He Is Waiting For You Series

May 4, 2014

Morning Worship

Text: Isaiah 55:1-3

Subject: Invitation

Title: He is Waiting for You

Today we begin a new era in the life of the church. Brian and Jennie and kids are gone. I once again have taken the role as youth pastor and also am finishing up the membership class for Sunday School.

Charlotte and I just came back from District Council and were refreshed by the ministry there as we celebrated 50 years as a district. Praise the Lord… While we were away I began thinking about the direction of my preaching… where we should go… what should be my focus… And it seemed that the Lord spoke to my heart about getting back to basics. Isn’t it always good to go back to where you started and be refreshed by your past in order to help you continue on to the future?

There are some basic things in life that we should remember… the things that we have established as the foundation for our faith… the things that have brought us to where we are now. We don’t have to have some kind of elaborate strategy or some kind of master plan to get where God wants us to be. All we have to do is get back to the basics.

Race car driver Bill Vukovich won the famed Indianapolis 500 race in 1953 and 1954, a record of success few other drivers had matched. Asked the secret of his success in Indianapolis, Vukovich replied, "There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and steer left."

Isaiah 55:1-3,

1“Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

2 Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

3 Give ear and come to me;

hear me, that your soul may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

my faithful love promised to David.

I believe this is God's Word…

I believe it is for me…

I accept it as mine…

I appropriate it to my life today…

God is waiting for you

I. The Invitation. “Come, all you who are thirsty… This is an invitation for everyone. And the reverse implication is that if you are not thirsty, then don’t come. The prophet Amos wrote about a time when the word of God would no longer be a priority in the world. Amos 8:11-12, 11 11“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. 12People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it. So the invitation is to those who are thirsty. Have you ever been working on a hot summer day and the heat has you parched and looking for something to refresh you? The bible contains stories about people who were thirsty. As Israel wandered about in the desert they often complained about not having enough water to drink. They were physically thirsty. In John chapter 4 we see Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman at the town well. As He asked her for a drink a conversation was begun and He told her in John 4:13-14, “… Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Israel and this woman had one thing in common – they were looking for satisfaction in the natural realm. What God wants to offer is satisfaction in the spiritual realm. John 7:37-39, 37On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” 39By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Today so many are looking for satisfaction in the things the world has to offer… entertainment, pleasure, money, power… all these things have an allure that many cannot seem to withstand. But for those who are thirsty, you don’t have to look any further than the cross of Calvary. Isaiah 53:1-5, 1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. What are you thirsty for? In the bible many time water is used as a symbol for the Holy Spirit. 1“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. You see the water of the Holy Spirit isn’t something you can pay for. It comes by grace through your faith. You are saved by grace through faith… you are baptized in the Holy Spirit by grace and it comes through your faith… The closeness that you desire to have with the lord doesn’t come because you have done something to earn it. It comes by grace. If you could do anything to earn it then it is no longer grace.