Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

Isaiah 55

“Come and Get It!”

Rev. Meagan M. Boozer

Do you remember being called for supper like this? “Supper’s ready! Come and get it!” Maybe you had a bell or one of those big old triangles that would send out a ringing message to wherever you were: “Time to eat! Come and get it!”

This is essentially what God is saying to the nation of Israel, and to us, in this 55^th chapter of Isaiah. Let’s take a look at the first several verses:

Ho, (this means, “Hey, pay attention!)

everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy 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 carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Listen to the same verses from the New Living Translation:

Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink—even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk—it’s all free! Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen, and I will tell you where to get food that is good for the soul!

God is saying, “Hey – I have the spread of spreads here! It’s all laid out, just for you! It doesn’t take any money! All that is required is that you come and get it!”

But what is the “it?” What are we being invited to come and get?

Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

God is saying that the “it” we are to come and get will make a difference in our lives. In fact, he is saying that “it” will make the difference between dying and living. “Come to me, listen, so that you may live.” And then, he refers to the covenant, the unbreakable promise that he made to David. What was that everlasting promise? Psalm 89:28,29 remind us, “Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him, and my covenant with him will stand firm. I will establish his line forever, and his throne as long as the heavens endure.” Back in 2 Chron. 6:42, we hear the appeal of Solomon, David’s son regarding the covenant made, “O Lord God, do not reject your anointed one, Remember your steadfast love for your servant David.”

What was the everlasting promise made to David?Steadfast love.

Love that doesn’t give up when we do.

Love that doesn’t turn away when we do.

Love that pursues.

Love that sacrifices.

Love that forgives – over and over and over again.

This is what we are called to come and get when God calls us to himself.

But Isaiah tells us that there are some things we must understand as we come:

First, we must not come thinking that we can buy what is laid out for us. God tells us we must receive it as a gift. That’s hard for many people. We are often more comfortable giving a gift than we are receiving one. I know I am. But God says that we must acknowledge that this promise of steadfast love for us, this water that will forever quench our thirst, this bread that will satisfy our hunger – it is offered to us only, only, only as a gift. We must choose to receive it as such.

We must do our best to come without human expectation of what this gift will do for us. So often people come to a place of receiving the Lord into their lives because they know their lives are a mess, and they want the mess to be cleaned up. But, the way they want the mess to be cleaned up, is the way they want the mess to be cleaned up. Listen to what God says in vv. 8, 9:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says 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.

I like the way The Message puts this:

I don’t think the way you think.

The way you work isn’t the way I work.

For as the sky soars high above earth,

so the way I work surpasses the way you work,

and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

I remember a young man coming to me after worship one Sunday when I was preaching at Falling Spring. “My life is a mess,” he said. I asked him, “What do you want to do about it?” He replied, “I heard what you said in your sermon. I need Jesus to help me.” Well, I was so excited. A real, eternal fruit-bearing sermon! Wow! And so, right there, I helped him pray the prayer, telling God he was receiving his gift of salvation offered in Jesus Christ. The problem was, his life didn’t change after that because his human expectations didn’t fit what God wanted for him. He wanted the Lord to come in and ZAP his life back into shape. He thought God would just start pouring the blessings over his life, including putting back together all the relationships he had been part of breaking. God did and does want to do this – but God’s way of doing it was not the way this young man wanted to do it. He didn’t want to do the hard work of confession, repentance, forgiveness, getting his finances in line, changing some unhealthy lifestyle patterns– he just thought God would come and wave some fairy dust over his life and all would be well. How many people do you know who come to the Lord with these kinds of expectations? Maybe it’s you right now. And then we find ourselves incorrectly disappointed in God for not coming through for us.

God says, “I make an unbreakable promise to you. I will love you unconditionally forever and ever. But you must accept the truth that the way I love you will come sometimes in a way that you don’t understand – and sometimes in a way that you don’t necessarily want.” Listen to these words from Hebrews 12:5, “My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves.” The Lord calls us to come and get it – free steadfast love – love, as only our heavenly Father can extend it to his beloved children, knowing both the good and the bad consequences of everything that happens in our lives.

The prophet continues:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Another translation says, “The words that I send will complete the assignment they were given.”

God is completely faithful. When he says, “come and get it!” he means to fill your cup to overflowing with everything you need. When we come and take in His Word, (meaning the Word written, and the Word made flesh who is Jesus Christ) that Word will call forth within us what God intended when he rang the dinner bell on the hill called Calvary.

Isaiah 55 comes confidently after chapters 53 and 54. In chapter 53, we see the prophesy about the suffering servant (written nearly 800 years before Christ):

v. 3, “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised and we held him of no account.”

v. 7, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”

v. 9, “They made his grave with the wicked, and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”

v.11b, “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous and he shall bear their iniquities.”

When we come to get Jesus, the One who took our own death sentence upon himself, we make a choice to surrender our lives to him. Our lives, outside of God, might look secure and abundant. But life apart from the saving grace of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit has nothing to offer in the end. To remain stubbornly out in the field when the dinner bell is ringing is to choose eternal hunger and dry mouth forever. (And I’m not just talking about those lost ones who haven’t yet received the gift of salvation. I’m also talking about, and to those who have received and responded to Jesus’ invitation to come, and yet continue to insist on eating off their own tables the food they provide with Jesus only as an occasional guest.)

The Lord is calling you and me to come and get it! He is calling us to step away from what is only an appearance of stability in order to move to what is truly foundationally sure. The biggest challenge for us is that it is only after we have stepped away from where we are, that we can look back and see that what we thought we had was only an illusion. God calls us to come as an act of faith.

Come from hunger to real food, from thirst to living water, from sadness to joy, come from death to life.

And then, (vv. 12-13)

You’ll go out in joy, you’ll be led into a whole and complete life. The mountains and hills will lead the parade, bursting with song. All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause. No more thistles, but giant sequoias, no more thornbushes, but stately pines—Monuments to me, to God, living and lasting evidence of God.”

Come and get it.

Amen.

Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

10-01-06