November 7, 2010
Morning Worship
Text: Isaiah 55:1-13
Subject: An Invitation to Come to God
Title: All Who Are Thirsty
It is good to be back at home with God’s people. We enjoyed having Sunday morning off and appreciate Roy’s ministry and everyone who filled in for us. Thank you. While we were gone an amazing thing happened. Our newest granddaughter, Lily, who is now 2 ½ months old wasn’t sleeping well – only about 2 hours at a time. Since we left she has been sleeping 4 hours and then eating and then sleeping another 4 hours. I don’t know if we bored her that much or if our prayers for her while we held her made the difference – well I do know; God answered our prayers. Anyhow, it is good to be back.
I am excited about what the Lord is doing in the church, especially on Sunday nights. Our last three regular evening services have seen the Holy Spirit move in a wonderful way. We expect that to continue but even more we expect it to spill over into our Sunday morning services as well.
Let me ask a question this morning. What is God doing or at least trying to do in your life? I had something interesting happen to me this past week. It was in a dream, or at least in a near sleep state. A scripture passage came to me and for what seemed like hours I meditated on Romans 12:2. The funny thing is that it really wasn’t me meditating as much as it was the Lord taking me through that verse word by word and revealing to me what He intended for me to understand. I mean for those couple of hours I heard the Spirit’s voice inside of me and I sensed Him placing thoughts in my mind of things that I had never thought of before about that one simple verse.
Do you ever have anything like that happen? And then do you wonder why it happens? I think that the Lord was blessing me because of my love for His Word. He was revealing a familiar passage and unfolding it to me in a way that I had never thought of before. He was proving His word to be true, “Those who honor Me I will honor.” Because I love and honor His Word so much He chose to be true to that word and honor me by a night of revelation.
So now you think that we must be going to Romans 12:2 today. Initially I thought that was were we would be heading, but as I sat down to begin to prepare the sermon for this morning it became evident that He wanted me to go in a different direction. You see it wasn’t the passage that He wanted me to focus on, but the spirit through which the revelation came. It was my hunger and thirst for His Word that He was honoring. Turn to Isaiah chapter 55 this morning.
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 “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. 12 People 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.
Today I want you to know that the Lord is sending out an invitation to you to come and be filled with the goodness of His word. And if He is inviting you, you can rest assured that He will pour His word out into your heart to satisfy every longing that you might have.
I. AN INVITATION IS EXTENDED (1-7) Isaiah begins this chapter with not only an invitation, but it is also a declaration of God’s heart for humanity. There are three admonitions given here. 1) He wants you to be so desperate for a deeper relationship with Him that He calls out to His creation 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. Who is the invitation given to? It’s not for everybody, but all you who are thirsty… 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. Have you ever done that? Have you ever searched for satisfaction or meaning to your life by looking to satisfy the natural longings of the body? Isaiah says you should first come to the spiritual waters that the Father has to offer. It is only when you are spiritually filled that you can find true satisfaction. 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 you will delight in the richest of fare. 3 Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. 2) Now the purpose of the invitation comes forth. God is going to establish a new covenant with His people. This covenant will be made through the One who will sit on David’s throne forever. That’s referring to Jesus. The only way that you may have “life” that is mentioned in verse 3 is through a relationship with Jesus. The question raised by Isaiah is, “Why are you wasting your money and your energy chasing after something that only brings death when God is offering life?” 4 See, I have made him (Jesus) a witness to the peoples, a ruler and commander of the peoples. 5 Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor.” There is a problem that not only exists in the world today, but also in the church. In the world people are trying to “find themselves” in things or experiences. In the church people know that they need Jesus, but the problem is that they want to pay something for what God offers freely through His Son. In John 6:35 – let’s go back to verse 32, 32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. And in John 14:6, Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. People want to earn their way into heaven and they want to enter some other way other than through Jesus – and it’s not going to happen. 3) The third admonition is this. 6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. What does that mean? Where is God going? Well good news – God isn’t going anywhere. But there is a danger of your not calling on Him at the right time – the danger of your hearts becoming so hardened that you won’t call on Him, or becoming so entrenched in sin that you will choose sin over God. Jeremiah 29:11-14, 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the LORD… It may be the hardest thing that some will ever do but seeking the Lord is the best thing anyone could ever do. Acts 2:21, And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved…” 7 Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. An invitation is given to the saved and the unsaved to come to the water.
II. AN EXPLANATION IS GIVEN. Let’s go back to the people that Isaiah was talking about in verse 2 – those who are spending time and money and energy on things that do not lead to God. It doesn’t make any sense to them to seek satisfaction from a supernatural source when they are craving instant gratification in the flesh. Verse 8, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. Do you ever wonder why your friends and family who don’t know Jesus cannot understand the change that has taken place in you or the things of God that you try to explain to them? …“For my thoughts are not your thoughts… Those who do not have a right relationship with God according to 1 Corinthians 2:14 cannot understand the things of God. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. Now let’s take a step in a little different direction. What about Christians who insist that God sent Jesus to save, but healing the lame, restoring sight to the blind, raising the dead, setting the captives free, deliverance from oppression, opening deaf ears, miracles, signs and wonders are not a reality for today? What keeps them from believing that God still does those things and He does them through His church? 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Now if you take this out of the context of how God works in His people you could say that because God is so lofty that we can never know His ways or His thoughts. Isn’t that what it says here? Here’s the difference. God wants us to know His ways and to know His mind. Again in 1 Corinthians 2, starting in verse 15, The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. How do you have the mind of Christ? Because the Holy Spirit dwells in you and if the Spirit is in you, you have the option as to whether you will cultivate the things of the Spirit so as to know the mind of Christ, or to cultivate the things of the flesh by relying upon appearances, circumstances and worldly wisdom. The seed you cultivate will be the seed that grows. That is why many Christians deny the complete work of the cross concerning not only the spirit man but also the body for this present age. God’s will is that you be whole in spirit and in body. Can we know that for sure? 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, 9 However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” 10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. All the explanation we need to respond to God’s invitation is found in His Word.
III. A PROMISE IS MADE. I always like getting to the third point in my sermons because that is where we start to get all the good stuff. Everything that we talked about in the previous points is leading up to this. 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Do you remember that many times in the gospels Jesus told the people He ministered to that it was their faith that healed them? When He said that what do you think that He meant? That somehow what they could believe sincerely enough to cause things to happen? Turn over to Acts chapter 3. You know the story – we’ve talked about it often. Peter and John are going to the temple at the time of prayer. They see a man who has been lame since his birth asking for money at the Beautiful Gate… ‘ silver and gold have I none but what I do have I give to you… in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth get up and walk… and the man was healed. You remember don’t you? 11 While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. 12 When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. 14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. 16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. You see, we can’t rely on our faith as the power, but our power is in the One in whom we put our faith. Our faith is the catalyst that releases that ower to work on our behalf. It is God who works miracles because of our faith in Jesus’ name. It is God who heals. It is God who saves. It is God who casts out demons. It is God who delivers. It is God who sets the captives free. And it happens when those who are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ stand in faith in Jesus’ name and trust God’s word to accomplish what it was sent forth to do. 12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.” When every promise that God has given us is put into action and the promise received we tell the world about God’s power that is working in the world today. The results of God’s promises are a testimony to His nature. That is why God confirms His word with signs and wonders – so the world can see His true nature. Does God desire that all be healed – Yes! Otherwise what kind of God would make some of His people suffer and not others? Does God want His people to prosper? Yes! Does God want his people released from oppression of substance abuse and addictions? Yes! Does God want his people to be set free from the lies of the enemy? Yes! All for His glory!
This is what the Lord wants from you today – as I was preparing this sermon I believe this was a prophetic word given to me so I began to write what the Lord is speaking.
From this day forward as you read My Word you will see it in a different light. You will accept each word as it is – the words from My mouth. And you will begin to act on them in faith – not faith in your own understanding but faith in My nature-in My person. And you will begin to see things accomplished in your life that you never thought possible. With man it may be impossible but with God all things are possible! Let it begin this day!
Today the Lord is asking:
Are there any here who need a healing touch in your body and believes that God is able, would you stand up?
Does anyone need a financial miracle and has the faith to trust God for that miracle – would you stand up?
Do you need emotional healing and have the faith to believe God for it?
Do you need to be set free from addictions of any kind and are willing to trust God’s word for it?
Are you willing to trust Jesus to baptize you in the Holy Spirit – or to be refilled for power?
Finally- have you trusted God for eternal life and if not are you willing to do so?
God’s word is available to refresh today and the Lord is saying, “Come all you who are thirsty…”
