Good morning everybody. I'm going to ask you to bow your heads and pray with me.
Heavenly Father, as we come to your word now, as we come to you,
we pray that you would speak to us from your word, by your spirit,
that we would be grown in Christ, that we would be drawn closer to yourself in truth.
And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Queen Marguerite got one. Barack Obama didn't.
Tim Matheson got one. Tony Abbott didn't.
Martin Fieldler, the butcher, got one. Princess Mary didn't.
Brian Naylor, the postman, got one. Chris Jones didn't.
What are we talking about?
But I've got one, look.
And if I'd got one, it would say something like,
if you got an invitation to the royal wedding, if you were lucky enough,
the invitation would read something like this.
The Lord Chamberlain is commanded by the Queen to invite Brian Rowe
to the marriage of His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales, KG,
with Miss Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey
on Friday the 29th of April, 2011, at 11am.
And in case you didn't notice, that was last Friday night.
You mightn't care.
And maybe you do. I think a lot of people did care.
But an invitation is something which demands a response.
So somebody makes an offer to you,
and you have to decide how you're going to respond to that offer.
So you're asked to come,
and immediately the question sort of hangs in the air,
what are you going to do?
How are you going to respond?
And I imagine that if any one of us here received an invitation
to the royal wedding, the first time we would have asked is,
or the first thing we would have asked is,
is this for real?
Is somebody taking the mickey out of me?
It just seems too good to be true.
When you come to Isaiah 55,
which I hope you've got your Bibles open
because that's what I'm preaching from this morning,
the invitation to come is a striking and surprising one
which really sounds too good to be true.
So verse 1.
Come, 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.
And come is the very first word used here.
I think this is one of the great words of the Bible.
It's such a, it's a winsome word.
It's an invitational word.
It's God speaking and there is this wonderful invitation
to come into his presence.
And it's an invitation to those who don't have to come
and to receive.
And if you're thirsty, come to me for water.
And if you haven't got money to shop with
or a credit card to put it on,
come and buy and eat and it's free
and there's no cost.
It's just zilch.
Now, if somebody offers me something for nothing,
as they do all the time on the phone,
I'm looking for the trick.
I'm looking for the catch, the snag.
You know, what is it that they really want from me?
Show me the fine print.
Tell me what the bottom line is.
Somebody's on the phone the other day
and you just know they're reading off their script.
And I'm saying, I'm very sorry.
I don't want this.
And if you don't stop talking,
I'm just going to hang up anyway.
And did.
But when a free gift is real,
it is an enormous relief.
It is just such a blessing.
I experienced much-needed kindness and generosity
in Chatswood the other day.
I was in a borrowed car with my elderly mum and my nephew
and the engine blew up suddenly and unexpectedly
in the middle of Daisy Street.
I only had to drive two spaces to get the car off the road
and I stopped dead because I just thought it was on fire
that there was that much smoke pouring out
from underneath the bonnet.
And I was stranded.
I hope it doesn't happen to you, new car, Asher.
But I was stranded.
It won't.
It's a lot newer than mine.
I was stranded without NRMA
in somebody else's car
with the phone battery going flat
and fairly desperate to get to my daughter's graduation
in two hours' time.
And I was at the mercy of others.
I needed the generosity of others.
And even when I ring the NRMA,
I said, we'll give you a table.
It'll be two hours.
I won't tell you the whole story,
but within an hour,
Karen from the office had taken my mum to safe care.
Brian Tung had helped me push the car.
He's really good at pushing cars.
He does have muscle underneath that slight body.
And I received a free tome.
Didn't charge me,
even without NRMA on that car.
And I made it to my daughter's graduation
with half an hour to spare.
But I was completely dependent on the help of others
and was relieved to receive what I urgently needed.
And Isaiah 55 is this invitation from God
to come to his abundant banquet
and he invites us to receive all that is on the table
and he says, you can have it for free.
And so you say, well, what's on the table?
What's for dinner?
What's the menu?
And that takes a bit of unpacking.
So you look at verse two.
Why spend money on what is not bread
and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me.
Eat what is good
and your soul will delight in the richest of fear.
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.
Now big to the background of Isaiah
are the four kings of Judah
who reigned during the time that Isaiah prophesied.
So he prophesied over the reign
of four different kings of Judah.
And the kings struggle with what all governments do.
They're a bit of a minnow
compared to the size of the surrounding superpowers.
And the question for them is, who do you trust?
What alliances can I make that will keep me safe into the future?
I think Julia Gillard was probably doing something like that
when she was in China the other day
and making bilateral agreements on us warship exchanges
and visits to one another's countries.
We have a lot of trading interests between us at stake.
We seek friendship for protecting our interests.
But Judah is God's country.
And the people of Judah are God's people.
And the prophet rebukes them and he says,
why spend money on what is not bread
and your labour on what does not satisfy?
He's referring to the tribute money
that they have been paying to the Assyrian king
to keep him from invading.
They've been paying real money.
And they've also been doing real work,
building for themselves some of the golden idols
of the surrounding nations
and they're getting nothing for their efforts.
And that's sort of the emptiness of religion, isn't it?
You know, you can invest in something big
and you think it looks really great,
something that looks pretty fancy and delivers nothing.
If it's fake, it doesn't work no matter how good it looks.
But the prophet calls the people of God
back to trust the promises of God
and the word of God.
God's not unknown to his people,
but he is forgotten.
And Isaiah reminds the people
how God has revealed himself
and he's done that through a series of covenants,
ordeals, which he's made with them
throughout history.
And so you see that in Isaiah chapter 54
and now in Isaiah 55.
So back in chapter 54, in verse 80, he says,
In a surge of anger, I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness,
I will have compassion on you,
says the Lord, your Redeemer.
To me, this is like the days of Noah
when I swore that the waters of Noah
would never again cover the earth.
Now, it's sort of hidden,
so you've got to draw it out.
But in Isaiah 54,
he speaks about things like enlarging your tents
and he refers to himself as Yahweh,
their Redeemer.
So he uses language
which reminds the people
of three different covenants
and promises that God had made.
That's in chapter 54.
So with Noah,
I walked across the harbour bridge the other day
and coming right down into the harbour
underneath this was a rainbow.
Couldn't see the gold,
but you could see the rainbow
hitting the surface of the water.
Really beautiful.
Well, that's the sign that God gave Noah
to say that he would never again
destroy the earth in such a way.
And with Abraham and his promises,
he promises to enlarge their tents
and to make them a great nation.
And with Moses,
when he gave the sign of circumcision,
sealing the nation that God had redeemed
out of Egypt.
And so he's saying,
God has spoken to Noah.
God has spoken to Abraham.
God has spoken to Moses.
And now in chapter 55,
God has spoken to David
and God's word
and God's promises
are still valid.
They still stand.
And so in verse 3 of chapter 55,
I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
My faithful love promised to David.
See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and a commander of the peoples.
Surely you will summon nations you know not
and nations that do not know you
will hasten to you
because of the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.
He's saying,
this is 300 years after David,
the promise of an everlasting,
and they're about to go into exile
and the northern kingdom already has.
But he's saying,
the promise of an everlasting covenant
with David still stands.
God's promise is firm.
It will be an eternal kingdom
that will never come to an end,
and it will be a kingdom
to whom nations will be drawn
and they will submit to the king.
There's a lot of parallels
between this part of Isaiah,
the last, you know,
from Isaiah 40 on
to the very end of the Bible
in the book of Revelation.
A lot of very similar images
which are expressed.
And here,
Isaiah is talking about a kingdom
which will never end
and to whom the nations will be drawn.
In Revelation chapter 11,
there's a great cry in the heavens,
the kingdom of the world
has become the kingdom
of our Lord and his Christ
and he will reign forever and ever.
Sing it.
It's the Messiah, isn't it?
And he will reign.
Go on.
That's all you're getting.
And then in Revelation 22,
I, Jesus,
have sent my angel
to give you this testimony
to the churches.
I am the root and offspring of David
and the bright morning star.
The spirit and the bride say,
come,
and let him who hears say,
come,
and whoever is thirsty,
let him come,
and whoever wishes,
let him take the free gift
of the water of life.
So at the end of the Bible,
the eternal promises of God to David
are affirmed as still current and relevant
just as they were by Isaiah in his time.
And at the end of the Bible,
they are declared in the kingship of Christ.
And so this free banquet
is an invitation
to return to the word of God
and to trust the eternal promises of God.
And he is effectively saying
what Paul writes to Christians in Corinth.
In 2 Corinthians 1, verse 20,
for no matter how many promises God has made,
they are yes in Christ.
And so through him,
the amen is spoken by us
to the glory of God.
Now there might be a lot of reasons
why you are sitting in church this morning
and perhaps have forgotten God and his word.
And you might be
playing around with temptation
and sin
which is ripping
the heart out of your walk with Christ.
And he hasn't walked away from you,
but you have been walking
with your back turned to him
and you know it.
Or maybe differently,
maybe you have been bitterly hurt in life.
You might be like my friends
whose son was tragically killed at 15.
And brought to a place in life
where it is very difficult
to think that God is nearby
and even cares about what has happened to you.
And perhaps even asking the question
that Philip Yancey asks in his book,
what good is God?
You might be like the people in Isaiah's time.
Very clever in the world of politics.
Savvy in the business world.
Able to make your way safely
with the security of wealth or education.
You might have walked away
from Christian faith in some measure
and started to design your own.
All religions are the same.
We worship the one God, don't we?
And so we take a bit of Islam
for its law and order stance.
We like that.
And yeah, reincarnation sounds pretty good
because you get another chance.
Oh yeah, and Jesus,
he said a lot of stuff about love, didn't he?
We'll take that too.
Or maybe you have stuffed up your life so badly
that you don't think that you can come near God.
That he just would not want to deal with you.
God's people have terribly offended him.
And yet he offers this exceedingly generous invitation,
come back.
Verse 6.
Seek the Lord while he may be found.
Call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the Lord
and he will have mercy on him.
And to our God, for he will freely pardon.
Come back to Christ.
When my car broke down the other day,
I was enormously helped
by the generosity of a number of people.
And to get the benefit of that help,
I had to humble myself
and ask for it
and then rely on them.
God has spoken.
His word is clear.
His invitation is generous
and we are called to respond to it.
And the offer is sealed by his son
who laid down his life for our sins.
So in Isaiah,
it's God's servant
and we preached about him last week
in Isaiah 53.
The one who was bruised for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace
was upon him
and by his wounds we are healed.
You come forward into the New Testament
and you see the servant revealed
as God's son,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
For God so loved the world
that he gave his one and only son
that whoever believes in him
should not perish
but have eternal life.
And back here in Isaiah 55,
let the wicked forsake his sin,
turn to the Lord
and he will pardon freely.
See, Isaiah speaks to us
with enormous confidence
in the character of God
to forgive and to freely pardon.
He's not this weak parent
who forgives a child
that keeps spitting in their face.
He is enormously forgiving
of the child who turns back
and says like the prodigal son,
Father,
I have sinned against heaven
and against you
and am no longer worthy
to be called your son.
Friends, hear the invitation
of God to come back,
to trust his eternal promises,
to see his power
and his will
to pardon all our offences
against him.
He is approachable
but only on his terms.
It sounds like the impossible.
It certainly seems too good
to be true
and God responds
to our unasked question,
you know,
how can this be possible?
Well, look in verse 8.
My thoughts are not your thoughts
and neither are your ways
my ways,
declares the Lord.
As the heavens are higher
than the earth,
so are my ways higher
than your ways
and my thoughts
than your thoughts.
You know,
as smart as we like
to think we are,
we are not even on the board
as far as God is concerned.
There is a vast difference
between people and God
and it's expressed right here.
Sometimes, you know,
you listen to people,
you listen to us,
you listen to the way we speak,
we treat him as an equal,
you know,
another person
and it's almost like
we stand over him,
we demand a reckoning from him,
we question his decisions,
we question his justice,
we question his purposes,
we question his plans.
And God speaks here
and he says,
I'm way above you people.
My ways and my thoughts
are way above yours.
And it's a good reminder
and not unlike
what God does with Job
in Job chapter 38
and just after he says,
you know,
brace yourself,
you want an answer?
Brace yourself like a man,
I'll give you an answer.
Where were you
when I laid the foundations
of the earth?
And on and on and on
and on he goes.
It's stating the obvious
but God is vastly superior to us
and it takes humility
on our part
to assume our place before him
and to recognise his glory.
And part of that humility
means that we don't get
to understand everything
about God.
We only understand
what he chooses
to reveal about himself
and he can only be known
as he chooses to allow.
He sets the boundaries.
But on the other hand
there's nothing which is hidden
from his sight
and he knows everything about us.
And even the secret thoughts
of our hearts.
Every intent of our heart.
And I think I wonder
is that a terrifying thought
for you?
That God knows
every rebellious thought
and inclination,
every bit of pride
where we exalt ourselves
over him
or others,
every secret sin
and with that
the fear of a just judgment.
Or is it a comforting thought?
In fact for me it is.
It's a deeply comforting thought.
God knows everything.
every wicked inclination
of my heart
and despite him
knowing those things,
the things that I would
never want you to know,
he is my redeemer.
And I know his ability
to freely pardon my sin
when I turn back to him.
That's a safe place
to be, isn't it?
Verse 9,
as the heavens are above the earth,
try measuring that.
God is a fantastic God
with the amazing ability
and desire
to pardon our sins.
I think that makes him
very, very good.
And the sort of forgiveness
that he extends to us
is incomparable
to any forgiveness
that we might need
to show one another.
You carried stuff
to church this morning,
lack of forgiveness
for a brother or sister
in Christ.
As serious as it might be,
it is puny
in the economy of God.
And that is
very New Testament.
The parable of the servants
are forgiven
a vast sum
who goes and beats
the living daylights
out of the man
who owes him
a tiny bit.
The extravagant pardon
of God
and by implication
our need to forgive
people
who offend against us.
And so,
Isaiah 55
is a wonderful invitation
to return
to the Lord God
and to trust in his word
and in his promises.
It includes
the amazing offer
of sins forgiven
and offences pardoned.
And it is true
even though it sounds
too good to be true.
And it finishes
with a powerful declaration
of the supremacy
of the word of God
to do its work.
Verse 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,
so my word
that goes out
from my mouth
will not return
to me empty,
but it will accomplish
what I desire
and achieve
the purpose
for which I sent it.
And so,
God's word
is powerful
to achieve
every purpose
for which God
sends it.
And so,
for a king
like Hezekiah
struggling to figure out
which alliance
to go with,
God calls him
and his people
to trust his word,
which is what
Hezekiah ultimately did
as the Assyrian army
besieged the walls
of Jerusalem.
And God did the incredible,
he did the impossible,
he defeated
the Assyrian army
without the people
of God
lifting a finger.
The New Testament
declares the ongoing
power of the word
of God,
something that cuts
to our hearts
for the word of God
is living and active,
sharper than any
double-edged sword
and it penetrates
even to dividing
soul and spirit
joints and marrow
and it judges
the thoughts
and attitudes
of the heart
and nothing
in all creation
is hidden
from God's sight
and everything
is uncovered
and laid bare
before the eyes
of him
to whom we must
give account.
The dark side
of the car
the other day,
I'm selling it
for my sister,
selling it in good faith
not thinking
anything's wrong
with it.
The day before
I put my head
underneath
to change the oil
and I saw
some of this
green stuff
which suggested
there must be
a leak.
Do you think
I wanted to know
about it?
And so I was
struggling with my
conscience
what I do
about this.
Will God
help me out?
He brought it
to everybody's
attention.
He forced me
to face
my own sin.
Severe mercy
of God
isn't it?
I felt very
protected
through the process
but he certainly
dragged me out
into the open.
The final words
of this passage
are similar
to the final words
of the Bible.
He says
verse 12
you will go
out in joy
and be led
forth in peace.
The mountains
and the hills
will burst
into song
before you
and all the
trees of the
field will
clap their
hands
and instead
of thornbush
will grow
the pine tree
and instead
of briars
the myrtle
will grow
royal wedding
the other night
the trees
down the aisle
myrtle trees
and this
will be
for the
Lord's
renown
for an
everlasting
sign
which will
not be
destroyed.
New
creation
joy
delight
great trees
replacing
thorns
beautiful
myrtle
replacing
weeds
God's
covenant
sign
a new
world
a new
creation
a place
without
death
or mourning
or crying
or pain
a new
world
that will
never
pass away
and Isaiah
invites
people
to it
come
all you
who are
thirsty
come to
the waters
and you
who have
no money
come
buy and
eat
buy wine
and milk
without
money
and without
cost
and Jesus
invites us
to it
the spirit
and the bride
say come
and let him
who hears
say come
and whoever
is thirsty
let him
come
and whoever
wishes
let him
take the
free gift
of the
water
of life
not only
does he
invite us
he enables
us to
enter
he is
the one
able to
pardon
our
offences
turn to
him
come to
him
accept
his
wonderful
invitation
amen
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