Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Simon Tugwell wrote, And it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away.
If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects. And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry. Our Father offers us Himself. He is the only place we will find true satisfaction.
Yet, oh, we are prone to wonder and seek our own way. In this message from Isaiah 55, Pastor Rich points us to God's invitation to come to Himself, to come to the one our heart was made for. Let's listen in to this last message from the series titled, Behold Your God. This is part two of a message that was first preached on July 21, 2013 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. To hear the whole sermon, you can visit www.delightingrace.com.
F.B. Meyer said, God has said eternity in our heart and man's infinite capacity cannot be filled or satisfied with things of time and sense. This is why the Lord gives us a grand invitation of Isaiah 55. And he says, come by.
Isn't that interesting? Verse one. Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the water as you have no money. Come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Come, buy, he says, without money. What sense does that make? Is the Lord just inviting us to a new kind of consumerism, a different kind of consumerism?
No, that's not it at all. He says, come to where the real satisfaction is found. This is the grand invitation. And what is it that he is providing for us? We can have everything necessary to life absolutely free.
The invitation is there. I love what Peter says in 2 Peter chapter one, verse three. Even as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, he has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Paul said in Romans, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? God is in the business of providing us satisfaction. We are born with the bent to be in the business of finding it somewhere other than him.
And it doesn't work. How can someone say, come, buy without money? Because he's promised us everything that we need for life. Why is it that we don't actually need to purchase it?
Because the price has been paid already. Isaiah 53, we have been redeemed. And this grand invitation, what is it that God is inviting us to actually? In the Old Testament scriptures, he says, you will find me if what? If you seek me with all your heart.
You will find me if you seek me with all your heart. Look what he says in verse 6, 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 is thought. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly praise him. And he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.
It is plain, John Oswald says again, it is plain that he is more than ready to be found. He wants to comfort the despairing, forgive the sinner and deliver the bound. What remains to be done for these blessings to be experienced only one thing, we must seek him, call upon him. This next phrase that John Oswald gives, this next sentence I think is very important, it is very key. It is not information that they should seek from God, but his presence and his character, gifts that he longs to give.
Did you catch that? It is not information that they should seek from God, but his presence and his character. In this series that we have presented, behold your God, it does us no good to just walk away from here knowing more about God. The intent of this is that you will know God in such a way that you will passionately pursue him. He is not information, he is not a concept, he is person and he made you person so that you could fellowship with each other and he can satisfy you.
Come to the waters, he says. God reveals himself as our satisfaction. Simon Tugwell says, it is the desire for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away. If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects and that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry. You see, we are born with a bent of idolatry, to put the burden of satisfaction in some created thing and God says, please know and understand you won't find it there. He gives us all good things to enjoy, yes he does and we are to be good stewards of the things that he's entrusted to us, but they are not our satisfaction. He says in verse three, come to me and your soul shall live.
I like how C.S. Lewis puts it. He says, a car is made to run on gasoline. Actually, he wrote petrol, that's how the Brits spell gasoline, P-E-T-R-O-L.
The car is made to run on gasoline and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn or the food our spirits were designed to feed on.
There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself.
Did you catch that? Are you seeking that? God, what are you asking for? What do we ask for in our prayer requests? God give me this, God give me this, God help me this, God do this. Do we approach God as our cosmic vending machine? If I put my fifty cents in, he gives me what I ask for. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself because it is not there.
There is no such thing. We get this grand invitation to come to the waters and to the satisfaction that it provides from the God who delivers in person. He doesn't just stand aloof and say, you, you are thirsty, here's some water over here, go get it.
No, he delivers in person because he is that fountain of life that satisfies. He said come to the waters. We see this, for example, in the New Testament in John chapter 4 when he was at the well and the Samaritan woman comes and he asks her for some water and she is astounded that this Jewish man would ask something of a Samaritan woman. And she says, I don't have anything to draw it with. And then Jesus ends up telling her the water that I give you, if you knew who it was who was speaking to you would ask me for water and the water that I give you if you drink it, you will never thirst again. What a claim! The water that I give you, if you drink it, you will never thirst again.
Think about that. I like what he says also in John chapter 7 verses 37 and 38. It was on the great day of the feast, Jesus said, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
Rivers of living water. You see, the fountain of life, when we drink from the fountain of life, we live in the outflow and therein is our satisfaction. Of course, here he was specifically speaking of the Holy Spirit and that's what Paul tells us in his letter to Titus in chapter 3 verses 3 through 7. According to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing the holy spirit whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. You see, that theme keeps getting repeated through the scriptures.
He is our satisfaction because he is the one who delivers in person. What is our confidence of this? Is this just positive speak? Is God just ushering in a pep rally here?
No. What is our confidence of this? I want you to look with me for what he says in verses 8 and 9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. How can we know that God is our confidence in us? How can we know that God indeed will be our satisfaction? Because our understanding is not the measure of what God can do. Our understanding is not the measure of what God can do. So important why we should know him for who he truly is in the way that he has revealed himself.
I cannot create an awesome enough in my own mind to measure up to the God of the universe who is the fountain of life. My favorite verse in the New Testament when I discovered it back in my teens was Ephesians chapter 3 verse 20. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that is at work in us. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.
