‘But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.’ This is how you are to live as a disciple of Jesus. This is how to mature, how to grow closer to Jesus, how to worship Him in Spirit and in truth and thus be protected from empty habits. And as this develops in you, you will be able to see the fruit. Let me mention just two. First, you will become more and more passionate. That passion will show in your hatred of your sin. That makes sense when you remember that part of what is happening is that you are seeing your sin more clearly. Along with that will be a growing passion for Jesus. He is the one who is doing all this change in you. He is the one who makes following Him more than an empty habit. He is the one who makes following Him real. And life is different because of that. So, look for the passion. Then a second fruit of all this: a growing sense of peace. You know that you are accepted by the Father. Your life with Jesus is real. What is there to be anxious about?

We all face the danger of empty habits, of following Jesus thoughtlessly. Our hope for avoiding this, like our hope for everything else, is in Jesus. Trust Him and you will follow Him well.