CHFC - Week 2 (Isaiah 55:1-5)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

Love to see that I actually, you know, this is, Oh my gosh, I

always get started on a weird aside.

Matt and I, I think we've called this my cold open.

It's my cold open. Well, here's my cold open for

today that I did not prepare. But one of the reasons why I

actually love the Christmas season and it's a bit silly

really, is because my favorite color is red.

It is like I'm just like drawn to that color.

I don't know why, but you see a lot of it during the Christmas

season. It makes me really happy.

So there we go. There's the cold open for you.

Anyway, moving beyond that into what's actually kind of being

prepared to be said, as Pastor Matt pointed out, we are in Week

2 of Advent in our abbreviated series in the book of Isaiah.

And so again, we understand that Isaiah is, of all the prophets,

he's the one who probably spoke most clearly and most often

about the coming Messiah. And so he has a lot to say to us

and and given the opportunity at some point in our future, in our

future time, it would probably be good to spend a lot more time

in the book of Isaiah and see what else he has to say.

But in our abbreviated series will be in chapter 55 this week.

Just so you're aware you can get there before I get there.

So let's review quickly. Last week, Pastor Matt, he, he,

he started off our series, which thematically is really talking

about home. It's really talking about the

ability to come home. And, and actually one of the

things he said that sparked something in me a little bit is

home is where the heart is now. Part of me heard that and I, and

I couldn't help but think about all of the Super awesome

Hallmark movies my wife watches during Christmas season.

They're really good. Some of you, some of you are

like, yes, that's the only thing I watch for like 25 days.

And I'm like, yes, this is the thing I will avoid for 25 days.

No, and, and it's fine. It's fine.

I'm not going to get off too far on that.

But rather than hearing that phrase and, and, and thinking

too much about Hallmark movies, I was more so thinking about the

fact that as we position our hearts and we angle those our

hearts towards God, what are we really doing?

What we're doing is, Lord willing, we're angling all of

our, our best energy. We're angling our, our lives.

We're, we're pushing out the things that matter most to us

and we're pushing them towards a relationship with God rather

than seeking out the things of this world.

And so Lord willing, your heart as as it's as it's drawing ever

near to Christ, that's exactly hopefully that's what it's

doing. It's drawing ever nearer to him

and and pulling you away from the things and the desires of

this world that ultimately don't satisfy.

And we'll hear about that in the text this morning.

But hopefully your heart is being pushed more and more

towards towards towards Christ because he's the only one who

satisfies. He's the really only one who can

bring us to our true home. Now as Speaking of being

satisfied, one of the things that we have to talk about

briefly, at least this week is food.

And, and I, I, I'm never, I'm never bothered by talking about

food because it's just one of my favorite things on the planet.

And particularly during this time of year, I would, I would

guess that a lot of us, one of the, one of the central themes

of our gathering is food. So you're probably going to end

up at some place, whether it's your house or somebody else's

where they're man, the food is going to be awesome.

I hope it is for you. It usually is for me and the

places I go because I go the right places.

But but yeah, the, the, the food that we get, we get to take in

all this kind of very luscious, awesome, filling food.

And, and then we have the Super sugary treats, which might be my

favorite part, but it's also the part I should avoid the most.

And then we have these just very rich and sweet drinks.

And one of the, one of the things that I, I've, I take away

more and more as I get older from the food of this year is

that there's always a reckoning for it.

Now that reckoning for me, gosh, I don't know if I'm alone here,

but that reckoning for me usually is like, dude, your

pants almost don't fit now. Like this isn't working.

You either have to buy something new or you have to work this

thing off. And I think and I think a lot of

times what happens is we get really excited about the

holidays because we we get to gather and we get to be in

community and we do that often times over food.

But that that there it comes potentially with negative

consequences if we're not wise about it.

Now, I think, no, I didn't phrase that correctly.

I know that there is a better food than anything that we can

get during Christmas. I know for sure that there is

and that better food is what God offers.

It is it is the IT is his righteousness.

It is, it is it is his gift to us.

But this, this greatest gift that we're going to point to

today, especially as we receive communion is his body and blood.

His is the food that doesn't it, it satisfies fully.

It doesn't. And it, and it certainly doesn't

create guilt and shame and new gym memberships.

It doesn't do that. No, it satisfies, it sets us

free. It brings us into a space where

all of the things of this world that we thought we were, we were

hoping for that we are gravitating towards in, in our

sinful kind of I have to have it nature.

It pulls us out of that. And it brings us back into a

place where we can find freedom from guilt and shame and we can

find freedom from what the world tells us we should be desiring.

And so as we get into as we get into Isaiah 55, that's where

we're going to go and, and ultimately we get to land on

Jesus Christ and, and his body and blood alone.

And so here's here's the line of logic I'm going to use with you

today. There's a lot in Isaiah 55.

It's only 13 verses the whole chapter, but there's a lot

there. And so I, I scrambled this week

so hard because I was just struggling with like, man, I

really want to talk about that and that and that and that and

that. So I, I will again,

unapologetically and, and shamefully plug the podcast

because during that time, Matt and I will have an opportunity

to talk about some of the things that you're going to hear in the

text. And I'm going to say nothing

about. So please tune into that if, if

you would like to hear more. But the line of logic for today

that I think the text is going to bring us to first and

foremost in verse 2, we get a burning question and it is

something that we have to answer.

We have to be accountable to, to, to, to this question and

answer it. Second thing we're going to see

is that the time to seek and now is now.

And 3rd, we're going to learn that we get to buy without

money, which sounds like an an insane contradiction, but it's

what the text tells us. So with that in mind, we'll read

Isaiah 55. We're going to read the whole

chapter again. It's only 13 verses.

It's relatively painless. So if you have Bibles and you

want to open up to Isaiah 55, you can do that or you can

follow along on the screen. This is the word of the Lord.

Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has 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 diligently to me and eat

what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear and 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 people as a leader and a

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 of 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, or 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 yours, and my

thoughts than yours. For as the rain and the snow

come down from heaven, and do not return, 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 it shall succeed in the thing for which I

sent it. For you shall go out and joy,

and be LED forth in peace. The mountains and the hills

before you shall break forth in singing, and the trees of the

field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come

the Cyprus, instead of the briar shall come the Myrtle, and it

shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall

not be cut off here in the reading of God's Word.

As I stated before, Christmas time is awesome.

And then the older I get. I got to be really honest with

you. I just don't care that much

about presents. You know, we study the five love

love languages. Maybe you're familiar with that.

And like the gift giving thing, like it's great.

I'm glad we do it. There's nothing wrong with that.

But the older I get, the more like I think about food when it

comes to Christmas. So it's just true.

I just and This is why I have pants problems.

I won't, I won't go into details.

It's it's fine. Don't even worry about it

anyway. So what I look forward to

typically most on Christmas has little to do with presents and

everything to do with the Christmas brunch that my family

and I typically do. So what that looks like is that

like family, family will come over to our house and there's

egg bakes and there's, there's these little like Crescent rolls

that we stick fruit inside and we bake them.

And I have like 6 of them. And, and I find myself in a food

coma or stupor of sorts by the time it's all done.

And, and I look forward to this thing so much.

I'm not even joking. Like I legitimately am like, I

can't wait for that. And, and, and The thing is like

there's, there's this high level of short term satisfaction that

comes with it. And if I, and if I do not check

myself, that that satisfaction actually turns into misery as I

like lay on the couch with my food baby.

It's like it, it can become miserable if I don't check

myself. And but here's the here's the

thing that that's kind of it's difficult for me to to wrap my

head around other than the physiological part.

But the difficult thing thing for me to wrap my head around is

after all that's said and done and I'm potentially miserable on

the couch, but happy miserable. If you can get that within like

3 hours, I'm, I'm, I'm desiring all the same things again.

Like I don't learn, you know, like I just, I don't get it.

It's, it's a problem I have. I just don't learn.

And it just keeps on coming back every 3-4 hours, whatever it is,

it just keeps on coming back over and over again.

And when I think about that, it begs the question that that

verse 2 asks it just it begs the question, why do you spend your

money for that which is not bread and your labor for that

which does not satisfy? Now we're not Isaiah is not

speaking specifically only in terms of physical bread and

physical food. The, the bigger picture that I

was talking about here is why are we just running after things

that we get this temporary satisfaction and sometimes it

turns bad, but, but it always, it's so fleeting.

It just goes away so fast. And, and I would argue that most

of our society, we have a deep, deep struggle with satisfaction.

Like it's a, it's a major issue for us.

And I've known people who their families, they are, oh gosh,

they were missionaries in Africa and I'll never forget this.

They told me that one year for Christmas, their kids got, I

think they got like, cocoa Pebbles when they were

missionaries in Africa. And it was the best Christmas

they ever had. In fact, gosh, I'm going further

than I wanted to. But how they would relay it back

is they came back home to the States with their two kids.

And every year after that, it's a PlayStation, It's this gadget,

it's this toy. And they reported that their

kids lacked happiness when they got way more expensive things

like like that box of cocoa pebbles in Africa gave them far

more joy than they ever got with the hundreds and hundreds of

dollars of gadgets once they returned to the states.

You see, here's the thing we have, we have a very serious

issue with, with kind of this, this sad non-stop cycle of

consumerism and, and, and gosh, that question, why do you labor

for that which does not satisfy? I feel it, I really do.

Now, psychologists will tell you that they use this phrase called

the treadmill of desire, The treadmill of desire.

You know, when I eat too much at Christmas or over the holidays,

I find myself back on a stupid treadmill trying to fit into my

pants again. That seems to be a theme for

today. And, and, and it's just

obnoxious because I get on there and I'm counting calories and

I'm go, you know what, that's probably enough.

I think I burned off at least half of those stupid little

croissants with the grapefruit inside of them.

I think I got half of them down. But that treadmill desire, it

just goes on and on and on. And the other thing that

psychologists tell us, I didn't know this phrase before

recently, there's this phrase that they used to describe this

process called hedonic adaptation.

Hedonic adaptation, And here's the definition of that.

It is the process by which positive or negative effects on

happiness fade over time. The process by which positive or

negative effects on happiness fade over time.

In other words, the more we get, the more we have to get in order

to find the same level of happiness that we first had,

right. This is this is just the, the,

the probability of addiction in some ways.

So whether it's caffeine, OK, so give, give a small child a

caffeinated beverage with 30 to 50 milligrams of caffeine and

we're all over the place. We're doing great.

We're bouncing off the walls. It's awesome.

Move that child forward in space about 10 years and they're

drinking two or three Monsters day and going, I can still go to

bed. OK, you had 600 milligrams of

caffeine. So what we what we see is that

this definition, this, this idea, it's absolutely true.

The more we get, the more we think we need.

It's this unending cycle and it's insane.

It's ridiculous. It is the treadmill that never

stops. And, and I just, I thought about

it another way this week. If the treadmill illustration

doesn't fully grab you, let me give you another one.

Let's say that you were in the middle of the ocean.

You are stuck. And what happens is as the sun

burns on you and you bake to a crispy golden brown, you start

to get really, really thirsty. And you look around you and

you're like, there's trillions of gallons of water that's

starting to look pretty good. So what do you do?

You start to drink this super salty water.

Well, scientists tell us that that process of drinking super

salty water, what it does is it actually pulls water out of our

cells and put instead of putting water into our cells.

And in that process, I'm not a science teacher, but I read it.

And in that process, what we do is we just get more and more

thirsty and we're actually expelling more water than what

we're taking in because our body can't filter it correctly.

This is what's happening on that treadmill.

This is what's happening when when we get to that question And

Isaiah asked why do you labor for that which does not satisfy

man. We are running hard and we are

drinking salt water, getting ever thirstier the more and the

more we drink. And you know what it's going to

do? It's going to kill us.

It's going to kill us. We're going to start to just

like with the water, the salt water are the organs start to

shut down. You don't feel like yourself

anymore. You grow faint.

You, you sometimes people start to see like weird visions.

They hallucinate, I think. I think we are in a Society of

people, especially in the West, where we are hallucinating every

single day and we're seeing things on screens and on our

phones and, and we're buying into the lie of the fact that,

you know, what would really make you happy?

You got to have this. And I could give you hundreds of

examples, but I just, I feel so done with it.

Don't you? Don't you feel done?

We've seen hundreds if not thousands of advertisements per

day and all of them are quietly and subtly telling you you are

not enough without this. You will be happier if you have

this. You will finally be the person

you want to be if you have that. Aren't you tired of it?

I'm sick of it. I'll tell you what, I I'm

honest. Stuff like that, it makes me

want to drop kick my phone into a lake just I'm so done with it.

I hope you're feeling that a little bit too.

It's a mildly uncomfortable feeling, but I hope you're, I

hope you're feeling done with that too.

And, and, and all the more as we approach the gift giving season.

Now again, I, I have no problem with giving gifts at Christmas.

I'm not, I'm not saying that at all.

I think it's a great tradition, but man, can we put this in

check? Can we?

Can we, can we actually give with joy instead of give going?

Man, I wonder if I'll be able to pay the credit card bill next

month. I hope so.

I hope so. Well, so.

So the question that is raised in in in verse 2, I think no, I

know for a fact it has an answer.

How do we get off the treadmill? How do we stop drinking the salt

water? That question has an answer.

Here's the answer. Listen diligently to me, incline

your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may be, may

live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant.

OK, listen, incline your ear. Hear.

Jewish people have what they call the Shema, and they pray at

morning and night. Hear, O Israel, hear, O Israel,

the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

That's how it starts. It starts with hearing.

Man, there's so much noise in our world and there's so many

things vying for our attention. And, and it's not necessarily

just advertisements, man, it's, it's, it's the job, It's, it's

the spouse, it's the kids, it's all these things.

And, and again, in them, in and of themselves, those things are

not bad things, right? But, but man, what are we really

listening to? What are we really trying to

hear through the noise? God says in order to answer this

question of, of, of being satisfied, you need to start

listening to me. You need to start listening to

the Lord. You need to start listening to

what he says about you and what he has already done for you.

That's where that starts to get fixed because I could, I could

stand up here all day and criticize myself and us in our

society and talk about, oh, we're so materialistic, we could

do that all day. But I want a solution.

I want a solution. And God tells us right here, you

have to start listening to me. I you need to start letting the

word of God dwell so richly in you that all of those other

things, they start to get quiet. All those things that the world

tells us that we have to have that will finally make you the

person you want to be and satisfy you.

No, God says, start listening to me and those things are going to

get real quiet. He wants to take his remote and

put those things on mute so that you can hear him so that you can

actually be satisfied with your life.

Man, there's books and books and books and I read so many

articles on different websites this week, You know, secular

psychology. I've read all that junk this

week. And then they all have it wrong.

They all have it wrong. I, I read 1, I read 1

psychologist who said, you know the answer to this treadmill

problem. The answer to the treadmill

problem is stop spending your money on stuff and start just

spending your money on experiences.

You'll be happier. Gosh, I, I, I partially agree

with that. I really do.

But in the same sense, man, you go on vacation, you come home

and it's gone, poof. It's a memory at best, or some

photos on your phone that you never look at again.

We can do better if we start listening.

If we start listening, we can we can have a shot at breaking the

mold on this thing. Now, with that in mind, Isaiah

tells us that the time to start doing that is right now, the

time to start listening, the time to perk up your ears, the

time to turn up your, Oh my gosh, your, your hearing aids.

Dick Walker said that on Thursday.

He's like, hey, it just says turn up your hearing aids.

And I was like, oh, OK, I don't have them yet, but sure.

There we go. Thank you, Mr. Walker, for that

great illustration. So turn up your hearing aids

and, and when we start to do that, we should be in that

seeking mode. We should be in that seeking

mode. Why we need to seek right now.

Why is it so important to start seeking right now?

Well, we should recognize that in all the striving for all the

things that we often run after, what we're doing is we're

running the opposite direction of God.

So if God is here saying, I need you to listen to me, I need you

to hear me, I've got peace for you.

I've got joy for you. I've got something for you that

the world cannot give. When we're, when we're so

focused on getting the next great item.

What we're doing is we're moving the opposite direction.

And here's here's what's OK about this, the story of the

prodigal son, the prodigal son. He, he runs away.

He, he takes the inheritance. He takes all this money.

He takes all these resources from his dad, like wish you were

dead, Dad, I'm taking the inheritance right now.

See you later. And he and he blows it all.

You know, he, he, he blows it all on things that don't

actually satisfy him. And when he comes back, when he

starts to walk back, the Father sees him and he runs to him.

That's a gift. That means that even if we fail,

even if we blow it and we just fall on our faces in terms of

like looking for satisfaction in the way that the world wants to

give it, even if we totally ruin ourselves on it, our Father in

heaven will still forgive us. He sees us on the horizon and he

runs to us. That's a gift.

However, what this text is getting to is that sometimes we

can run so far that we don't have a chance.

We don't have the time to turn back.

We can run that far away. I guess what sensitive topic for

a lot of people, but I'm telling you, tomorrow is not guaranteed.

You can run far enough away that you don't have time to get back

because it's just tomorrow is not a guarantee.

Seek the Lord while he may be found.

Call upon him while he is near one.

I've maybe the greatest illustration of this and then

and then I'll have to stop. But maybe the greatest

illustration of this comes from a story that Jesus gives in in

Luke chapter 12. And and here's the story.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

It's it's very brief. And he told him a parable saying

the land of a rich man produced plentifully.

And he thought to himself, what should I do?

For I have nowhere to store my crops.

And he said, I will do this, I will tear down my barns and I'll

build larger ones, and there I will store my grain in my goods.

And I will say to my soul, you have ample goods laid up for for

many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry.

God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of

you. And the things that you have

prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up

treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.

I find that story a little scary, if I'm being honest.

I I read that and I've read that several times and every time it

just hits me in the gut because it makes me think, what have I

been chasing after and when will God come from my soul?

Will I be ready? Will I be ready for that day?

Because I don't know if it is today or tomorrow or 10 year,

Who knows? I don't know.

Neither did the rich guy. Neither do you.

You don't know. Now this command to seek him

while he is near. The command comes with a

promise. Do you see it?

The command comes with a promise that he will abundantly pardon.

He will abundantly pardon. That's a gift.

So how do how do I get him to do that?

How do I get God to abundantly pardon me when I've been such a

jerk? Is it man?

You know what, let me let me make a list.

Maybe it's maybe it's perfect church attendance.

That would be cool. Maybe it's maybe I should make

sure that my volunteer hours are slightly more than I waste on my

phone on any given day. Maybe then it's good.

Maybe, maybe it's a deal where I have to memorize enough verses

or say enough prayers or or read my Bible and I don't know, Maybe

it's those things. I think, I think this, I think

that if I were a Buddhist, that's exactly the advice I

would give you. I would say read your Bible more

often and, and, and again, those aren't bad things, but but

that's what I would tell you. You want to know why I would

tell you to work harder and try harder and do more and more and

more and more to to get this abundant pardon.

Funny enough, I heard it this week.

I didn't realize that Buddha's last words, his last teaching

was strive without ceasing. That's what he died with.

That's what that man died with, is Strive without ceasing.

Work harder, do more, over and over and over again.

Stay on the treadmill until it kills you.

Keep striving, keep working. The older I get it, just it

sounds like terrible advice. It sounds like an awful way to

live, but I'm absolutely convinced that most of us live

that way, striving without ceasing day in and day out and

and it's just not how God designed us.

How do I know that? Here's how I know that.

I know that because he says come everyone who thirsts come to the

waters and he who has no money come and buy and eat, come and

buy wine and milk without money and without price.

That's what he says. Do you do you see the

invitation? Because it's phenomenal.

It is a phenomenal invitation. And this doesn't even make

sense. I've got people who English,

people in the room who know the language far better than I do,

and I'm telling you, this makes no sense.

Buy without money. Is it buying if there's no

money? What is that?

I honestly, it's really strange thing to say.

Now, saying all that, I'm going to ask you a question.

You should answer the question out loud.

You should. I'm asking for audience

participation to make sure you're still awake.

OK, so here's the question. What does it cost to receive

gifts from God? Nothing.

Let's try that again. What does it cost to receive

gifts from God? Very good.

We're learning so well. Here's the thing.

If you can recognize and you can come to grips with the fact that

all you need is need because all you have without God is nothing,

then you'll gain everything. If you can recognize that all

you need is need because you have nothing without God, then

you gain everything. Now I'll ask you a second

question that you don't have to answer out loud.

What did it cost God to love you?

Everything, his life. God in Jesus Christ left heaven,

left perfection, left everything that was ever good came down in

the form of a small baby, left his home to he traded his home

for this one. I wouldn't do that.

And and he was born in obscurity and he was born in, in, in all

these rumors and all these terrible things that I'm sure

that they said about Mary and Joseph.

Oh, who's she been hanging out with?

She says she's pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

Can you imagine? That's what he, that's what God

comes into. He comes into that, and then he

spends his life serving and giving, only to be rewarded with

people hating him, just absolutely hating him, beating

him into a pulp so that he was barely even recognizable as a

human. And then, if that weren't

enough, hanging him on a cross. Why?

So he could love you. Because the best food that we

can ever have, the only food that ever satisfies, is his body

and blood. That is the only one that'll do

it. It's the only thing that draws

you into a place of real peace, that draws you into a place of

real satisfaction. It is his body and blood given

for you. We're we're about to take

communion and so but I, I want to remind you that your only

ticket home, your only ticket home is absolutely free to you.

It's absolutely free to you. It costs you nothing, but it

cost him everything. Come to the foot of the cross.

Come to the table only with your need.

Don't come with anything else, because nothing else is

acceptable at his table. It's only your need, and he

perfectly fulfills it through his death on the cross.

Amen. Amen.

Thanks for listening to ERC Sundays.

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