Summer 2025 | Soaking in the Word of God - Isaiah 55 | June 8

You are listening to teaching from Mountainside Church in Boone,

North Carolina, where we live as real people who are a part of a real family

serving a real God in the high country.

To learn more about our church, stay connected, or partner with us, visit mcboone.com.

Well, good morning, everybody. Let's start off here. Deuteronomy 32, if you have your Bibles.

I'm not going to stay here, but I'm going to read it very quickly.

So Deuteronomy 32 starts off. Listen, O heavens, and I will speak.

Hear, O earth, the words that I say. Let my teaching fall on you like rain.

Let my speech settle like dew. Let my words fall like rain on tender grass,

like gentle showers on young plants.

And I will proclaim the name of the Lord. How glorious is our God.

He is the rock. His deeds are perfect.

Everything he does is just and fair. He's a faithful God who does no wrong.

How just and upright is he?

Let's just sit with that for a second.

That the creator of the universe, the voice of the living God,

this is his voice echoing across the ages, falling like rain,

gentle, persistent, nourishing.

The Lord speaks and his words nourish us like we're tender grass.

This is the picture of what it is like when God speaks to us daily,

as he speaks his word into our hearts as he cuts through the noise of the world and whispers.

It's not just words, it is life.

Isn't that amazing that the Lord speaks and his words nourish us?

And I know that when we talk about rain, when we talk about rain on vacation,

rain's not a very welcome thing.

It's not, it's not something that we, it's not something that we associate with

a good time on a vacation.

We've had guests at our rental who showed up and the weather was bad all week.

And so they asked for their money back as if I could control the weather or

as if Jenny could control the weather because she's the one communicating with them. But yeah.

They had a bad experience on their last vacation where it rains,

and then they showed up there and it rained again.

And so what can you do? We've had people every single year who ask us before

they book, they send a message and say, can you guarantee that it's going to

snow when we're there during the winter? It's like, no.

Maybe if you come in March, I can guarantee it's going to snow because it's

going to snow when we don't want it to snow.

But I'm not a weather wizard. I can't make it snow any more than I can prevent

it from raining. And when Jenny and I, I think this was before,

yeah, this was before kids.

We went on a vacation to Georgia one time and I had paid for a Groupon to go paddleboarding.

If you remember Groupon, that was a money-making scheme there.

And they canceled it the day before because there was threats of a thunderstorm.

And of course, when the time rolled around for it to actually take place,

the weather was absolutely perfect.

And so I was like calling and trying to like, can we still do this?

And probably got very upset and probably said things that I was not super wanting

to in the moment, but I wanted to go paddleboarding. I've never done that before. Let's go do this.

Rain is a nuisance when we don't want it. It is a distraction. It can ruin our plans.

But here's the thing. When we're in the season, when we're resting,

when we're relaxing, when we're taking time off, that's when we see rain as a nuisance.

When we're going to the beach, we have plans, we want to do things.

But as many of you know, who have gardens and try to keep things alive.

Rain is not an obstacle to life. Rain is the source of life for gardens.

No rain, no growth. Our bodies are mostly water. So if without water,

we wither and die as well. No life without water.

And Jesus knew this. We see in the wilderness as the tempter,

Satan, the accuser comes and sort of twists words and tries to shortcut glory

and whisper these twisted truths in his ears. Jesus doesn't argue.

He doesn't panic. He doesn't get all of sorts. He just responds with the Father's words, right?

He says, it is written, a man should not live on bread alone,

but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is what we should live on.

It's what we should digest. It's how we should survive and grow.

And so this isn't optional.

The word of God is not is not bonus material for the super devout or the spiritually elite.

We need God's word more than anything.

You need it more than breakfast this morning. You need it more than clarity.

You need it more than comfort.

You need it more than oxygen.

So when we open up, when we open up the word of God, when we open up the Bible,

when we sit in silence and let his words fall on us like rain.

We're not going through a religious duty. We're not just checking a religious

box. We're being kept alive.

And I know as Jenny mentioned, many of you have been really enjoying our series

through acts and we're taking a break from that.

And I know that you've been enjoying it because you've, you've told me and which

is super great and encouraging because sometimes it's easy to stand up here

and say things and just feel like wondering, are they, is anybody even listening?

Am I, is, are they falling?

Or am I just missing? And, and, and I also wonder like, does God think that about us?

Like, are, are they even listening? Of course, God knows, but are they even

receiving, not just like hearing the words, but receiving it into their hearts

and letting them soak in and letting them change us? I wonder if God thinks

that about me sometimes.

And Acts has been great. It's been a great series. It's been full.

It's been rich. It's been stretching.

It's been great. We've got to see how the Spirit of God works in ordinary people.

He empowers them to be these world changers.

And we have the verses like in James, where it talks about how Elijah was a man like us.

And so we get to see these huge biblical characters in the Bible.

And then what we realize if we really think about it is that they're just ordinary people like us.

We're just like them. So in Acts, we get to see a bit of that,

how God uses ordinary people to shake the world, but also Acts is a long book

and we're not even halfway through.

And I think sometimes if we're

going to actually absorb the fullness of what it has to say then we need to

rest from it not to not because we're getting bored or tired of it not because

we're done but so that we can return back to it in the fall refresh and energized

ready and hungry for more and I'm already looking forward to that time in August and.

I'll even read a verse from chapter 13, which is where we would be today anyway.

So we can't escape Acts even in the summer. But for the summer,

I want to invite us into something different. And that's the purpose.

I want to invite us into something different. Where we're in a season where

the pace of life changes, school is out, people are traveling.

As you can see, we're missing quite a few families.

And if we're not careful, this can be great. Season of rest,

season of relaxation, that can be great. But if we're not careful,

it also can mean that I slip into some sort of spiritual drift.

Our schedules are off. We're not doing what we're used to.

And that can throw us off. I know when the hurricane came and I was at home,

like all of the things that I normally did during the day, because I expected

to go to work, were just completely out the window.

And so summer can be a little bit, a little bit like that.

And if our attention is going everywhere, but God, what we really need is kind

of to recenter and readjust.

So this summer, we're not pressing pause, even though we're moving away from

Acts, we are recalibrating.

We're using this opportunity to refocus on what is most important.

And so as you can tell by the way I'm dressed, we're using this season to soak in the word of God.

And not just to rest as we do in the summer, but to rest in Him.

And to rediscover that the kind of soul deep restoration that we all need doesn't

come from beach trips and it doesn't come from airline tickets to somewhere

exotic or fun. It comes from.

Our daily walk with God, from living and hearing his voice in this life.

And his word and his voice is the only thing that really satisfies.

So we're going to soak in the word of God. We're going to spend the summer learning

to engage the word of God daily, deeply.

We're going to talk about different, we're going to kind of use different themes.

We're going to make it fun.

Next week, if you want to dress up, I think it'll be a fancy dress week.

So I'll, you know, put on my only suit that I have, I guess,

unless I'm going to run a tuxedo, but I think that would be overkill.

So we'll do some creative stuff, but we're aiming to let the word of God form us. That's the goal.

To shape our inner lives, to open our ears and our hearts again to him.

So I hope that you're in that with me. But for today, as we get into it,

the question is, what are we soaking in?

If we are to soak in the word of God as believers, the reality is that we're

all soaking in something.

So if it's not the word of God, what is it?

God says something strange to the prophet Ezekiel in chapter three.

He tells him to eat this scroll, to eat this book, to make a full meal out of

it, to eat it, to digest it, to let it become a part of who he is.

And then he tells him from that to go speak to Israel.

So God wants messengers who are changed by his message.

He wants people who are so full of his word that it pours out of them.

It's like God is saying in this moment to Ezekiel, you are what you eat,

which is something I'm sure we've all heard before.

You are what you eat. And we know that this is kind of true.

If you eat nothing but junk, you're probably going to feel like junk.

I remember that McDonald's book from back when I was in high school or whatever.

If you eat fast food, you're going to have some health problems and you're going

to feel lethargic and you're going to be slow. If you eat nothing but junk,

you're going to feel like junk.

I like the way, if you guys have ever listened to Nabar Gassi,

the comedian, he talks about how he loves pancakes, but they make him so tired,

but he never blames the pancakes.

He's always like, I just can't get it going today. What's wrong?

And he'll tell his wife, I think we need new pillows. I think that's wrong. What's wrong?

And she'll say, you don't think it's the loaf of bread and syrup you ate this morning?

It's like, if we eat nothing but junk, we're going to feel like junk.

And we laugh, but it's funny because it's true in our spiritual life as well,

that you are what you or if we could tweak it for our sake this morning,

you are what you are soaking in.

You absorb what you surround yourself with.

I think we all know this, but statistically speaking, the average American watches

like three hours of TV a day.

And I know that some of us double that or triple it on the weekends if we're

binge watching Lord of the Rings like our family does for the eighth time in a row. I don't know why.

But we surround ourselves with this, right? We're all soaking in something.

Every single day, our heart's being formed by something, by the voices we're

listening to, even by the patterns that we dedicate our time around.

So our schedules, even if it's not just a strict voice, what we build our life

around, the environment we surround ourselves in, that's what's shaping us.

And we soak in hours of commentary or podcasts, we read books and all of these

things are good, but what voices we listen to most are gonna be what forms us.

So these endless opinions and gossip and marketing entertainment.

We barely blink at it, but it's not neutral content. There is no neutral content.

We're all being formed. And there's this thing I learned about in Bass County,

Virginia, when I was there on a work trip one time, and it's this thing called

forest bathing. You ever heard of it?

It's not as weird as it sounds, but it comes from this Japanese idea,

this practice of immersing yourself in nature to experience physical and emotional wellbeing.

I don't know about you, but I just call it hiking. I don't need a fancy term for it.

But this is the idea of forest bathing. And it has this really actually beautiful

idea behind it that the environment you put yourself in will literally change

you. It can literally change you.

That what you surround yourself with can change you. And when we think about

that spiritually, we're being formed every day by what we're soaking in,

by the environment we place ourself in.

And it's hard because routine and consistency is not enough.

Frequency has a factor to play, right? Because the books that we read,

we forget what we read a week later.

The words that we hear, we may be excited about them immediately,

but eventually we'll forget what they were.

So we need this slow, steady, daily soaking in the word of God,

not just once a week, not when it's convenient, but daily, consistently, frequently.

Because God's word is not just a book or a series, a collection of books.

It's not just a message that he has for us. It is a transformation that we need.

And we look at verses like Hebrews 4, chapter 4, verse 12, that talk about how

the word of God is living and active. It's moving.

It has impact and significance in our life.

It's sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the vision of joints and

marrow, soul and spirit.

Like it exposes it. This is not a light or casual thing. This is something important.

This is something weighty. It's uncomfortable. It's holy surgery as we are confronted

and it exposes us and reshapes us and it restores us if we let it.

So what voices are forming you? What are we soaking ourselves in?

There was this study done that I mentioned before back in 2009 by the Center for Bible Engagement.

And it talks about how if we were to read the Bible once a week,

just once a week, then it has almost no measurable difference in our lives.

Practically none. So just showing up once a week for it to listen to sermons,

just blowing the dust off of our Bibles and cracking it open.

Occasionally has no, makes no discernible different in our lives.

I came across this verse again in Acts chapter 13. This is the chapter we would have been today.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

It says that the people in Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize Jesus

as the one the prophets had spoken about.

Instead, they condemned him. And in doing that, they fulfilled the prophets

words that are read every Sabbath.

They hear these words every week and still they missed Jesus.

But it wasn't enough that they went into the synagogues and heard the words of the prophets.

When I get around to it is not enough. When I have time is not enough.

It's not going to make a difference. The turning point for this study,

which I've mentioned before, is four times a week or more.

Four times a week or more. And the last time I mentioned, I pointed out that

this is the attitude is more often than not.

That we are engaging with the word of God more often than not.

This is the critical mass where things begin to change.

And the statistics are, results are that there's a 30% decrease,

decrease in feelings of loneliness, 32% reduction in anger issues,

a 40% drop in bitterness in relationships.

A 57% reduction in things like alcoholism, and 68% decrease in things like premarital

sex, a 60% drop in feelings of spiritual stagnation.

And then on the other side, there's positive effects as well.

There's positive movements and not just the avoidance of negative in the sense

that there's 228% more likely that you would share your faith with others.

And there's a 231% increase in the likelihood that you would be discipling others.

And then there's a 407% increase that you would be memorizing scripture.

If you have this more often than not attitude, because reading the Bible changes

everything about who we are.

It shapes us. It forms us. That's why God revealed himself through his word

that we may know him and that we might be changed.

But it's only in this daily soaking that we are able to combat the lies with

the truth of God, because it's too easy to forget.

And I know that our kids love the song by Ellie Holcomb.

She talks about fighting lies with the truth.

Now, I will fight the lies with the truth. Keep my eyes fixed on you.

I will sing the truth into the dark.

I will use my fighting words. These are our fighting words.

This is how we push back the darkness in our lives. This is how we push back

the darkness and the world around us.

As we soak in the word of God, this is how we fight lies with the truth.

I don't know if you've ever given yourself over to that activity.

What lies are you believing right now?

What lies are you believing about God? What lies are you believing about other

people? What lies are you believing about yourself?

If I give myself over to that activity, I think the things that come out the

loudest are that I am unlovable and that nothing will ever change.

But these are not the words of God.

These are the words of the flesh. These are the words of the enemy.

These are not God's words.

God rejoices over you with gladness.

His word reminds us of things that God is love and whoever abides in love abides

in God and God abides in him.

God loves you. He's not disappointed in you.

Like Lamentations chapter three, it says that these things I call to mind and

therefore I have hope that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.

These are the words of God to us.

Great is his faithfulness. Titus chapter three, when the goodness and loving

kindness of God, our savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done

by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

By the washing, regeneration, and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior.

So that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

This is who God is. This is what he says about you. These are the words that he has for you.

But if all we ever do is on the extreme side, occasionally skim through the Bible,

or on the more relevant side for us, perhaps,

if all we ever do is listen to podcasts and sermons and things while we are

vacuuming or riding in a car or doing other things while we're distracted,

then we shouldn't be surprised when the lies still run the show.

Because there's no such thing as multitasking. That's been debunked. It's not a thing.

You can't do, your brain can't focus on more than one thing at a time.

No matter how much you believe that it can stop trying to fit God in around

the edges, multitasking. You just can't do it.

And so if you were to ask that question of yourself, honestly ask that question

of what lies am I believing?

What would your answer be? Is it that you are unlovable, that nothing will ever

change, that eventually everyone will reject you and leave you in the end,

that this is all there is for you.

This is just who I am, that God's disappointed in you? What is that lie?

What you're believing about yourself?

What is the lie that you're believing about God that perhaps is at the root of that lie?

These are not the voices of God. These are the voices of shame, right?

Guilt says I've done something wrong. Shame says there's something wrong with me.

These are the voices of shame. But when we open up our Bible,

when we open up the word of God, we're opening ourselves, our ears to the living

voice of God. and the truth of what he says.

We don't just open our Bibles to read a book. We open our Bibles to hear from

our loving father, to hear from a person.

This is how we listen to the voice of Jesus. This is how we fight the lies with the truth.

And if you're sick of being beat down and worn out by these lies,

then the answer is the truth of God's word.

That we fight the lies with the truth as we soak ourselves daily in his word. And it's the only way.

It's the only way. If you treat the Bible like a textbook or a school assignment

or something to do, then you'll find it boring and challenging.

But if you treat it as a conversation with a loving father who cares for you

and, and rejoices over you with loud singing, then it will change you.

So I want to end today by listening, really listening to what God says about

his word and Isaiah 55 and not just about what it is,

about what it does as we soak in it daily.

Slowly, faithfully.

It begins with an invitation. It says, come everyone who thirsts.

Come to the waters and he who has no money, come buy and eat.

So God begins with an invitation. It's not a command.

It is a welcome. Come. And isn't that where so many of us are throughout the

weeks, maybe even right now.

We are tired. We are dry. We are thirsty.

We are busy and distracted and depleted. We are spiritually dehydrated,

chasing after a hundred things, deeply parched on the inside.

And into that, our loving father comes to us and says, come to the water, come and drink.

This is the language of mercy. This isn't the language of, it's not the voice

of a drill sergeant demanding some other spiritual new habit for you to take on.

This is a father who knows you and loves you and comes to you and says, you're thirsty.

I know you, you're thirsty. Come and drink.

And in this world that is drowning in noise, God comes in and he offers us this,

this different kind of stream that restores our soul.

He says, I, he leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul.

It's what our good shepherd does. this word isn't optional it's not a spiritual

luxury item I think Matt Chandler said this isn't icing on the cake the word

of God is not icing on the cake it is the cake.

When Jesus comes he doesn't change that invitation he intensifies it,

this is how we survive in the desert. Jesus says, whoever drinks the water I

will give will never thirst.

Indeed, it will become a spring inside them welling up to eternal life.

So this isn't just hydration. This is transformation.

It's water that becomes within you a spring welling up to eternal life so that

you begin to carry the life of God with you wherever you go.

This isn't extra. This is everything.

You don't read the Bible because you're supposed to. Maybe that's how it started.

We read the Bible because your soul is dying of thirst. Our souls are dying of thirst.

Because it's water in the desert, it brings you back to life.

Keep reading it, Isaiah.

Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.

So first water for life, now milk for strength.

God doesn't want to just revive your soul. He wants to build you up.

And this is how our father parents us. He meets us in our need and then he feeds

us so that we become more like what he wants us to be.

Milk, as babies crave, is essential for growth.

It's not just for infants. It's for every soul that wants to become wiser,

steadier, stronger, more like Christ.

The Bible says, like newborn infants, crave pure spiritual milk so that by it,

you may grow up into salvation if indeed you've tasted that the Lord is good.

God's word nourishes our character and nourishes our conviction and our resilience in this life,

If you want to grow, if you seriously want to grow, this is how you do it.

It's not sexy. It's not this grand new idea.

It's just listening to the voice of God.

Because the truth is that as we're being formed, as we're soaking in being formed

by what's around us, our souls are either being nourished or they're being neglected.

And a hungry newborn we feed them like a dozen times a day right because their

bodies need it for growth nobody knows that more like the dearborns,

we feed them dozens of times a day they never stop eating they wake us up at

night to eat and our souls are no different.

We latch on, we get desperate and latch on to everything.

Every new productivity hack, every podcast, everything.

Even teaching without intimacy, we latch onto it all. If you give a newborn,

if we give Isla, well, she just ate right now, but if we give her to Tori on

a normal day, she's gonna go,

trying to look for something to latch on to something. She's not going to find it there.

Unless there's something you need to tell a story.

Only God's word has the nutrients we need.

It's the only thing that truly strengthens our souls. We're either neglecting

our souls or nourishing our souls.

So this is the economy of grace, where everything costs everything,

but it's already been paid for.

And into that, God comes and he says, Come and eat, drink, and feast. Be nourished by my word.

He says, 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 yourself in rich food.

Incline your ear, come to me, hear that your soul may live and I will make with

you an everlasting covenant.

My steadfast, sure love for David, behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,

a leader of commander for the peoples.

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.

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 on him and to our God,

for he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your

ways. in my thoughts than your thoughts.

God's, God doesn't serve us leftovers.

His mercies are new every morning. We talked about water and we talked about

milk. It says that the word of God is wine.

So water is for life.

Milk is for strength. Wine is for joy.

The Bible talks about wine as a symbol for celebration, as a symbol for abundance.

So this word isn't just duty, it's delight.

It's not just survival or satisfaction or sanctification but it is for singing

it is for dancing it is for laughing it is for worshiping,

and yes the bible can be hard yes it takes discipline to read it regularly but

don't miss miss this the word of god is meant for our hearts to sing.

God's word doesn't just sustain it gladdens it opens

up a deeper joy than anything else we can experience in this life he invites

us to be not just be alive or to be strong but to to fully enjoy him come buy

wine come feast enjoy come be satisfied god doesn't serve leftovers The water is pure,

the milk is nourishing, the wine is rich and full-bodied.

The feast doesn't run out. There's always more joy, more wisdom, more truth, more of God.

Psalm 36 says that we feast on the abundance of his house. There's always more.

The word of God isn't stale. It is rich. It is alive. It is endless.

So we come hungry. We come expectant. We come and taste what is good.

In the end of Isaiah 55. 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 goes out from

my mouth it shall not return to me

empty but it shall accomplish that which

I purpose and shall succeed in the

thing for which I sent it for you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace

the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing all the

trees of the field shall clap their hands instead of thorns shall come up the

cypress instead of briar shall come up the myrtle and that shall make a name for the Lord,

an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Let's be honest. There are parts of the Bible that are boring.

There are parts of the Bible that are difficult to understand.

Some of it's full of genealogy. Some of it's full of ancient measurements and laws.

We get to Leviticus and we're like, come on, God, what are you doing?

And then we have to then go into numbers after that.

But hear this. We're not reading for entertainment.

We're not reading for information. We're reading for a transformed life.

And God promises that none of it is ever wasted.

None of it. Even the parts that we don't know why they're there.

None of it is ever wasted.

When you read the word and you walk away and you think to yourself,

I got nothing out of that.

It's not wasted. it.

God is using every opportunity to build within you a critical mass to saturate

your life so that it overflows in transformation.

Like rain soaking in the soil, like water saturating a sponge,

one drop at a time, critical mass.

You may not feel it today, but by the time October comes around,

by next year, by the year after that, our desires have shifted.

Our instincts have changed. We're not who we were. We will not be who we are

tomorrow, who we are today, tomorrow.

By the grace of God and his word within us. So we read, we saturate ourselves,

we soak in the word of God because he is speaking and his word never returns empty or void.

This is not a call to perform. It's not a call to get your act together and,

uh, you know, do this habit. This is not a guilt trip.

Isaiah 55 says that the word of God is a feast.

Is an open invitation from the living God. If you're hungry,

come and eat. If you're thirsty, come and drink.

No money, no qualifications, just hunger.

He invites us to his table to eat what is good, to drink what satisfies,

to taste the fullness of life.

Every drop, every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

And the miracle is, is that this is not a reading plan this is a person that

we encounter along the way the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us it says in john.

The word's not just a book or a collection of books the word is a person the word is jesus,

and when you open up scriptures when you open up the word of god we're opening

up our hearts to receive what he has to say, who he says that we are and who

he says that he is, more importantly.

This is not routine. This is a relationship that over time changes everything

that we care about and hold dear.

Because there is a saturation point, a tipping point where our vision changes, our souls begin to burn.

And we're realizing at that point, we're not just reading the Bible.

We're not just reading a book. We're being, our souls are being ignited.

They're being shaped and formed by Jesus.

So open the word of God. Let us soak ourselves in the word of God this summer. One drap at a time.

As the word is active, it is alive. And the one who speaks it is still calling.

Come without money. Come.

Without cost, don't walk away hungry. Come and drink, eat, and live.

Music.