Introduction and Context
If you're visiting with us this morning, I promise we don't cry this much every week. It's a unique Sunday. We're grateful for you to be here.
And I will report on a lighter note that the students survived camp at Snowbird. I heard one of them slept for 16 hours yesterday, and I am very jealous. That's amazing. We had a great time away at camp in North Carolina.
And this year, some of you probably heard there were some pranks involved, which I think is supposed to show their affection for me. Let's take a look at one of them, and you can decide if this shows affection. If you can't tell, I don't know which one is me. They all look like Bald Dan. So, if you can't tell, they're all wearing bald caps, which is awesome.
And I told them I've been in some form of vocational ministry for about 15 years now, but I was never a student pastor until I came here. And Lord willing, I won't be
Again, this has been the best season. I love you guys. May the Lord be with you, students.
Okay, turn to our text. Open up your Bibles to the book of Isaiah, chapter 55. One of my favorite chapters in the Bible found in the Old Testament, and unsurprisingly, if you're familiar with it, is often referred to as the fifth gospel. This book has Jesus all over it from chapter one till the very end.
In chapter 53, just a few chapters earlier, one of the more well-known chapters about the suffering servant, Jesus, who came to bear the iniquities of his people. And then 54, which Danny read for us as our call to worship, shows the covenant and the promise of peace that that Savior's death will bring to his people.
God's Unchanging Goodness
And those two chapters roll right into 53 this morning. We had the Savior, we had the promise of peace, and now we see his gracious invitation, his compassion to draw near to our God.
When a lot of people go to the Bible to find a taste or a glimpse of God's goodness, they don't usually go to the Old Testament, but it is on full display. I'm seeing bald caps come out. Thank you, friends. It is on full display in the Old Testament because God is just as good now as he was then. He is unchanging.
Psalm 31, verse 19, "Oh, how abundant is your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind." God has been pouring out his goodness on his people before the feet of Jesus ever touched the earth, and he continues to pour out his goodness after the feet of Christ were ascended into heaven.
Many of the Israelites would have had reasons to doubt God's goodness because they were looking for not only a savior, but a Lord, a leader, a military figure. And in particular, this was coming near the end of their captivity in Babylon and even into their return home to Israel, which was really a pale shadow of what it had been in its glory days.
So they would have been discouraged at whatever time this would have been written, and they would have been focused immediately on the context right in front of them and their own needs. And we have the same proclivity. We are usually fixated on what's most urgent and sometimes wrong right in front of us.
But God would redirect their attention and our attention to the spiritual needs of our future context. What are we going towards? So we'll see in four points this morning.
Come to God's Feast
The first one in verses one through two is simply this: Come to God's feast. Come to God's feast. I'll read from verses one and two. "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come by and eat. Come by wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food."
We today are incredibly short-sighted. We want the quick fix, the easy solution. We often fall into the fallacy of thinking that our short-term happiness is more important than our long-term satisfaction. We will take what is best in the moment and then trade, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, happiness in the future.
Isaiah wants us to see the bigger picture of our lives, and he does that by immediately throwing two curveballs that would have stunned his original audience. First is seen in the original Hebrew, which includes the word *ho*. The first word, *ho*, which typically accompanies a woe or a judgment. But this chapter is the exact opposite of a judgment. This is God's compassion to his people.
And the second are the recipients of this invitation. Who is God inviting? Read literally, it says, "ho, come everyone. O come everyone." If it were up to the prophet Jonah, this opening line would have said, "ho, come Israel." But God wants everyone to know that his compassion is not constrained by geography, by human restriction, or even personal preferences. The feast is just as much for the Gentiles, for every nation that will draw near, as it is for the people of God.
And yet while the invitation is open to all, there is a qualification. He says, "all who thirst, all who are hungry." If you're not thirsty, you're satisfied. If you're not hungry, you're full. Apparently, some will not come because they do not see themselves in need. They are full of their own earthly dreams and desires, and ultimately they are full of themselves. The Bible says they are spiritually wasting away and empty, but tragically they have convinced themselves that while being empty, they are actually full.
One commentator put it this way. He said, "That which is bread cannot satisfy, no matter how expensive it is or how hard we try to make it work. Our world is a vast marketplace of unsatisfying but costly remedies for our God-shaped longings." He says, "But we are not very good shoppers." The world is a marketplace. We are not very good shoppers. We spend our money. We invest our time and energy. We consume things that leave us empty.
And God says, "Better to be hungry than to be falsely satisfied. Better to be empty and feel your need than think that you're good." He says, "Come to the waters." Come to God himself, whether you have no money in verse one or whether you have lots of money and you've been wasting it on all the wrong things in verse two. Either way, the money, that which we would bring to acquire anything, is shown to be irrelevant. It's actually worthless.
But the text does say that somehow we can actually purchase these good things from God. There is a transaction going on. As we'll see later, that's because God has already paid the price. He has paid the price of these things. And what does he show for us here? We see water. We see milk, bread, and wine, essentially the staples of the human diet for all of human history.
God says, "Come and buy what you need to live and breathe for every day." And with wine included, he's saying, "I'm not going to just give you enough for what you need every day to get by. I'm going to give you what you need to make the best days a celebration." He's going to show us, "I'm not just going to give you the things you need. I'm going to give you better things. Things that you will want and that you will truly enjoy."
If we would come to God empty-handed, he promises not to leave us that way. And a hungry stomach cannot compare to the anxiety of a desperate soul. So not only should we avoid this emptiness, this false sense of satisfaction, we should also avoid the false provisions, seeking after things which don't satisfy eternally. This is verse 2. Don't spend your money on empty things or work for things that disappoint. We are hungry, and so we need to know what we must eat. What are the things that we should pursue to be satisfied now and today, but also in the days to...
Hear God's Promise
Come? Let's look now at verses 3 through 5 as we see that for the Christian, we are fed from every word that comes from the mouth of God. If you want to feast, first you must listen and hear.
Number two, in verses three through five, we hear God's promise. Isaiah continues in verse three: "Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David." And so God is saying, come and hear. Come and listen. Hear that he has made an everlasting covenant, which is his steadfast love to David.
What does it mean to incline your ear to someone? Back in the day, we'd get up real close and we'd say, "Read my lips," right? Pay attention, listen, and then respond accordingly to every word that I am saying. And so we hear God's word and then we are prompted to obey by responding because we have heard it properly.
Another author says this. He says, well, how do we taste his delights? By listening diligently to his word. He says, patient, open-minded, careful poring over his truth in the gospel, thinking it through again and again. These are the essential ingredients to the life that is truly life.
And this covenant, as you mentioned before, it's not just for you. It's not just for me. And it's not just about David. This is in the plural form. He's saying, you all, as a new people, as God's people, his love for David is now God's love to all of his people, all of the nations that we will see that will be brought near.
He continues in verse 4: "Behold, I made him David a witness to the peoples, a leader and a commander for the peoples." And God says, "Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you because of the Lord your God and the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you."
The covenant that God made to David was of God's grace and mercy and compassion. It wasn't because of David's merit, it was because of God's grace. His love for David was extended to Israel, which is also extended to the nations. And we see even in the other readings this morning that Israel had a front row seat to this. They were at the table. They were right there. They saw David's son, Solomon, build God's house on earth, the temple. Then they saw the kingdom divided and the temple being destroyed. And then they saw Jesus, the true son of David, who walked on earth, the son of God, who literally tabernacled in their midst, dwelled with them.
But so many missed it. Why? They were satisfied. They weren't thirsty. They weren't needy. They saw the living water and rejected it because they felt full. And one day we see complacent Israel looks up and what's before them? The nations are running to God. They are running to God like they can't get there fast enough. And what is God doing? He's not turning them away. He's embracing them, like the prodigal father and his son, welcoming them into the fold of God.
How is that possible? Because the Holy One of Israel said salvation is not restricted to a country, to a nation. It is for all who will believe and put their faith in God. The Holy One of Israel is now become the Holy One of the church. Where once God walked with one nation who were marked by circumcision of the flesh, he now walks with peoples from every nation who are marked by the circumcision of their hearts, who have said, "We are empty. We are thirsty. We are hungry. And we want the Lord."
If it wasn't for Christ expanding the boundaries of his kingdom, we would still be the ones who were far off. We would have no right to come to God, no right to come to the table, no right to even ask or plead for the forgiveness of sins. But he says the bread of life is for all who are thirsty. And so we see the table and the feast prepared. And we've been called to incline our ears and to listen to God's word. And after hearing the promises of his faithfulness to the nations and particularly to us today, we are given divine permission to point number three, seek God's mercy.
Seek God's Mercy
We are given permission to seek God's mercy in verses 6 through 9. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Seek the Lord because you can, but make sure you do it while you can. One theologian said the guarantee of God's loving compassion lasts forever. It is a sure thing, but the offer is only for a limited time. Seeking and calling are how we respond to God's word. We move forward. We move towards him in faith. It's what we do when we pray, when we set our thoughts on him, when we set the affections of our heart on him. And so we don't want the cares of this world. We want the cares of heaven. We want the exchange. And it requires humility and repentance.
We see in verse 7, sinners must renounce their sinful actions and their thoughts. The Old Testament sacrificial system primarily dealt with sinful deeds. It was not enough to cleanse a guilty conscience. But here we see God showing that our heart problem is greater than our hand problem. We must seek and repent of our hands and our hearts.
What does that look like? Another author said, to seek the Lord is to stop dawdling and to become intentional about him, setting highest value on him, removing everything that keeps us from him, hearing his word without back talk, opening up to his will with no preconditions, budgeting our money for his cause first. The ever-widening circle is endless. Seeking the Lord is a whole life realignment to Christ. We stop treating him as a religious garnish on the side. He becomes our first and continual feast, our defining center. And the time to move in his direction is now.
It's a tall order to give up everything, everything that we could easily have in this world, but it's worth it. And the promise we see is this, that everyone who repents of their sin in every respect, well, will they receive a chance of mercy and grace? Will they receive mercy and grace if they do enough good deeds, if they live a mostly righteous life? Will they receive mercy and grace and a pardon from God if he is in a good mood on the day of judgment? No.
Verse 7: Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. He will abundantly pardon. His promise is simply this: Come and be forgiven. It's a sure thing. The action, the reaction is given before we've even come, before we've done anything. We can know how that story ends.
And the way God wants to prove it, the way he wants to show us that we can trust him is through verses 8 and 9, which sometimes we misunderstand. So what does God say in verse 8? He says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We've all heard these verses many times. And yes, on the one hand, God is incredibly not like us. He is so different from humanity. He is altogether different and truly unique. But God is not trying to simply show us the great chasm between man and God, just so that we can stand back in awe and say, "Well, that's a huge gap that we can never cross." Yes, that's true. But in these verses, it's not just to show that there's a great gap between us. He's trying to show the radical difference between human mercy and divine compassion. That's what he wants us to see.
Just exactly, how is God different from us? He is totally different from us in that he promises to abundantly pardon and even exalt those who are and were his sworn enemies. No one else does that. There's no person on planet Earth that can do it. It's hard enough for us to love our family, our spouses, let alone people outside of those circles, and even more so for those who get on our nerves and might actually be our genuine enemies. But God is in the business of completely loving and restoring his own enemies to be his own children.
If you treated any person like you've treated God in your sin, and then you apologize and ask forgiveness, you would still have every reason to be suspicious of their forgiveness. Why? You'd be walking on eggshells, second guessing their decision. Because if you made them upset again, if you did something else to offend them, even after the fact, you'd wonder, "Well, they could pull back their forgiveness. They could be frustrated with me. They could be angry." Because that's how humans operate. That's our MO. We extend forgiveness until we've been offended and then we have to reevaluate, "Okay, is it worth forgiving again?" And even if we do, it's a completely imperfect forgiveness because we're always thinking we've been offended. It's always faulty.
It does not take much to reignite our anger. But don't let your heart and your mind skip over this. Because we get easily frustrated at those who have even the minor, the most minor offenses against us. But God does not get frustrated with us in the same way that we do with our loved ones.
If you are in Christ, God is grieved by your sin because it is sin, but he is not grieved by you, his child, in the same way. God is sanctifying you through your struggle with sin, which he will overcome through the Spirit. And he knows full well that one day you will be eternally free from sin.
God does not forgive like a man. He forgives like God. Joel chapter 2, beginning in verse 12, the prophet says, "Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster."
That is not the best person. That is the perfect God who truly forgives sin. So why would we not come if we have this confidence to go directly to God in every circumstance? Because he has told us that he has refused to treat us the way we often treat others who do the same.
The heart of God is not fickle as our hearts are. We can go to God knowing that he will never change his mind about his sons and daughters. And so we see the feast and we listen to God's word. We seek his forgiveness and the only appropriate response after all is said and done, number four, is to trust God's word. In 10 through 13, to trust God's
Trust God's Word
Word. Verse 10: For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that which goes out from my mouth. It shall not return empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Not only is God's word the food and nourishment for our souls, it's also the sustaining provision over all of our lives and the world around us. The striking contrast between a desert and a rainforest is enough to prove the point. Rain makes a difference. There's something only rain can do, and you know it when you see it. It's powerful and transformational. Rain does not leave things as they were. It sprouts up vegetation. It provides seed and then bread to us. And it brings us, as God's people, everything we need. Just as every drop of rain carries a purpose, a job, something, a mission to accomplish, so does every word that proceeds from God's mouth, every word with a purpose.
Verse 12: For you, this new people, shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall break into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the briar shall come the myrtle, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Psalm 23 says that we find God's mercy and goodness behind us, following us. And Isaiah 35 says that we will look forward and be led in peace, in God's peace. Not because every step is peaceful. Trekking in the mountains is hard work. There's a lot of peace, there's a lot of wonderful and tranquil things to see, but there's a lot of hardship and exhaustion, especially when you misstep, you twist your ankle, you just have that little fall that can ruin the whole thing.
But the point is that the hardships in life, that the world would say, "Why don't you avoid that? Let's not trek that mountain right now. Let's take the easy road." God says all of those things, good and hard, will be spiritually good, not because of those things in themselves, but because God is the one who leads you through the hills, the valleys, and the mountains. God himself will be your peace because he is present with his people.
And we're meant to see an allusion to the Exodus here. God who has been faithful to his people is being faithful and will finally be faithful when he brings them to their final home, to the promised land, to the New Jerusalem. That will truly be the end of an era, the end of the age marked by sin, marked by pain and toil, the thornbush and the briar, only to be replaced by the new age with the beautiful cypress and the myrtle, the garden and the city of Jerusalem, together with God Almighty. And how is that marked by a final feast, an everlasting feast, where somehow we will feast on God Himself as our own food and our own drink.
So, what is the point of all of this? Is it our nourishment? Yes. Is it our restoration to God? Yes. But even more, we see in these last few verses here, it's about God's credibility to His name. We don't just say, "Look how good this food is, see how good this water tastes." We say, "See how great our God is, who has provided everything, His own Son included, so that He who died for sin might free us to life and to a feast."
It's a spiritual monument reminding us now that even when life is hard, even when church is hard, the world can look through the windows and see a people unwavering and unshaken, no matter the circumstance. There will always be those who are rejoicing in the church, always be those who are mourning, who are grieving. All of those things are not the point, but the God who is sustaining each person is.
Perhaps you're here and you're thinking, "Yeah, I'm thirsty. I want more. This life does not satisfy." But maybe you wonder, "Does God really want me? Am I really worth the sacrifice of his son?" Maybe you're wrapped up in self-loathing and you just can't see how a holy God could love someone like you. The invitation is for everyone else, even the good people, maybe not for me.
Let's look back at this text that Jeff read from us earlier in Luke 14. Jesus' words: "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or relatives or rich neighbors lest they also invite you in return and be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you." That's us. He knew what he was doing.
Jumping down to verse 16, Jesus said, "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many."
At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who were invited, "Come, everything is ready." But they all began to make excuses. One said, "I have bought a field. I must go and see it. Please have me excused." Another said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen. I go to examine them." And still another, "I have married a wife and cannot come."
So the servant came and reported these things to his master. The master became angry and said to his servant, "Go quickly to the streets, to the lanes, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and lame." And the servant said, "What you have commanded has been done." They've been invited. They've arrived.
The master said in verse 23, "Go out to the highways and hedges and compel, urge, plead with all people to come in, that my house may be filled." Anyone who thirsts, anyone who hungers, anyone who longs for God can find fulfillment has an invitation before them to go and join the banquet.
It's the same in Isaiah 55 as in Luke 14. The compassion is the same. The compelling nature of the invite is the same. The call to repent and forsake your sins is the same. The rebuke to Israel to return to the Lord is the same. The call to the nations that were once far off is the same. God is calling us to forsake our sin and exchange it for his joy and his satisfaction and his new life.
The Call to Action
So, Milton Community Church, my challenge to you is to make feasting and listening and seeking and trusting God your full-time job, your life's pursuit. I'm not saying go into the ministry. I'm not saying go to seminary. I am saying, would we be faithful Christians simply striving to find every satisfaction in God?
Make your church family more important than your blood family. Make how you serve in the church just as important, if not more important, than how you work at your job Monday through Friday. See your walk with the Lord and your service in the church as the most important thing for you and your family.
Put to death spiritual consumerism in your hearts. Come to the church not looking to be filled, but ready and eager to serve and pour out yourself for everyone around you. And then turn, how see how in serving and loving and considering others' needs more important than yourself, your cup is being filled.
As Paul says, in humility, count others more important than yourselves. That is the Christian feast. We empty ourselves before God and before others. We don't come full of ourselves, full of our worth, full of our gifts, full of our merit. We empty ourselves and we seek to fill ourselves with the merit of Christ and to be encouraged by the works of those around us.
And we continually empty and pour out because that's what Christ did; is our example. And again, as we turn and look at our cup, it is not depleted. It is being filled every day through the mercy and grace of Christ. Come and listen. Seek and go forth in the great joy of our God together. And let us see what he does in magnifying his great name in Milton, Georgia.
Let's pray. God, would you realign our hearts that our passion for your name, that our passion for the sanctification of our brothers and sisters would be so important to us. Remind us of the worth and the nourishment that comes from your word. Give us the ability and discernment to remove even the good things that distract us, the good things which we have tried to eat and drink for nourishment when that is not their point.
Remind us, Father, that every good and perfect gift comes from you so that we might thank the Giver of all good things. And Father, remind us, especially in an area of plenty with so much and so many opportunities, that the best joys are found in you, are found in your word, and are found in the quiet contentment of walking day by day, step by step with your Son, Jesus Christ.
Would you continue to walk with us, continue to walk with this church faithfully as you have for the years prior and for the generations to come? When not a single one of us is left alive in this room, would your gospel light still shine brightly at Milton Community Church because your gospel is glorious. We pray in the name of Christ, who has invited and made possible the feast on our behalf. Amen.