For Our Joy
March 28, 2021
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Isaiah 55
1 “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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 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.
6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
7 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.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 “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,
11 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.
12 “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,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
Almost twenty years ago, I remember going to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner and dessert. If you’ve ever eaten there, you know it is a glorious place with a menu as long as the Bible, half of which seems to be cheesecakes. I remember my future father-in-law discussing one particular cake with Brooke. It was, I believe, the Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake, which is described as “Layers of flourless Godiva chocolate cake, Godiva chocolate cheesecake and chocolate mousse.” But I could be wrong. Perhaps they were discussing the Godiva “Double” Chocolate Cheesecake, which is described as “Rich Godiva cheesecake baked with chunks of milk chocolate topped with chocolate mousse, chocolate ganache, and chocolate whipped cream.”
When the waiter came over, Bruce pointed at one of those two and asked what he thought. The waiter said, “Oh, it’s good.” And Bruce said, “So a lot of chocolate?” And the waiter looked at Bruce—and this was almost twenty years ago, but I still remember it—and he said, “Not even God could get more chocolate in that cake.”
We all had this look of confusion come over our faces. Is this like the line about whether God can make a rock too big for him to lift? Can God make a cheesecake with so much chocolate that he can’t fit more chocolate in it? So, I stood, put my hand on the waiter’s shoulder, and said, “Let me tell you about Jesus.”
Okay, everything was true up until that last line. But, again, some twenty years later I remember it. And when I think about “delighting in rich food,” as Isaiah 55 mentions, I think about Godiva “Double” Chocolate Cheesecake. I think about food so rich and so good that you can only nibble it and you have to drink ice cold milk between bites.
Through the prophet Isaiah, God equates knowing him and being loved by him, to delighting in rich food—cold water, cold milk, delicious bread, expensive wine, a banquette feast. One scholar said that God’s invitation to come to him is an invitation to “no soup-kitchen, even if the clients are beggars” (J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 453). Knowing God is like enjoying cheesecake or whatever food you most enjoy.
The Audience
We’ve been teaching through our new vision statement, which says that our church exists to see the weak, wounded, and wayward enjoy the living Jesus. This week, we’ll talk about the word “enjoy.” But let’s start this sermon by talking about the audience to whom God addresses this invitation. The one scholar said that this is an invitation to “no soup-kitchen, even if the clients are beggars,” but we’re worse than beggars. To use the language of the passage, yes the people are pictured as those who are thirsty, poor, and unsatisfied. We might call them weak and wounded. But they were also wayward. We are also wayward. Look at our description in vv. 1–2.
1 “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.
2 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.
Imagine you are thirsty—very thirsty, like almost dying of thirst. And then you’re handed a tall glass of lemonade. It’s icy cold. You can see the condensation on the sides of the glass. But what you don’t see is that the lemonade is also mixed with a spoonful of sand, a spoonful of salt, and a spoonful of cayenne pepper. You take that glass, and you begin gulp it down. I mean, liquid-spilling-down-the-sides-of-your-face-and-neck-and-shirt-and-getting-you-all-sticky type of guzzling. That ain’t gonna satisfy. That’s part of what’s going on in this description of us. But what you can’t see from that illustration, though we can see it in the passage, is that we responsible for our own spiritual poverty. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?” God asks. God is saying that we are not mere victims. Look at vv. 6–7.
6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
7 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.
Those who received this word knew they were wicked and had left the path, which is to say they were wayward. And for nearly forty chapters, with only a few exceptions, God gives them judgment upon judgment, wrath upon wrath, punishment upon punishment. They are sinners, and they know it. Isaiah preached to them about their sin and God’s holiness until the forest of their self-righteousness was whittled down to a tiny stump. I’m sure they could hardly believe these promises of blessing from God. And yet to these people, to people like us, God says, “Come. Everyone who thirsts, come.”
The Unfamiliar
Before church today, you might have heard those opening lines of Isaiah 55 before. And perhaps two other parts of this passage are familiar as well. But I would suggest that even if you have heard these verses before, I suspect you don’t know what they mean, that is, you don’t know how beautiful they really are. Look with me at vv. 8–12.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 “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,
11 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.
Again, to many of us, these verses are familiar, but sadly we have stripped them of their context, and in doing so, stripped them of their beauty. God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts.” “Okay,” we say. “Of course, they are not. You are God. You are smart. You are infinite. We are from dust. So, yes, your ways are higher than our ways.” All true. But God has just said—and I read it a moment ago—but I’ll read it again:
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.
So, what is the context of God’s higher ways? The context is grace. The context is mercy. The context is abundant pardon. God is not a bigger version of you—and that is good news. You and I wouldn’t spend our time with the weak and wounded. And we certainly would have no problem crushing the wayward, those enemies who have sinned and sinned and sinned against us. According to this passage, God’s ways are higher than our ways because he offers everlasting spiritual life to his spiritual enemies.
And what is said in v. 11? That God’s word is powerful. God’s word will accomplish God’s purposes. Well, of course it does. So we take this verse, and we use it to encourage poor, discouraged preachers. “Preach the word,” we tell preachers. So we should. But there is so much more in this verse (cf. Paul Washer’s sermon on Is. 55).
What is the purpose God’s word will accomplish? Well, what purpose does rain accomplish when it waters the earth? “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,” God says, “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.” God aims to bring us abundant life. Indeed, Jesus said, “The thief [speaking of Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that [you] may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Oh, these verses in Isaiah might be familiar to us, but oh that we had eyes to see, noses to smell, hears to hear, and tastebuds to taste all that God offers to be for us in the person of Jesus. God’s offer to the weak, wounded, and wayward is to enjoy the living Jesus.
The Concerns
Now, speaking of that word enjoy, I will tell you that our pastor-elders, as we were thinking and praying through a potential, new vision statement for the last nine months, we had the most trouble with the word “enjoy.” I wonder if you could guess why.
We live in a time in which we tend to believe that God exists for our enjoyment, not that we exist for his. We live in a time in which we are told to live for our own glory, not God’s: You do you. Follow your heart. Live your true self. We are so drenched in this individual and inward way of thinking that I’m not even sure we know how much we are influenced by it. In other words, we are the proverbial fish who don’t know we are soaked in selfish individualism. And so for us to put the word “enjoy” in our vision statement concerns us. It could sound like our church—indeed, God himself—exists primarily for our joy. But that’s not true. God does not exist to give you happiness on your terms. We can’t enjoy Jesus in our sin. And besides: defeated, desperate enemies don’t dictate the terms of their surrender. So putting “enjoy” in the vision statement could so easily be misunderstood.
And yet, based on a passage like Isaiah 55 and the many others like it, we do believe God means for us to have joy in him. This passage is dripping with joy in God. “Come to the waters,” God says. “Come buy bread when you have no money,” he says, meaning buy when you have no moral capital, meaning when you are morally bankrupt. Which means that when you come, come to find your joy in God. Notice what v. 3 says: “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live.” The bread and water, the milk and wine are metaphors to describe coming to God—yes, come on his terms but to come to him for joy nonetheless.
So, when we use the word enjoy in our vision statement, we are drawing from this passage, but also a place like the Westminster Shorter Catechism. A catechism is series of memorable questions and answers used to teach. The first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” The answer says, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” God may not exist for our enjoyment as defined on our terms, but he does want us to enjoy him on his terms.
That was the concern of the elders, which I also share. Here is my concern more specifically related to this passage. There is an urgency in this passage. In v. 6 we read, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near,” which implies that there is a time when the Lord won’t be found and won’t be near. And you don’t know when that is. Neither do I. This passage is calling for passion and zeal, reckless and wild feasting. In other words, Isaiah 55 is not God’s way of creating nice people, who obey all the laws, pay their taxes, tell clean jokes, watch TV quietly, and become good, religious church-goers (cf. Ray Ortlund, Isaiah: God Saves, 373).
Additionally, Isaiah’s images of feasting exist with a background of images of fleeing danger. Isaiah 55 pictures us standing on the edge of a tree limb, and the fire of hell is getting hotter and hotter beneath your feet while God pleads with you, “Come, come, come; jump into my arms.” Jump while God is near, Isaiah says. I’m concerned that while some of you lead your quiet life of religion, the tree limb might snap off, and you might fall into hell. The winsome invitations to come to Jesus that our church so values should not be taken to mean the invitations are not urgent.
In other words, the good news of Jesus is for the weak, wounded, and wayward, and I’ll add another one: for the wishy-washy. The living Jesus is for the blah, for the ho-hum, for those with no passion, no zeal. You can call me an old school preacher for talking about hell. You can call me whatever you want. I just want some of you to call on the name of the Lord as though your life depended on it. Because it does.
Conclusion
I’ll close by pointing you to a few phrases in v. 3. Look at them again with me.
3 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.
What is that word “David” doing there? Isaiah was writing some three hundred years after King David had died. King David’s bones had already decomposed. It would be like saying, America will prosper because of George Washington. Washington—what? He’s been dead 222 years!
God mentions this “David” in Isaiah 55, not as a way to speak of the first David but to speak of who the Bible calls the second David, the greater David, the Messiah, the one we know as the living Jesus. All the promises that were made to the first David, such as the promise of an everlasting dynasty (2 Samuel 7:14), come true in the greater David, the one who rose from the dead and sits on David’s greater throne (cf. Acts 13:34).
For now, I’ll invite the music team back up as we pray and prepare for communion . . .
Intro for communion: We have the expression that there is no such thing as a free meal. Someone has to pay. “Come and eat, you who have no money,” God tells us. God can invite us to feast freely because The David, Jesus Christ, bought our joy with his blood. We’d love for you to come worship with us on Good Friday at 7 p.m., where we’ll talk more about the crucified Jesus. And we’d love for you to come back on Easter morning, where we talk about the Living Jesus even more.
But you don’t have to wait for then to enjoy Jesus. We are going to celebrate communion, which is for everyone who is coming to God for the joy of forgiveness and doing so through the Jesus. Communion is God’s multimedia presentation of how Jesus bought us everlasting joy. Jesus said his flesh and blood are true food (John 6:55).
You should be able to find the communion cups in the seat in front of you. We’ll have one more song where you can sit and sing to prepare our hearts, and then I’ll come up and lead us in communion together.
Questions for small group discussion and for parents with their families:
1. Pastor Benjamin mentioned the famous song from The Sound of Music. What are a few of your favorite things?
2. What are ways you have tried to be satisfied with things that do not ultimately satisfy?
3. How does the Easter story relate to your everlasting joy?
4. What needs to change in your life so you can be more happy in Jesus than you currently are?
