Isaiah chapter 55, the message is entitled, buy the best for free. Buy the best for free. Let's pray together and then we'll read our text. Isaiah chapter 55. Father, we do pray for the help of the Spirit this morning as we consider these words by the prophet Isaiah. We thank you, O Lord, that it is your word and your word cannot be broken. Your word is truth and we pray that you would sanctify us by the truth this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So if you have your Bible there, turn to Isaiah 55. I'm going to begin reading at verse 1, and then move on down to the end of the chapter. Most of what we'll discuss this morning, though, will come from the first three verses. But let's read the chapter in its entirety. Oh, 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 and I will make an everlasting covenant with you according to the faithful mercies shown to David. Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples. a leader and commander for the peoples. 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. 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 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. 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. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth, and making it bare and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so will my word, which goes forth from my mouth, it will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. for you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush, the cypress will come up, And 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. Amen. Amen. Well, congregation, we are anticipating the celebration as a nation of Christmas. Christmas, of course, is that time of year where we think about the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It wasn't necessarily something that the early church, we know, celebrated. At least in the Book of Acts, there's nothing about it. But I think we are commanded to be fishers of men. And as fishers of men, we are glad to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ when the culture is willing to remember. This great event, the most important event really in human history is the coming of the Son of God into the world, that the Son of God, the eternal Son of God would become a man. And so we want to take a moment to talk, boys and girls, from a passage that was inspired by the Holy Spirit and written by the prophet Isaiah 700 years before Jesus Christ became a baby. Jesus, before 700 years, seven centuries before Christ, came into this world, conceived by the power of the Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, Isaiah prophesied about Jesus' coming. Isaiah spoke, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, about Jesus and what Jesus would accomplish in this world. One of the things that we see in our text this morning is that the Lord Jesus Christ would be the one who would fulfill that covenant that God made with David. Look at verse 5 with me. Notice here that Isaiah predicted that there would be a people, which he called a nation, which is basically you and me, we who are Gentiles. Behold, you will call a nation you do not know. Now who would a nation be that Israel didn't know? It would be a people that is far away, right? people who lived on the other side of the world. And notice what Isaiah, though, says about these people. He says, you will call a nation you do not know and the nation which knows you not, that is, these people did not know about Israel, they didn't know about Moses, they didn't know about David, and what? But Isaiah says, this nation which knows you not will one day, notice he says, will run to you. because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified you." What Isaiah is predicting here is that there would come a time In history, when people who lived far away, people who were Gentiles, people who lived in distant lands, who lived in the Americas, who lived in India, who lived in China, who lived in Japan, who lived in Europe, who lived in Africa, who lived in South and Central America, as well as North America, one day a nation would go to these people. Now, the question is, why would the world come to Israel? in a sense. And Isaiah says that they will not just come and they're not dragging themselves, they're not coming unwillingly, they're not saying, do we really have to go? But what does Isaiah say? They will run to you. Now, imagine sitting in the temple and hearing Isaiah speak this, that one day people who live far away would run And they're thinking that they would run to Jerusalem and run to the temple. Why? Because that is where the Lord God is. Notice what Isaiah says there in verse 5. Because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel. Now, I want you to think with me here, especially you young people. Here you have a prophecy. where Isaiah says that the nations of the world are going to come and they're going to run to the temple because of the fame of God, because of the glory of God. And yet, when we come to the days of Jesus, what did Jesus tell us about that temple? He told us he would be the one who would fulfill that temple. Tear this temple down and I will rebuild it. And John tells us what? John tells us that he was speaking about his own body. That is, Jesus was saying, through my death and through my resurrection, I am going to fulfill everything that was promised regarding the temple. And so this is the point that I want to communicate. The world and the earth is running to God because of the person of Jesus Christ. Because Isaiah saw from a distance something of the glory of Jesus Christ. And that is what we want to celebrate here this week. And I want to do Give you three thoughts about this theme of running to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Number one, we have, if you will, an invitation or an advertisement to what? Buy for free, in verse 1. We are called to buy for free. The nations of the earth are called to come and buy something from God, but that which they buy is free. Sounds like an interesting offer. Number two, from verse two, God then asks us this question, why do you spend money on what will never satisfy? And then thirdly, the invitation to come to the Lord through Jesus Christ, from verses three and on. So here is the offer, come buy something for free. Number two, why pursue things that will never satisfy you? And then number three, come to the Lord through the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's take those three points together from our text. First of all, look at verse 1 with me here. Notice the New American Standard says, It's a shout, boys and girls. I think the NIV did not have it, but I think the other translations, you can check with me later, should have it. It is there. This is an announcement. This is something that is important. This is a proclamation. The Lord wants to get our attention here. And so he says, oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters and you who have no money, come by and eat, come by and wine and milk without money and without cost. So notice a couple of things here. First of all, he says, if you have a sensed need for something more in life, then you need to come to these waters. And, but notice he says, but don't think that you can't come if you don't have anything to give to God. Don't let that stop you. Notice that's the second thing here. So we have here this kinda, almost something of an oxymoron, to buy for nothing. to purchase for free. We don't really even know what that means, do we? Now, we are Americans and we love capitalism and we love Madison Avenue and they love you. And they love to advertise, and they love to sell you products and services. And this is, man, this is the high season for that, isn't it? I mean, soon as you're done putting the turkey away in the refrigerator from Thanksgiving, come what? Come all the advertisements. And this is when the stores and Amazon, they are licking their chops because they know they're gonna make the bulk of their money in a year in these next six to eight weeks. This is when, this is the payoff time. Everything else leading up to this moment was just paying to keep the lights on and the insurance and the employees paid and et cetera. But now, now, comes the time where they really want to lay it on. Because this is profit time. This is bottom line time. And what do they do? They give us ads. They give us incentives. They give you coupons. They come up with commercials that are clever. commercials that are going to pull at your emotional, sentimental heartstrings. You're going to see puppies and you're going to see horses running in the snow and you're going to see grandma going through the woods on a sleigh and you're going to see all the rest. And they're going to do everything they can to put the lights out and to put on the best display they can so that you will come in and buy. that you will come and purchase. Now, what the Lord is doing here, boys and girls, is that the Lord is saying, I want you to come and buy. But here is the thing that you really need to see, because Amazon's not giving you this deal. Jeff Bezos isn't giving you this deal, even if you wait till the very last moment, okay? When you think, I'm gonna wait till the prices drop at the very end. No, this is an invitation to come, Buy for nothing. Come buy for free. Now, that is something, as I said, it doesn't even really compute with us. But the Scriptures say, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, you've got nothing, empty pockets, maxed out credit cards. Nothing in the bank. The Lord says, I want you to come and buy. Now our response, we think, Lord, how? How can I buy when I have nothing? What can I have that is of value, Lord, when I have nothing? This is the nature of the gospel. What Isaiah is doing is he is telling us something about what he would do in Jesus Christ. This is a picture. This is an advertisement to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and buy from him. And the thing with Jesus is, Jesus is going to satisfy your thirst. He's going to fill you in a way that no other product can fill you. and it isn't going to cost you anything, even if you had something to offer Him, He wouldn't accept it. Do you remember when Jesus told the disciples to go get something in town and He would just hang out by the well? You know, Jesus did that on purpose because He knew what was coming. And as Jesus is at the well, a woman comes. And she's by herself, and it's because she's a woman of reputation, shall we say. She's had multiple men in her life. She's probably had several men who once or were, you know, the husbands of other women in the community. And therefore, the other women in the community don't even want anything to do with her. That's why she comes at noon, when all the other women came early in the morning to draw forth the water. And Jesus meets with her, and He asks this woman for a drink. And she asks Him, well, how is it that you being a Jew asks me, a Samaritan, for a drink? For Jews ordinarily didn't have dealings with Samaritans. And what was Jesus' response to that? Jesus' response was Isaiah 55, wasn't it? If you knew who it was that asks you for a drink, you actually would turn around and ask Him for living water. Notice what our text says. Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And what does Jesus say to this woman? You see, Jesus knows this woman is thirsty. She's been in multiple serial relationships. And the man that she's currently living with is not her husband. She's cycling through men, Hoping to find what? Satisfaction. Hoping to find happiness. Hoping to find some kind of contentment. And that's why I think Jesus even said to her, go call your husband. Because he knew that was the ouch moment. He knew that's where the rubber met the road in this woman's life. And she says, I have no husband. And he said, you say rightly that you have no husband. He tells her all about her life. And she says, you know, where do I get this water, this living water? I want this living water so that I don't have to come back to this well all the time. And Jesus goes on to explain the gospel to her and says, you know, it's basically that those who believe on me, I will be for you a well. And from that will come forth these streams of living water. And we see this in John chapter 7. You know, Jesus even at the temple cries out at the temple, everyone who thirsts, come unto me and I will give you this water. And Isaiah is saying the same, that in the gospel of Jesus Christ, if we come to Jesus Christ, we will find that for which we were initially created for. That is this union and communion with God. You see, Madison Avenue knows something about human nature. Madison Avenue knows there's inherent dissatisfaction within ourselves. And so we think the next trinket, the next bauble, that will help alleviate that dissatisfaction. If I can but have that car with a bow on it, sitting in my driveway in a few days, that will help mitigate the pain. That will help bring about some kind of soothing to my soul. If I can but have that diamond, if I can but wear that perfume, if I can but have that whatever, bed, bath, and beyond, whatever it is. That will be the ticket. And so our advertising industry knows that much about human nature that they will try to sell you the idea that these things will be the answer. Because of our fallen condition, there is within us this inherent thirst for something more glorious, something more. We know. You don't have to be religious to know I was created for something more and everything seems to dissatisfy. I remember my mother made a statement once and she said, the problem with technology is it eventually always fails. And she's right. And we say that to a culture that is hooked on technology. Technology ultimately fails us. Something will always go wrong. It is a help. It's a blessing. But even it, technology, the fundamental answers to our Western problems can't be found in more technology. Technology was never meant to fill our soul, that God-shaped void of which so many have spoken of in the course of church history. Isaiah says, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. Where are these living waters? They are found, the head source of these waters is found in the person of God's Son. God has sent His Son to provide us the living water that we need. And what Isaiah is saying is that there is this free offer of the gospel to come and take these living waters for free. Come buy, and yet what? Come buy without cost. come by without money. Isaiah says, you who have no money. Notice there's a particular offer to the broke, to the poor. Now, I can tell you, he's not just speaking to people who are financially broke. Because in the very next verse, he says to those same people, why do you spend money for what is not bread? So he's not talking just about people who have nothing in their pockets. So what kind of brokenness is he talking about here? What kind of people are we speaking of here? He is talking about people who have a sense of their poverty in the fall, that we were made in the image of God and yet something has terribly gone wrong in this world. And there is this sense of bankruptcy within us. And he is saying, if you have that sense of bankruptcy, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk, come buy the best stuff, but without money and without cost. You know, this is the reason why the love of money is such a danger, is because if we're not careful, we can fall into the trap of thinking that that is the substitute. That's why, for example, the rich young ruler went away from Jesus. He didn't just think that he was materially wealthy. He thought he was wealthy in terms of his performance before God. So that when Jesus said to them, you know, you know the commandment, when he said, you know, what must I do to have eternal life? And he says, well, you know the commandments, don't you? Keep these commandments and you will have eternal life. And he should have said, well, Lord, I'm bankrupt. He should have said, well, Lord, if that's the standard to get into heaven, then I can't get into heaven. What am I going to do? I have nothing. I am morally impoverished. All of these commandments, I have not kept from my youth up, but I've broken them all from my youth up. That's what he should have said. This man not only was materially wealthy, but he thought he was wealthy in terms of his own inherent righteousness, that God should accept him because he had all kinds of stuff to offer God as to why he should come into heaven. What Isaiah is saying is if you want the living waters, if you want the real milk and the real wine that God is offering, then you've got to realize your real need. You gotta realize that you, as everybody, are sinners, that we are sinners, that we have fallen short of the glory of God, that there is none righteous, no, not one, that within my heart come out all the murder and adulteries and thefts and immoralities, and all the commandments that I break come forth out of my heart, and that that means, Lord, I morally don't have anything to offer you. And that is the picture of the gospel in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ says, come and buy from me, recognize your thirsty, recognize you have nothing to offer morally to God. So if God should ask you tonight after you die, why should I let you into my heaven? You would say, well, Lord, I have nothing to offer you in myself, but you have given me Jesus Christ. And I, by Your grace and grace alone, have received Him as my Lord and Savior. He is the beginning and the alpha of my life. He is everything to me. He is my satisfaction in life. If I lose my health, if I lose my home, if I lose everything, at least I will have still everything in Jesus Christ. I will have eternal life. This is the will of God that you should believe on Him whom the Father has sent. And Jesus put it this way in John chapter 12. If you have seen the Son, Jesus Christ, you have seen the Father. If you have seen the Son, you have seen the Father. If you therefore have received the Son, you have received the Father. You have come into that fellowship by which we have life. But you, notice here, must come to Him. This is a call. This is an invitation. This is an offer. But you must come to Him by God's grace, by the work of His Spirit working within you. As we saw in Sunday school, God is not working, you know, against your will, but He's overcoming it and that He is inclining you to a new will. so that you would come to Jesus Christ. But you need to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I want to invite you, if you have never yet still believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, today's the day of salvation. What better way to kick in the new Christmas holiday this week than to receive Christ by believing on Him, to receive the person who is going to provide satisfaction. Now, I don't want to mislead anybody and cause you to think that you're going to have this perfect life once you've received Christ. There's a cost. That's another sermon though. There's a cost of discipleship. Take up your cross and follow me. And sometimes our problems can increase once we've begun to follow Jesus Christ. That's a different message. The message today, though, is come to Christ. Don't worry. God in the time will give you the grace you'll need to keep following Jesus Christ, but come buy something for free. Take Jesus Christ. He's offering Himself to you this morning through this sermon. One of the reasons we here at Covenant Presbyterian Church believe in preaching is because we believe this is the means that God in heaven is offering real salvation to people. And that if you will receive Christ as He's being preached to you in this message, you'll receive God. You will have the forgiveness of sins. You will have the pardon of all your past iniquities. You will have the imputation of His righteousness to you. You will have eternal heaven. You will have a new life, a new family, the family of God. You'll be in union with God and more. But you need to believe this morning. You need to come to Him. But I need to keep moving here. Verse number two is this, after the free invitation, to believe on Jesus Christ. Notice what Isaiah then says next. Why do you spend money for what is not bread? Now, he's making an argument here following up what he just offered you in verse 1. He's offered you Christ in the gospel in verse 1, and now he is trying to help persuade you to take Christ. And one of the things that Isaiah is doing to help persuade you to take Jesus is to thereby reject all the counterfeit offers. And so he says, why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? What does that mean? He's not saying it's wrong to go shopping, but what he is saying is it's wrong for you to invest so much of yourself in things that cannot give you eternal life. It is wrong for you to take of the creation and ask of it only that which God can provide. That is, what he's dealing with here is idolatry. When we spend for things that won't satisfy in the hope that they would satisfy, what we're doing at that moment is we're making an idol of that thing. And so Isaiah says, listen carefully to me, eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance. It's not he's not saying it's wrong to buy a car, not saying it's wrong to buy Christmas gifts. He is saying, though, don't invest everything you have. And spend all your capital on that which will never make you happy. That would be to invest in idolatry. What is idolatry inherently? Idolatry is this. Idolatry is where you try to substitute something in the creation for God Himself. Idolatry is anything that rivals the place and the person of God. Idolatry is when you want something or desire something more than God himself. And Isaiah is asking that question that we all struggle with, even as Christians, we struggle with this. And that is to try and say, maybe, you know, get a little something to come in a little closer to the throne of my heart here. And we always have to be careful as Christians to keep everything in perspective. God has given us so many good things to be enjoyed, says the New Testament, but they were not intended to be worshiped. They were not intended to be the substitute for God. So he is pleading here with Israel to avoid idolatry. And of course, we know the sad story of Israel. that they don't eventually listen to this message. And so that in a short period of time, the people of God are going to be taken into exile because they ended up rejecting God. Look at verse 3. Buy for free, that was verse 1. Why do you spend on things that don't satisfy? Verse 2. And then you have, in verse 3 and following, you have really the invitation here again to come to the Lord through the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice here that what God is saying is, I want to make a covenant with you. This invitation, we often speak of a personal relationship with the Lord, and that's fine. But what is the nature of that relationship? The nature of that relationship is a covenant. It's like marriage. I want you to come and make a covenant with me. Notice verse three. Isaiah says, incline your ear and come to me. How do I come to you, Lord? He says, listen, that you may live and I will make an everlasting covenant with You know, we are about to receive Charles and Brenda here in a few moments. And what are they going to do? They're going to do what we've done. They're going to stand here, and they're going to make a covenant. They're going to answer some vows that we put to them, and they're going to affirm those vows. And so, you know, boys and girls, it's kind of like a wedding. Maybe not as fancy. Not maybe quite as dressed up, but we're doing something very important here, aren't we? We are entering into this relationship. What Charles and Brenda are doing and what we want for all of you to do, young people, visitors, is to make a covenant commitment to the Lord. You know, many times, our culture, you'll hear people, they'll say, you know, I consider myself a spiritual person. But I don't believe in organized religion or I don't believe in the institutional church. But notice that the terms of that relationship, that spiritual relationship are what? They're in terms of a covenant. That is, there has to be the institution into which we come. And this invitation is one where you're going to make a commitment and you're willing to even take lifelong vows. You know, boys and girls, the Bible says it's better not to vow than to vow and not pay. And so it's a serious commitment. Now, the seriousness of that commitment, I don't want it... to scare you away because there's no better commitment you can make in this world than to make a covenantal commitment to Jesus Christ, to be your Lord and to be your Savior. To make that covenant commitment where you, in a sense, are willing to sign the marriage papers, where you're willing to publicly come before God and God's church and say, I want that relationship, but I want that relationship in the terms that God is offering them by way of His covenant. God is saying, I will be your God and you will be my people. I will be your God, you will be one. of my church." Notice here in verse 3 again, I will make an everlasting covenant with you. It is a permanent covenant. It is a covenant that will last throughout this world and into eternity. And notice there that it is based on Christ. The last line of verse 3 reads as what? According to the faithful mercy shown to David. What are the faithful mercies shown to David? Do you know where they are? One of the places you can find them is 2 Samuel 7. What happened in 2 Samuel 7? 2 Samuel 7 is that chapter where David got it on his heart that he wanted to build the temple for the Lord. And the prophet Nathan said, go for it, David. And Nathan said, I'm going home for supper. And before he could get to his own home for supper, God said, Nathan, turn around. I want you to go back to the palace and I want you to tell David, you're not going to build a house for me because you were a man of war. My house will be built by a man of peace. You're not, David, going to build a house for me. I'm going to build a house for you, David. And how does God build that house? He promises David that one of his descendants will always be sitting on David's throne. Now for a while it seemed like that promise went into obscurity. The people of God go into exile. The temple burned to the ground. The palace burned. What do we find? We find in Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 2, this young couple He's legally son of David. She's a son of David, a descendant. They're both descendants of David. And God remembers his promise to David and by the power of his spirit, he conceives in the womb of Mary, a son. That he would be not only the son of David, but also the son of God. He would come and he would fulfill these mercies, these covenantal mercies promised to David. And so, when it's time to take the census, and Joseph and Mary get up in the northern parts of Israel and Galilee, and they travel many days, and they come to Bethlehem, and there's no room at the inn, and Mary goes into labor, and she brings forth a child in a stable, and they lay him in an animal trough, That is the beginning of God's fulfilling of that promise to David. That is the beginning of bringing about that kingdom to which Isaiah said, one day the nations would come and they would come streaming to Israel. They would come and they would want to know what? The Holy One of Israel. What do we find? We find wise men coming from the east and laying gifts down at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, a nation that they did not know, a nation that knew them not came, and it was only the beginning. Even at the end of Jesus' life, it's interesting that as Jesus...it's interesting the moment...when did Jesus know it was time to go to the cross? I'll tell you when I think he realized it. It's when some men from Greece came to Philip and they said, we want to see Jesus. And Philip went to Andrew and said, there are these foreigners here and they want to see Jesus. And Philip and Andrew went to Jesus and they said, there are these Greeks here and they want to see you. And what does Jesus say in response? It's time. The nations are now wanting to come. And it's time to fulfill this promise.