Get off the Treadmill!

Isaiah 64

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, March 11.

Are you on the treadmill of works-based religion? Do you find yourself working harder trying to please God? Isaiah 64:6-7 establishes an essential truth to our absolute need for a savior:

For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on Your name, who arouses himself to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.

Isaiah was referencing the Law from Leviticus 15:19-33, which speaks of the ritualistic cleansing necessary for a woman’s monthly cycle. Isaiah alluded to a natural reoccurring process that had to be atoned for to emphasize that we all are in constant need of purification. There is nothing any of us can do to keep ourselves right with God.

In fact, every attempt you make to cleanse yourself puts you in deeper need for God’s purification. That is why Jesus made the hard statement in Matthew 5:20, “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus was not saying, “Work harder!” Quite the opposite, Jesus was emphasizing to His listeners the impossibility of being righteous by one’s own efforts. You absolutely need a savior because every time you try save yourself through your own righteous acts, you put yourself in further debt to the grace of God – “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness” (Romans 4:5).