Come to the Waters

I. Introduction
A. Preaching this in light of three things
1. SS on relating to Jesus
2. Sonship retreat
3. Sequel to my Easter sermon on Isaiah 53
B. Isaiah 55:1–3a, 6-7 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...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.
II. Observations from Isaiah 55:1–3a, 6-7
A. 1a Come, everyone who thirsts,
1. In order to come to God, you have to have a sense of need. You can’t come if you don’t thirst.
2. It’s the same thing as in Matt.11:28-30 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden.”
3. What if you don’t thirst? What if you’re happy with your life as it is? Then Jesus isn’t for you.
4. But it’s not that you don’t need Jesus. It’s not that you don’t desperately need the living water. It’s just that you don’t know you do.
5. Jesus talked about this in Mark 2:17 “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
6. “There are none that are righteous” (Romans 3:10), of course, but some think they are.
7. And in Revelation 3:17 Jesus talked about people like this: “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”
8. If you don’t come to grips with your need, you’ll never come to grips with God.
B. 1b come to the waters;
1. These waters are drinking waters. You can see that from the first part of the invitation: “Come, everyone who thirsts.”
2. You have to understand water in the ancient middle east. Life was a constant struggle for water.
3. But what is really meant by water here is living water, as elsewhere in the Bible.
a. Jeremiah 2:13 “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
b. John 4:10-14 Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 14 “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
c. John 7:37–38 “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
C. 1c and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
1. How can you buy something without money? Buying implies cost.
a. It doesn’t say, “Come, receive and eat.” but “Come, buy and eat.”
b. And yet it stresses the fact that it costs no money. How can you buy something without paying?
c. There is a time when we buy something without price. It's when someone with us tells us, "Go ahead! Buy anything you like and I will pay for it!" It’s when someone else is paying the cost.
2. Wine and milk
a. Rich waters, tasty waters, satisfying waters, happy waters
D. 2a Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
1. There are other options available.
a. God is not the only one who extends an invitation.
b. But the other offers have two differences:
(1) We DO pay the cost.
(2) We are paying for something which doesn’t satisfy.
c. Proverbs 9:13–18 The woman Folly is loud; she is seductive...14 She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places of the town, 15 calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way, 16 “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” And to him who lacks sense she says, 17 “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” 18 But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
2. It’s pretty stupid to pay for something which doesn’t give you what you need.
a. But that’s what we keep doing when we look to created things to give us life.
3. What do you tend to come to instead of coming to God?
a. The world has many things to offer.
b. But you can find a lot of nice things in the church too.
(1) Friends
(2) A sense of pride for doing the right thing by going to church
(3) Singing
(4) Teaching
(5) Being right in a world that's wrong
4. But whatever you come to, if you don’t come to God, you will be coming to something which costs you dearly but will not ultimately satisfy you.
a. Even church will cost you dearly and not satisfy you if you’re not actually coming to God.
5. This is what people do! They pay dearly for that which is not food, for that which is empty at best and poisonous at worst. When all along, they could have great food – true food – for free.
E. 2b Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
1. In America we have access to so much delicious food. It shows on many of us. But no matter how much you eat, you keep getting hungry again.
2. But there is a greater food, a richer food, a more satisfying food.
3. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” – John 6:35
4. So, what are YOU going to eat? “Listen diligently, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food!”
F. 3a Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live...
1. Notice that listening intently to God is the same as eating what is good & delighting in rich food.
2. “Come to Me” – It’s a relational issue. It’s not just receiving instructions and carrying them out.
3. What does He ask of us? Not to follow a set of rules. Not to practice certain ceremonies. He asks us to come to Him and to listen to Him.
4. This isn’t listening like listening to the radio or even to a sermon. It’s listening to your Maker and your Master. This is attentiveness. This is having high regard for what God says.
5. Do you notice here the connection between listening to God and living? “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live.”
a. In Prov. 4:20-22, the writer of Scripture says: “My words ... are life to those who find them.”
b. Deuteronomy 32:47 “It is no empty word for you, but your very life.”
c. John 6:63: “The words that I speak are...life.”
d. This doesn’t mean God’s words are magical. It means that the truths God tells us give life.
e. You can see this in Psalm 1:1–3 “Blessed is the man who(se)...delight is in the law of the LORD... 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
6. People today are often focused on taking care of their bodies — to the neglect of their souls. How do you take care of your soul? “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live.”
G. 6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
1. God has extended this offer of grace right now, but it will come to an end. Then it will be too late, as the parable of the ten virgins teaches us.
2. This age is an age of opportunity, an age of invitation. But there’s a day coming when the door will close. It will no longer be a day of opportunity and invitation. It will be a day of judgment.
3. Matthew 25:11–12 The other virgins came and cried out, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But the bridegroom answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’
4. This invitation is all about forgiveness and life and satisfaction and delight and free grace. But silently looming in the background are the consequences of not taking advantage of the invitation.
H. 7a let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
1. This verse teaches us that when you come to God, you leave everything else behind.
2. You can’t have Him and keep your old life. You forsake YOUR way and follow His way. You forsake YOUR way of thinking and learn His way of thinking.
3. The prodigal son had to leave the pigs in order to return to His father (Luke 15:11-24).
4. And we have to let go of our idols in order to take hold of the Lord.
I. 7b let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
1. This is amazing! When the wicked one and the unrighteous man turn to the Lord, they will not met with His righteous anger and just vengeance. They will be met with compassion and pardon.
2. How can this be? How can a just and righteous Judge justly forgive? The great atonement event which Isaiah 53 describes takes care of that:
a. 5 he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
b. 6 the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
c. 8 he was stricken for the transgression of my people
d. 11 my servant shall make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
e. 12 he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
3. That’s how God took care of sin. That’s why the just God can abundantly pardon sinners.
a. Jesus took their penalty upon Himself as their substitute.
4. Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
5. The tone of this passage is encouragement & hope. Not so in the WHOLE book of Isaiah. And interestingly, the tone changes significantly from before chapter 53 to after chapter 53.
a. After Isaiah 53 we can see in the prophecies of Isaiah a face of God that is warm & welcoming.
b. After Isaiah 53 the prophecies do not have to do with “the inescapability of destruction, but with the assurance of a bright future.” – Oswalt
c. “What has happened to account for this shift in tone? One thing only: the announcement of the work of the Servant in Isaiah 53.” – Oswalt
6. Let us return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on us, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
7. Many of you have already done so. But some of you have not.
8. Maybe you’ve been going to church all your life, but you have never come to the living water.
9. This is the most important invitation you will ever receive. Come to the water of life!
10. But this isn’t just an invitation to come once. This is a daily invitation. Come to Me and live!
11. As real as the other issues of our lives are, and as much in need of solution as they are, there is only one main issue.
12. The ultimate question is how we as sinful humans can live with a holy God. You can solve all the other questions, but if you don’t solve this one, nothing is solved. But solve this one and the others can be mastered, because if we walk with God, everything is possible.
13. We live before a holy God who cannot tolerate sin.
14. God has solved this problem through Jesus and His death on the cross.
15. It is THE only solution to our problem of sin.
16. If we don’t have Jesus, we don’t have hope.
17. Now, He invites us to receive this solution.
18. 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...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.