"Listen
Carefully"
13th
Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday
School Rally Day
By
Rev.
Steven D. Spencer, Pastor
Isaiah 55:1-11
1 "Ho! Everyone
who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend
money for what is not bread, And your
wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in abundance. 3
Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will
make an everlasting covenant with you -- The sure mercies of David. 4 Indeed I
have given him as a witness to the
people, A leader and commander for the people. 5 Surely you shall call a nation
you do not know, And nations who do
not know you shall run to you, Because of the LORD your God, And 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, And He will have mercy
on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. 8 " For My thoughts are
not your thoughts, Nor are your
ways My ways," says 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 comes down, and the
snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it
bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me
void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
As
a youth I was a member of the Boy Scouts of America. One of my favorite
camp-outs was at Joshua Tree National Park, actually in the desert outside of
Joshua Tree. For any of you that don’t know where that is, it's just 126 miles
west of Earp California out in the desert. Actually it’s not far from Palm
Springs. What made the trip so enjoyable was that there wasn’t much of
anything out there, except – abandoned silver mines. It was right outside of
the entrance to one of those mines that we camped.
Our
scoutmaster took us deep into the mine, nearly two miles below the surface.
There deep in the earth was a large cavern. The air was thick and still. It was
so dark, completely absent of light. Without a flashlight one would possibly
never get out. And our scoutmaster wanted to make sure we knew that. So as we
gathered in that cavern he asked that we all turn off our flashlights.
Finally only his flashlight was lit, yet it provided plenty of light for
our now well adjusted eyes. With a flip of the switch his light went out. He
then instructed us to remain absolutely quiet. Listen carefully he said. We
could hear our breathing and slowly it seemed as if you could hear hearts
beating. It was in the midst of this heightened sensory time that an odd noise
came out of the darkness. Moo! There in the darkness of the cavern someone made
the sound of a cow. Of course we all started laughing. But the scoutmaster
didn’t seem amused by such tomfoolery. He demanded that whoever made that
sound come forward. To this day I don’t know if anyone really knows who did
it. And after so many years I wasn't sure I could still make that sound.
God
says in Isaiah, Listen carefully to Me! There's something so important that God
is saying stop, pay attention, listen. And this listening is not just a passive
listening or a one-time thing; it's active and ongoing. It's the type of
listening mentioned in our collect of the Word: "Blessed Lord, who hast
caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we may in
such wise hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them."
What is this so important message? In the Hebrew it is, "nata azan halak el shama haya" stretch your ear
toward me, to listen and hear that you come unto Me that you hear and live.
Here's what it literally means "by listening we are recreated we are
resurrected." Perhaps you remember a New Testament passage that says
something similar Romans 10:17 "So
faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." So
how is this possible?
How is that God can make me new, or recreate me? Because God says: "I
will make with you an everlasting covenant" and it's a covenant of
life.
Covenant
– sounds like such a legal term. It's a term that we use in our secular world
pertaining to contracts, to binding legal agreements. And, in many places in the
Bible, in fact, covenant does mean an agreement, a binding legal agreement
between nations, an agreement between peoples and typically bilateral. But when
we consider the word covenant in terms of God towards us, we should think less
of it as a legal term and more of a relationship term, a term of love. God's
covenant towards is typically unilateral. It's God's one-sided promise to us
without condition, in other words, God's unconditional love.
We
see it in God’s love for us sinful imperfect humans – God’s love for us is
revealed throughout Scripture and ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ. The
word covenant in Greek actually means testament. We have the Old Testament and
the New Testament – the old and the new covenants. Through these we see the
revelation of God’s love for us throughout the ages in the person of Jesus
Christ. The Old Testament points to the cross to the one coming to take His
place there. The New Testament points to the cross, to the one that was there
for us.
Today,
I’ll be talking about the meaning of the covenant of God’s love, the
covenant declared to us by our Father in Heaven who has always sought us out,
always has stayed with us, never forsaking us, never departing from us, loving
us more than we can imagine. Today we’ll explore the meaning of that type of
covenant of love.
I
want to spend just a few moments talking about this idea of faith in light of
God’s love for us. Then we’ll look at the meaning of the God’s covenant of
love through the words of Isaiah.
Faith
in light of God’s love is covenant not found through some type intellectual
accent or understanding, or through some type of emotional experience, but
through faith, a child-like faith – a belief created by and for God. We can
contribute nothing to it, for we are spiritually dead until God recreates us.
A
story came to my email some time ago – a story from an unknown source that
speaks of this love covenant. The story is about a medieval monk who announced
to his congregation that the next Sunday evening he would be preaching on
"The Love of God." As the shadows fell and the light ceased to come in
through the cathedral windows on that Sunday night, the congregation gathered
for the sermon on "The Love of God." In the darkness of the altar, the
monk lighted a candle and carried it to the crucifix. First of all, he illumined
the crown of thorns, next the two wounded hands, then the marks of the spear
wound in Jesus side. As a hush fell on the congregation, the monk blew out the
candle and left the chancel. There was nothing else to say. There was nothing
else to say about the love of God.
And,
there really is nothing else to say for those who look into the face of the man
on the cross or the face of the babe in the manger, and there see the face of
God’s love for them. Those looking, with eyes of faith, up to the cross or
into the manger, and believe that God became the flesh of that crying infant,
the flesh of that wounded man. For those people, nothing else needs to be said.
You
see God's Covenant of Love is His Son. And if you question whether it truly is a
unilateral covenant then listen to the beginning verses again. 1
"Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without
price."
First notice, everyone! Everyone is encouraged, Jews and Gentiles, all nations,
all people. "And you,
who have no money, come, buy and eat." How can someone with no
money buy and eat? Because the price has been paid. Such rich language Isaiah
has. The water the wine and milk are spiritual in nature. Think of the waters of
baptism, think of the wine of communion, think of the spiritual milk of God's
Word, as we spoke in the introit: "like newborn babes, long for the
pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation," 1
Peter 2:2. All of these element point to the one who paid the price. The one who
came down from Heaven, the one who was flesh for our salvation, and the one who
would accomplish His purpose! You know who He is, He's Jesus the Christ, the Son
of God, our savior and Lord.
Not everyone you meet will recognize Him as Lord. Some
will question whether Jesus even existed. Many may scoff at Him is or you for
believing. But that shouldn't surprise you, they did the same while He hung on
the cross. Isaiah even warns us of that: "the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;…"
(Verse 7). God goes on to tell us in verses 8&9: "
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says 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."
I guess that's understandable. When a man tries to ascend to God, using his
experience and limited knowledge, he's sure to fail. Our sinful nature is so
corrupt that it causes us to think there's something we can do to gain our own
salvation. But that is folly.
Luther puts it this way in explanation of the third
article of the Apostles' creed
I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus
Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel,
enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as
He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on
earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian
Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the
last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all
believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.
God sent His only begotten Son to accomplish this task.
Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit that we might believe that He has accomplished
the task for which He was sent. Isaiah puts it another way: 10
"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return
there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give
seed to the sower And bread to the eater, 11 So shall My word be that goes forth
from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I
please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
God says His Word shall not return void but shall prosper the thing for which it
was sent. In John 1:1 we see whom the Word is. It's not just something it's
someone. In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 14 And the Word
became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.