Andy Cantrell - Lesson 1: God’s Invitation to Joy, Peace and Purpose

9:14PM Jun 25, 2024

Speakers:

Andy Cantrell

Keywords:

god

verse

isaiah

invitation

lord

remember

preached

thoughts

david

joy

text

chapter

huey lewis

listen

mountain

give

servant

world

dana

minnesota

I think I'll stand down here. If everybody can see me, if you can't see me, then you can stand up, I guess. I will ask you to turn in your Bibles to Isaiah, chapter 55. That'll be our text for tonight, Isaiah, chapter 55. And while you're turning there, I will just tell you a brief story about my history with this congregation. About 28 years ago, I left my home in San Diego, California, and I moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas to train to preach, and I'd never been any further west than or further east than Phoenix, Arizona. So, coming to the south, if you guys consider Arkansas to be the South, there were a lot of new experiences for me, and one of those new experiences was I was in larger churches, church buildings. I grew up in a small congregation there in San Diego, and during that training program, the man who was training me showed me a pamphlet about the College View Lectures. And so I got in a car and I drove when I was about 22 years old. I just turned 22 it was June of, I think 97, and I arrived here, and I walked into this building that seemed like the biggest church building I'd ever seen, and it was packed full of people listening to Dee Bowman and Ed Harrell and I believe Ralph Walker. And there was one other. Curtis Pope. It was Curtis Pope. And as a young man who was learning to preach, I was astounded by the things I was learning. At that time, David Thomley was the preacher here, and I think he preached just as long as those guys before and after they preached. And Harold Comer was here, and I got to know all of them. And I just, I remember so many things about that, except the building seemed a lot bigger back then. I think it's me that's grown. The building hasn't shrunk, but it was such an encouraging time in my my young life. And I'm just honored to be a part of something like this this week, and I appreciate the invitation. But that's my history with the College View Church of Christ.

As I get started with this lesson in Isaiah 55 I'm going to guess something about your Bible. I could be wrong about this, but I'm going to guess anyway. If you've got one of these paper Bibles still and you still take notes in your regular Bible, I'm going to guess that you have something highlighted in Isaiah chapter 55 or underlined, and it's probably verses eight and maybe verse nine, and it might be the only thing you've got highlighted in the chapter, actually. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but for sure, verses eight and nine are the most famous part of this text, when God says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways. My ways, declares 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." That passage gets quoted a lot. I've quoted it often, and most of the time when I've used it in my life, I believe I've misused it, or at least I've used it out of context. A lot of times, this text gets quoted when God doesn't make sense, when something's going on and people are confused, somebody will say, Well, after all, God's thoughts aren't our thoughts. His ways are higher than ours. And though I believe that to be true. I think there are better passages to use for something like that. Let me tell you why. Go back to verse six and notice in verse six, God said, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon him while he is," What? "Near." God is not far away in this text. In fact, what's going on in verses eight and nine is not meant to be a discouragement about how we can't understand God. It's actually a sales pitch in the middle of an invitation where God is wanting to give us his thoughts and his ways. He's not trying to keep them from us. Other passages that could be used on occasions like that might be Deuteronomy, 29:29, the secret things belong to the Lord. What he's revealed to us, though, he wants us to know. I'll get to that part of the text in just a minute.

But as I said, Isaiah, 55 is an invitation. In fact, I'm convinced it might be one of the most precious invitations in the Bible. It's a lot like some of the invitations that Jesus gave during His ministry. And we're going to go through this text together and look at it a little bit more closely, but I want to say up front, I have found Isaiah 55 to be one of the most effective evangelism chapters in the Bible. When I meet somebody who's never read the Bible, they they know about God, but they don't know God. Sometimes this is the chapter I'll take them to. Because in this chapter, God invites humanity, all of humanity, to come to him so that he can do something for them and do something with them. And the two things that he wants to do for them and with them are incredible things. It's actually a New Covenant invitation in the Old Testament. It's actually an invitation to become a Christian. You might even recognize its proximity to Chapter 53. One of the good things about using this text evangelistically is you can take them back two chapters and show them the Jesus, the Messiah, who they're being invited to follow in Chapter 55. I'll say more about that here in just a minute.

But before we get into the invitation, I want to put it in its context. What's it doing here in Isaiah 55? Would you go back with me to Chapter 53 and I want to show you an important transition in the book of Isaiah. It's a transition that I missed for a long time. There are different ways to outline the book of Isaiah, but here's one of them. In Isaiah, chapter 53, read with me, starting in verse 10. "But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting Him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring, he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand as a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied, by his knowledge the Righteous One, my servant, will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities." Now, let me make just a couple of comments about that paragraph. Have you ever wondered about verse 10 and 11, when it says The Lord was pleased to see his own son, his servant, crushed? I've tried to wrap my mind around that as a father. I can't figure out how I would ever be pleased to see the crushing of my son. Or as verse 11 says, See the anguish of his soul. You see, he didn't just suffer bodily. He suffered in his soul when he died, and it was satisfying to the Father. How could that be? Why is that? Well, the text tells us something about it in verse nine or verse 10. Excuse me, verse 10, it speaks of that moment being when the Lord would see the offspring of the Messiah. You see, if Jesus never died, he would remain alone. But if he died, he would bear much fruit. Do you remember him speaking like that in John 12? He took a seed, and he said, If a seed is all by itself, it remains alone, but if it dies and is buried, it will bear much fruit. Isaiah 53 tells us that when the Messiah would die, then we'd see his offspring. We'd see his children. That's going to be something for the Lord to rejoice over.

Remember earlier in Isaiah, chapter nine, that great passage that's quoted in Matthew? About how there would be a child and the government would rest on his shoulders, and he would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace. Remember that great text? Do you remember the fourth description of the Messiah? He would be called Eternal Father. How could the messiah be called Eternal Father? Because when he died, he would not remain alone. He would have offspring. We are His offspring. Now, that's not exactly the transition I want to show you, but go back to verse 11 in Chapter 53 and notice this. At the end of verse 11, God says, My servant will justify the many. Now, if you want to in your Bible, you can underline that word, servant, and make a note that it's the last time you'll read that word in the book of Isaiah. Up until this point, about 25 times God has spoken of the coming servant. The coming servant, singularly. But after this verse, it becomes plural. You will only now read about the servants, plural, of the Messiah, who came. That's an important transition. A lot of the prophecies leading up to 53 are about Jesus. You can look for Christ in those prophecies. But most of the prophecies coming after 53 are about his offspring, the church, they're about us. To show you that, look at the end of chapter 54. Look at 54 verse 17, and notice how the language has changed. "No weapon that is formed against you will prosper, and every tongue that accuses you in judgment, you will condemn. This is the heritage of," the what? "Servants." Plural. "Of the Lord." Isn't that a great prophecy of the church? That our vindication is from God according to the last part of the verse. And no weapon that's formed against God's people now can prosper. God has something in mind for the servants of the Messiah that's different than has ever been in human history.

That brings us to Chapter 55. You know what Isaiah 55 is? It's an invitation to become one of those servants, one of the offspring. It is a new covenant invitation. Just listen to the beginning of it, verse one. "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 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 delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to me. Listen that you may live." Do those words sound like New Testament words that you've ever heard before? Did Jesus ever preach like that? "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He would stand up on the last day of that great feast and say, if anyone's thirsty, let him come to me. I'll cause living waters to come up from within him. Remember his preaching like this? In fact, Isaiah 55 is the last invitation in your Bible. Have you ever noticed that in Revelation, chapter 22 verse 17, the very last invitation in the Bible, sounds like this. Listen to it. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. Let the one who hears say, Come. Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost." Where's that come from? Isaiah 55. It is a tremendous new covenant invitation to all of humanity.

I want you to notice who's being invited at the beginning of this. I told you that sometimes I'll share this with people who are looking for God. I've actually had people read these first couple of verses. They've never read this before, and when they read it, they get tears in their eyes, and they'll say something like this. I know what that's talking about. I understand the idea of looking for satisfaction in things, and I've not found it. I'm thirsty, I'm missing something. I'm looking for this everywhere, and I can't find it. And that question that comes in verse two, why are you spending your money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy come to me, I'll give you the best of things. Look at it a little closer. Does verse one sound too good to be true to you? You ever had somebody try to sell you something, and you just knew that it was too good a deal. How much is it going to cost? Well, it's going to cost you nothing, not a penny. And what is it again? It's wine and milk. That's not poor people food. That's rich fare. That's the kind of thing that people sang songs about going into the Promised Land. God says, I will give you the best of things for no money at all. All you have to do is come here. And do what? Look at verse two. Here's really what the invitation is about. He says about halfway through verse two, listen carefully to me. Says it two more times. Look at verse three. Incline your ear and come to me, and then one more time, listen that you may live. Here's God's request or quest for humanity. Incline your ear. Listen close. I want you to pay attention to me and eat. What is good? Have you ever eaten through your ears? That's a weird thing to say. Later on in the text God's going to point out that he's been feeding us through our mouths all our life, but God was predicting a time when he was going to incline, have us incline our ear and eat what is good and be satisfied by what he would share. But we had to listen to him. Do you remember Jesus preaching like that? In fact, I've always wanted to start a sermon the way that he started The Parable of the Sower. Do you remember that the parable of the sower or the soils? Remember how that started? It's not a sower went out to sow. Here's how it started. "Listen! A sower went out sow." And then when he got to the end of the parable, He said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." You know what God's always been asking people to do? Is incline their ear. Come to him, listen close so that he can give them life.

Let's keep reading the invitation back in verse three. "Incline your ear and come to me. Listen that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you according to the faithful mercy shown to David. Behold, I've made him a witness to the people, a leader and commander for the people. Behold you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified You." You know, when I was young, I really liked Isaiah 55. It made sense to me as a young man, the imagery of it, the poetry of it, but I never understood 3, 3b, like halfway through verse three through the end of verse five. Why is he talking about David and a covenant with David, and why is he saying all these things? So I'm going to skip that for now. If you're all right with that, I'm just going to skip over it. I promise I'll come back to it. But it took me a long time in my life to figure out what God was doing there. And the reason I'm going to skip it is because I believe what God's doing in the invitation is he's front loading what he wants to do with us if we incline our ear and he actually gives us life. But I'm going to come back to that part in just a minute.

Let's continue with the invitation in verse six. "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near." Do you have anybody that you love that doesn't know God, doesn't serve God? And you wish they would. You wish they would. If you were to ask them this question, Is God close to you or nearby? Or is God far away? What do you think most people would say? Most people would say, God's out of reach. He's far away. I can't sense Him at all. And yet, here's what God's telling humanity, I'm not far. I'm right here. Seek Me. You can find me. Do you remember preaching like that from the New Testament? One of my favorite sermons in the book of Acts is in Acts, chapter 17, Paul went to Athens and he saw all these images made up to all these gods that they worshiped. And there was this one image to the unknown God. And he stood there on Mars Hill, and he preached an incredible sermon that day, very different than all the sermons he had been preaching in the synagogues. Do you remember what he preached in Athens at Mars Hill? He said, basically two things that I think we should still be preaching today. One of the things was something like this: God made all of us from one man. We're all family. We're all his children. Wouldn't that help, by the way? In a time where people are so divided, people look at the color of people's skins and think of different things. One of the messages that needs to be preached is we're all made in the image of God. He's all the father of us all. That's what he preached. And then he said this thing, and he's not far from anyone of us, if we would just grope for him in the darkness, we would find him. Where did Paul get an idea to preach like that? Isaiah, 55, verse six. God's not far away. If you think he is, then you've not understood God. Close your eyes. Reach out for him. He's right there. He's asking you to come with all of your poverty, with all of your dissatisfaction, with all of your heartbreak, and to just tilt your head and he'll pour into your ears the things that he wants to give.

Let's read verse seven though. Verse seven. Now, before I read this, I want to remind you that verse one said, this isn't going to cost you any money. It's free. And again, that sounds too good to be true. You know, I grew up in the 80s. I was born in the 70s, but grew up in the 80s. There was a singer named Huey Lewis in the news. Do any of you remember that guy? And he sang this song that I actually kind of like it. It said words like this, it don't take money, you don't need fame, don't need no credit card to ride this train. That's the power of, do you remember this song? Love. Now, maybe you think that's a cheesy song, but I like that song. You know why I like that song? Because everybody can fall in love. You don't have to be rich, you don't have to be famous. Every human being can partake in one of the greatest gifts that God has given, and that is love. But folks before Huey Lewis sang that song, God wrote lyrics like that in Isaiah 55. Every human being can come freely to God and have the best of things, the wine and milk of God's word, and he'll give it to you. But here's the catch. Verse seven, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord and He will have compassion on him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."

Now, do you notice in that verse, the New Testament language? There's repentance, you have to change. There's forgiveness, God will abundantly pardon, because that Savior died back in chapter 53. But did you notice what God asks us to give up in our lives? Look at the verse again, two things, our thoughts and our ways. Now, folks, God is hitting us where it hurts here, because human beings will give up everything but those two things. In fact, I believe that if God had said, I'll save your soul eternally for some amount of money that you give me, that people would probably give it. They'd find a way to get on a payment plan and give God whatever he asked for. Because throughout human history, people have given God all kinds of things, animals, money. In fact, if human beings thought that what God wanted was their children, some of the Jews even would throw their children into the fire. But do you know what nobody wants to part with? Their thoughts and their ways. I've worked my whole life to get my thoughts and my ways. In fact, I'll suggest, I may be wrong about this, but I'll suggest that some of you probably got in some sort of argument on the way to church tonight, because your thoughts and your ways were better than your spouse's thoughts and their ways. You know, they turned right and you said, why'd you go that way? You should have gone straight. And they said, No, this is a better way. And say, No, my way is better. In fact, if you think about it, everybody fights because our thoughts and our ways are better than everybody else's thoughts and everybody else's ways. People just don't want to let go of them.

That's why verse eight is a sales pitch. Listen to it now. If God asks us to give up our thoughts and our ways, why would we ever do such a thing as that? "For my thoughts are not your thoughts nor my ways, your ways, declares the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." But folks, in this text, God is not saying, and you'll never understand me. What he's saying is, I want to give you my thoughts. I want to give you my ways without money, without cost. I'll pour them into your minds. I'll give you my spirit. You know it's important God says that and tells us how much higher His ways are than our ways. I mean, think about it just for a minute. Don't answer this question too fast. Sometimes people raise their hand before they think this through. So don't, don't answer this question too fast. But how many of you would be willing to give up your thoughts and your ways? I'm going to use you tonight, Kenny, for Kenny Moorer's thoughts and Kenny Moorer's ways. Anybody want to make that exchange? Give up your thoughts and your ways for Kenny Moore's thoughts and ways. Everybody's grinning. Some people are shaking their heads. Nobody? And I usually use myself for that, but I say something like this, just think about it before you answer, whatever you do with your money, whatever sports teams you're going to root for, what you're going to think about politics, you give that up, and I get to control what you think and what you do. And of course, you'd say, Not a chance, because Andy, Kenny, your thoughts, your ways, they're no better than my thoughts or my ways, mine are superior. So God says, I'll make you an offer that you would be foolish to refuse. My thoughts are in heaven. Yours are down here. I'll give them to you freely. Why would you not exchange with me?

Now, let me be a skeptic for just a minute. Let me hear the prophecy of Isaiah back when he was preaching it, or the preaching of it right now, and say something like this, I just don't believe that. There's no way that if there's a God up there, he's going to share his thoughts and his ways with us down here. I mean, hasn't humanity always thought that the gods were against them? They're not for us. I mean, you could barely even entreat them to get them to pay attention. Usually, they were trying to make things harmful for us down here. But you're telling me there's a God who wants to give us his thoughts in his ways? He's going to send help from up there? I think God anticipated the skeptic, because listen to what he says next in verse 10, "for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth, making it bear and sprout, furnishing seed to the sower, bread to the eater. So will my word be which goes forth from my mouth, it will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire, without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." Why does God say this here? After he says, my thoughts and my ways, are going to come from up in heaven and come down to you below. Why does he say, Oh, by the way, have you noticed I've been doing this for years? I've been taking care of you from up there. Rain and snow fall from above. Jesus said it, God causes his rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. Is that a gift to humanity? What are the two things it says? If it stops raining, then you don't have any seed to sow, and if it stops raining, and you don't have any bread to eat.

Sometimes I'll preach in Iowa. I'll just go down south from Minnesota, where I live now, and there's this one church in Madrid, Iowa. It's filled with farmers, and every prayer they pray publicly starts like this, Dear God, please make it rain. Every one of them. You know why? Because they understand what rain does. Now, I'm guessing that Alabama doesn't get a lot of snow. Is that right? You guys don't get a lot of snow, but I live up in Minnesota where, like, every six months or so, God kills planet Earth and covers it with like a white sheet of death. Snow gets mixed reviews in Minnesota. Some people hate it. They complain about it. They curse it. It troubles them. It bothers them. There are some people, like farmers who pray for it and thank God for it and celebrate it. I like snow, I think it's beautiful. I don't know how you feel about it, but did you know God's word is a lot like that? That's what he says in verse 11, the word that he eventually sent that came to Earth and dwelt among us. For a lot of people, there's mixed reviews. Some find his words frustrating and annoying. They don't like it. They don't like to see it, they don't like to hear it. It bothers them. But did you notice God said it's like a two edged sword. It will accomplish what I want it to accomplish. Sometimes rain was judgment. Sometimes rain was life. Sometimes God's word will cut one person to judge them and another person to give them life. But have you ever seen this? That the rain and snow of God's word fell on somebody that cursed it and didn't like it and was frustrated by it, but then their springtime came. That's what's interesting to me about Minnesota. I'd never seen a season growing up in San Diego, when I moved to Minnesota in the dead of winter, everything was dead. You didn't hear a bird, you didn't see a leaf, like you didn't know anything was alive. But when springtime came, which is like May, the whole world exploded into life. You ever seen that happen to somebody with God's word? I mean, just the day finally came where everything they'd ever heard finally began to make sense.

So now let's get to the end of the invitation and look at what God promises. Verse 12, "For you will go out with joy. You'll be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you. All the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush, the Cypress will come up. Instead of the nettle, the myrtle will come up. And it will be a memorial to the Lord for an everlasting sign which will not be cut off." Now, I want you to notice before we read this again or look at it closer, remember who was being invited back in verses one and two. Those that were thirsty, those that were poor, those that were dissatisfied, those that had a hole in their soul. And what's the promise of verse 12? If you trade your thoughts and your ways for my thoughts and my ways, I promise you these two things, joy and peace. Folks, do you know any human being who's not looking for that? Everyone I know, everyone to a person, that I know is looking for joy and peace in the next relationship, in the next political regime, in the next career, in the next form of entertainment. You know what human beings have always been looking for? Joy and peace.

We have a text here in Isaiah 55 where God says, If you'll come and incline your ear, trade your thoughts and your ways for my thoughts and my ways, I will lead you out in joy, and I will give you peace. And then verses 12 and 13 turn into like a Disney movie. Did you catch that? You've got like mountain shouting for joy, and trees clapping their hands, and the hills are singing? It's like Fantasia or something. Why that imagery? Why does the desert landscape of our life all of a sudden become this lush rain forest? Why? Why are the mountains shouting for joy? Now, I don't know everything about the poetry here. Let me just use the illustration of the text. Remember how God said, My thoughts are in heaven and yours are on earth? Mine are higher than your?. Let's use the mountain as an example. Have you ever walked up to a mountain and looked at it from Earth's perspective and it shouted for joy before you? Has that ever happened to you like some friend took you to Colorado and said, Let's march up this 14,000 foot mountain? Did it feel like the mountain was cheering you on, like you can do it, or did it feel like the mountain was shouting you down and saying you'll never get over me? But if you've ever gotten in an airplane and flown over the same mountain and looked at it from Heaven's perspective, not Earth's. It looks different, doesn't it? And see the other side. Is that what I was so worried about down there? But I think there's something more going on here. In Scripture, mountains often are challenges, trials, difficulties. Do you remember what is written in the New Testament about things like that? You guys help me out with this James chapter one. Consider it all joy when you encounter various mountains. trials. Who thinks like that? In fact, you have you ever tried to pull a James one on somebody? They're going through a trial, and you go into their house, and you put your arm around them, and you say, Consider it all joy. Isn't this great news? Now we don't really talk like that in the moment, but you've got New Testament writers saying things like, hey, this trial works for you, not against you. If you know what trials do, you can have joy in them, because you'll become perfect and complete, lacking nothing. But the only way people begin to think like that is if they've traded their thoughts and their ways for God's thoughts and God's ways, and all of a sudden, life looks different everywhere you look.

I have a theory, not really a theory. I think it's biblical. That every human being who's ever been converted to follow the Lord Old Testament or New Testament, has had an Isaiah 55 experience where they traded their thoughts and their ways for God's thoughts and God's ways and everything about life looked different for them. God gave them the life and the joy and the peace that he promised. In fact, I want you to think about the New Testament. Paul wrote a letter to the Philippians. Do you remember where he was when he wrote the book of Philippians? Where was he? He's in prison, and he said things like this in the letter. I want you to know that my circumstances have turned out. I'll tell you how it would have sounded if I wrote it, to be terrible and awful, but he didn't say that. He said, I want you to know that my circumstances have turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. But Paul, you're in prison. That's right. I'm in prison, but everything looks different. In fact, what did he say over and over again in that letter that he wrote? Rejoice in the Lord. Sometimes? Always. Again, I'll say rejoice. You see, Paul's thoughts and ways had been shaped so shaped by God that you couldn't really take away the joy and the peace of Paul, no matter where he was. He learned in Christ, in all things, to be content. But that's the New Testament. And I just said it's true even in the Old Testament. So, since just in a minute, we're going to talk about David here in verse three through five. Let's use David as the example. You guys help me with this text. You know this text. David wrote these words, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters." When was David's life ever like that? When was David's life ever green pastures and still waters? Maybe he wrote that, you know, when he was a shepherd boy, but I remember him saying that even as a shepherd, there were bears and lions. Actually, Psalm 23 tells us what the physical reality was in David's life. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil, for You are with me." How could God so change the heart and the mind of somebody that when they're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, they say it's green pastures and still waters? I want for nothing. God's my shepherd. I'm good. In fact, maybe even a little bit closer to Isaiah 55, do you remember what he said at the end of Psalm 23? "You've prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies." You ever tried to picture that? Saul's breathing down David's neck, everybody's gathering around him, all of the enemies coming against David and David pulls himself up to a banquet table, paying no mind to the enemies, because God's got something prepared for him. What's on the table? Maybe wine and milk.

I gave you a Huey Lewis reference from the 80s. I'll give you another one from when I was growing up. There was this movie that came out, I think I was in high school, and. It was called Hook. Robin Williams was Peter Pan. I don't know if you ever seen that movie. It's pretty good movie, but Robin Williams, as an adult, didn't remember that he was Peter Pan. He'd lost his joy and his peace. Life was terrible. His uncle had lost his marbles in the movie. But one day, Tinker Bell shows up and says, You're Peter Pan, and he says, You're crazy. Of course, he's talking to a fairy. But she drags him to Neverland, where they try to rehabilitate him. And there's this one scene where Robin Williams is sitting down at a banquet table, and all the lost boys are drooling and rubbing their hands and excited about it, but from his perspective, there's nothing on the table. It's empty, and he's looking at them like they're all crazy. And then he has an Isaiah 55 moment, their thoughts and their ways become his thoughts and his ways. And he looks at the table again, and it's filled with great things. And in that moment, he finds his joy again and his peace again. It's a good movie. But folks, God wrote the script on that years before. For all of humanity. That's what God wants to do for us.

But what could God do with people like that? If God actually changed the landscape of everyone's lives, his offspring, who didn't worry about the weapons that were formed against them, that they didn't worry about the mountains that were before them, that they look at life and they found true joy and lasting peace that nobody could take from them. What could God do with people like that? Did you catch it at the end of verse 13? "It would be a memorial to the Lord." Your version might say it would be for the Lord's renown, or it would make a name for the Lord. We're the monuments of God that cannot be cut off in the ancient world. You could push the monuments over, and people would forget about God. In the New Covenant, you try to knock down a monument of God, he'll raise up another one, right in front of everybody. We make a name for the Lord because of who we are. But let's go back to verses three through five and finish the lesson here. Notice God's promise that he makes to us. The covenant that he wants to make with us. Verse three, "Incline your ear, come to me, listen that you may live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you according to the faithful mercy shown to David." Now I know that that text is quoted in the book of Acts, and it's in reference in that text to the resurrection of Christ, and I believe that that's a good way to use the text, absolutely. But I want you to notice the context of it. It's to those that would incline their ear and listen. That God wants to make a covenant like he made with David. Well, what do you mean? God a covenant like you made with David? Here's God's explanation in verse four. Look at David. "Behold, I've made him a witness to the people, a leader and a commander of the peoples." All right, so what you want us to notice God is that you've made David a leader and a commander. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. I want you to notice that. By the way, David wrote those same ideas in Second Samuel 22 and in Psalm 18, there's a psalm that's in the Bible twice. It's in Second Samuel and it's in Psalm 18, and David is looking back over his life, enamored with what God has done. And one of the things that he says in that text is like this idea in Isaiah 55, God, how have you done what you've done with me/ I was no one, and now wherever I go, people come trembling out of their fortresses. They look at me like I'm a light, like I'm a leader. How did you do this God? So, that's what God points out. He says, look at David. That's what I've done with him. Alright. Why are you telling us that God? Verse five, behold church Christian offspring of the Messiah, "you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you because of the Lord your God. Even the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you."

Do you recognize what God was trying to accomplish here? It's something like this. I'd like to change the landscape of your life. I'd like for you to listen to me, trade your thoughts and your ways for my thoughts and my ways. I'll give you true peace and joy. You'll look different, and I'll use you to change the landscape of the world. The nations will know about me, and they'll come and run to me because I've taken you and glorified you. I made you a light of the world, the salt of the earth, but only if Isaiah 55 is real. Folks, what could God do with people who really were Isaiah 55 people? That tomorrow, when you go to work or wherever you are, and everybody else is complaining about the upcoming election or the inflation that we're going through, or how terrible the world is. That instead of joining in with them to curse and to complain and to grumble, that we're to do all things without grumbling or disputing but prove ourselves to be children of God. What if we said, You know what the Lord is, my shepherd, I don't want for anything? It's green pastures, it's still waters. And they say, You're crazy. And I'd say I'm not crazy. I've just finally listened to the Lord and gives us life, and you can know Him too. He's not far away. What could God do with people like that?

I want to end with a story. I was preaching in Los Angeles from the time that I was 22 until I was 30, and then I moved to Minnesota. During those early years of my preaching in LA, there was a girl who graduated from Auburn, Alabama, and she came to LA to work for JPL. Does anyone know what JPL is? Jet Propulsion Laboratories. You know what that means she was? She was a rocket scientist. Her name was Dana Mars, not Dana Mars Caroza, of the sacred selections. Her niece Dana Mars, rocket scientist, came to work with smartest people in the world. She's just out of college, but she was a Christian, and she'd come worship with us all the time, and then go to this job where she knew some of the smartest people on the planet. And that's when 911 happened. You guys remember that. Planes flew into the buildings in New York. The whole world changed. About two Sundays after 911 Dana showed up at church, and there was a young man sitting next to her, sharp dressed. I went up to him and I said, Hey, my name is Andy. Who are you? He said, My name is Jamin Greenbaum. I work with Dana over at JPL. I said, Well, I'm glad you came today. He said, I'm a little bit nervous. I've never been in a church building before. He said, In fact, I've always thought God was a joke. Said, but the other day, when 911 happened, I looked around the room at the smartest people that I'd ever known, the people that I looked up to that thought they knew everything about how the way the world worked. And he said they were all losing their minds. They were all so upset and worried and concerned. And he said, I looked over and I saw Dana, and he said she was appropriately sad about the whole thing, but she was still hopeful and joyful. And Jamin said, I want what she has. And he became a Christian. Folks, we've got this all wrong. We've got it all wrong, evangelism. What Dana needed in front of the people at JPL, all the rocket scientists of the world. She didn't know how to, she didn't have to know how to answer every question that they could spin or come up with. You know what she needed to do? She needed to trade her thoughts and her ways for God's thoughts and God's ways and let God glorify her in front of people who didn't have satisfaction, who were looking for answers, who really hadn't changed the landscape of their life, and when people see it, they'll come and ask you the reason for the hope that is within you, and then you can be ready to give them an answer for that hope.

I hope these thoughts from Isaiah 55 are helpful. I'll ask it one more time, what could God do with people like that? If you're not a Christian today, I don't know of any better invitation than to give you this one. Incline your ear, come to Him, listen that you may live,. That Christ died for you so your sins could be forgiven. God wants to change your life, give you joy and peace, but you gotta trade your thoughts and your ways for God's thoughts and God's ways, and then he'll use you to change the world. If you'd like to do that, or if you need anything, come.