Come, Buy, Eat, and Enjoy
Download MP3Invite you to open your bibles or look in your worship guides, and turn to Isaiah 55 and Matthew 11. Isaiah 55 and Matthew 11. And we actually have more than I'll be reading in the bulletin. I'll just be reading the first three verses of Isaiah 55 then the 3 verses in Matthew 11. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.
Joel Brooks:And he who has no money, come, buy, and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. 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. Incline your ear and come to me.
Joel Brooks:Hear that your soul may live. And I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast sure love for David. And in Matthew 11 verse 28, Jesus says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Father, I pray that in this moment you would, you would send your spirit to open up our hearts and our minds. Allow us to receive your word that you would come and you would speak to us. God, We need to hear from you and not from me. Lord, our attention spans are very small.
Joel Brooks:Our hearts are often hardened. Our wheels resistant to you, and I pray that you would overcome all of that tonight because the words that we need to hear are life giving for they're from you. So I pray in this moment that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. Well, I've learned over the years that holidays and vacations, exist not for you to have rest, but for you to appreciate your life back home. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get back to a normal life. We we traveled a good bit, 5 different beds, 5 different nights. And, I'm glad to be back home.
Joel Brooks:And and as I'm home and I'm thinking about the new year, and I ask myself this every year, It's not really a new year's resolution. I just wanna know what is my normal life gonna look like? What do I want my normal everyday, like, life to look like this year? And as I was thinking through this question, Isaiah 55 kept coming to mind with God's invitation to come and to come and to come and to come thirsty. And Jesus's invitation to come and to come and to find rest.
Joel Brooks:Now that's what I want my normal life to be this year. I want to be thirsty. I want to come, I want to come to Jesus and be satisfied and to find rest. And so I began just reading and rereading this text, and I wanted us to do that tonight. And I realized going through Isaiah 55 and Matthew 11 that these are texts we've heard a lot.
Joel Brooks:If you've grown up in church, you have. So they're very familiar to us and I bet you could explain them. I could already explain them, but I bet you have a harder time experiencing them. It's one of those things that we really kind of know in our head that we're to come to Jesus, that he satisfies, that he provides rest and we, we know these things, but the experience of these things seems a little distant to us. And so I'm praying that tonight through God's spirit that he would take some of these simple truths, and maybe you would hear them in a new way, and for the first time, really write them on your hearts.
Joel Brooks:Now to understand what's going on in Isaiah 55, you, you really have to know in Isaiah what's leading up to it. In Isaiah 53, you have one of the, the highlight chapters of the bible, if you will. It's it's the chapter of the suffering servant. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And by his wounds, we are healed.
Joel Brooks:And it's one of the most beautiful passages in scripture in which you you see this mysterious servant who who we know is Jesus, who's prophesied about that. He will come and he will take the punishment that's due everybody and he will take it and he will put it upon himself. Whereas Isaiah says, he is the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And that's chapter 53, then you go to 54, which tells us of the blessings that we should receive because of this, the blessings that are ours. 55, which is all about how we get this an invitation to actually receive the blessings that are ours.
Joel Brooks:So we have in 53 atonement, the substitution, and then we have in 54 the blessings that can be ours. And then in 55 is saying, come take and receive this. What you have is the gospel here saying, I know you believe the gospel, but now it's time for you to live out the fruit of the gospel for it to be a reality in your life. You're to come in here to take in here to eat. And verse 1 begins by saying, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.
Joel Brooks:Now, this is God here speaking to us and it's an invitation for us to come to him. Now, I don't want to just jump over that. We worship a God who invites us. He's he's not a God who's, you know, out busy, you know, running the universe, doesn't have time for us. He's not a distant God.
Joel Brooks:We we serve a God who invites us to be with him in his presence. Now there's 2 different types of invitations. You can have the invitation that comes from a welcoming host. Maybe they give you a written card or or verbal invitation and they invite you to their house. That's one type of invitation.
Joel Brooks:But another form of invitation comes when we see a place that the place it itself is inviting, maybe, picture a grassy little area in which the sun is shining down on it, and it's right by a mountain stream and it's a beautiful fall day. You come upon a place like that and it's inviting, it's, it's irresistible. You, you can't not go there because of the beauty and the comfort that will be provided. It draws you in. And what God is saying here is his invitation is both of these invitations.
Joel Brooks:He's the welcoming host. He's saying, Come. Come to me. But but he's asking you to come to a place of irresistible beauty and comfort. He's not saying, Hey, come and let me throw a law on you.
Joel Brooks:Come, let me make you feel guilty. Come, I've got a bunch of things that I want you to do, and I want to make your life miserable. I want to I don't want you to ever have fun. Come to me and I'm gonna throw this at you. That's not what he's saying.
Joel Brooks:He's both a place of irresistible beauty and he's inviting us himself to come so we can be refreshed in his presence. And we see that this invitation goes out to 2 different types of people. It goes out to those who have no money and to those who have some form of money. Look at verse 1 again. Come, everyone who thirst, come to the waters.
Joel Brooks:And he who has no money come by and eat. I know that there are some people here who have no money. At least as Isaiah is talking about this. If you feel, if you're in this room and you feel that you have nothing to offer, you have no moral ground to stand on. You have no good track record.
Joel Brooks:You could look back upon. You can only look to the past and see things that you are ashamed of. If that's you, then then you're the person here who has no money. If you have no strength or if you have no motivation to even try anymore, this is you. If you have a failing marriage or perhaps you lose your temper with your kids, you've lost all your desire to pray.
Joel Brooks:Then this is you. If over the years you feel your heart has grown so cold that you really have no affection for God. This is you. This invitation is for those who have nothing to offer. Now, this is hard for us to imagine because we don't extend invitations to people like that.
Joel Brooks:Everybody here is a user. Everybody is. We might try to mask it and try to disguise it in different ways, but really, we, we invite people who we want to use, who we who we want to get something from. But God here is putting out an invitation to a people he will get nothing from. Yet.
Joel Brooks:He is saying, come, come. Now, if that person is you that I just described, then you might be thinking, well, since I have nothing to offer, then what God is offering me must actually be worthless, but you couldn't be more wrong. What you were being offering, even though you don't have to pay for it, what you're being offering is of immense value. We see here that the invitation is not just for water, but it's for milk. It's it's even for wine.
Joel Brooks:Water represents refreshment by God. I I call my wife this little sign. I call my wife the hydrator. Okay? Because she's always concerned about my hydration level and hers.
Joel Brooks:And she, she sucks on her now gene. Like it's a pacifier. It goes no place without her, but, but she has to have it at all times. She has to be hydrated or she, she panics. She always needs that refreshment.
Joel Brooks:And so God is like this. He says, I can quench that. Come to me. Come to me for water. He offers us refreshment, but then he goes on more.
Joel Brooks:He says, I'm gonna give you milk and wine. Milk represents nourishment. Wine represents joy. God is saying that not only if you come to me, you will not only be refreshed, but you're gonna be nourished. I'm gonna give you a substance that will sustain your soul.
Joel Brooks:Real food here, but even more than that, your hearts and your souls will be filled with joy. You'll be given wine to drink for those of you who grew up Baptist. Let me, let me explain that to you. I, I grew up Baptist. I never had wine till I was 27, 28 years old.
Joel Brooks:Wine gladdens the heart. It's the biblical definition, not mine. Alright? Wine gladdens the heart. And so what, what, what's God is saying here when he says, I will give you wine to drink.
Joel Brooks:He's saying, I'll make you sing. I'll make you dance. I will fill you with joy. I'm not just giving water. I am giving you an abundant life.
Joel Brooks:Yours free. Come and take. He's offering you what you have always wanted. So you see here that the reason that this gift is without cost is not because it in itself doesn't have value. It's actually the opposite.
Joel Brooks:It's because it is of the greatest value. It's priceless. You can't put a cost. You can't put a price to what he is offering. We can never pay for this gift.
Joel Brooks:I recently, was at my brother's wedding. He's 44. He just got married, and at the rehearsal dinner, and I hope he doesn't mind me sharing this, but the rehearsal dinner, he had people from all over the world who came to this because he has traveled around with the Olympics for like the last, I don't know, 12, 14 years or so. And, and so he has friends from all over the world and my brother is very generous and he gives a lot of his belongings away. And there was a guy, I think he was from Greece.
Joel Brooks:His name was Demetrius. He was from Greece and he got up and he looked at my brother and he said, I, I owe everything to you. He goes, you you you found me, you you provided me money, so I could look for a job. I couldn't find a job, so then you found me a job, you flew me all around to different interviews. You you rented me an apartment in New York, so I could have a job there.
Joel Brooks:You introduced me to my wife. You've given me everything. You said, if if I were to give you all the money I were to ever make for the rest of my life, I couldn't possibly pay you back. It was it was such a beautiful picture of the grace in the gospel. But imagine that scene after that moment, if if Demetrius had said, but, but I'm going to try.
Joel Brooks:And so, you know, he gets out his wallet and he's like, yeah, I mean, I've got a 20, you know, I got a 20 that, that should pretty much cover everything, right? If he were even to attempt to pay back that he would both dishonor my brother and he would dishonor the gifts. The gifts are free and for him to try to pay that back, he will be throwing shame at my brother's face. The, the right thing to do is simply to enjoy the gift and have a heart of gratitude and to realize that what my brother wanted more than anything was relationship. It's what God is doing here.
Joel Brooks:You can't put a price on what he has done. But make no mistake, just because you can never pay for it, doesn't mean he didn't pay for it. This gift was not free. It's free to us, but it cost Jesus everything. We saw that in chapter 53, what it costs Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It costs Jesus's own blood. So, so what do you think he could possibly offer him back in light of that? God became man. He was scorned. He was mocked.
Joel Brooks:He died a horrible death. Don't ever think for a moment that you could slightly pay him back something. Or maybe if you did one more good deed, then, hey, we'll just call it even. We can't ever pay God back for the gift that he offers. We simply enjoy his gifts and this honors him.
Joel Brooks:The way to honor God is for you to just come, eat, enjoy. And when you do this, you're both satisfied and God is honored. Let's look at the second type of person that God invites. We see this person in verse 2. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, And your labor for that which does not satisfy.
Joel Brooks:So now God is inviting people who who have some form of money and they, they can actually work. They have strength for labor, but they're spending it unwisely on things that cannot satisfy them. And perhaps this is some of you. If you're a capable person, you, you look at yourself and think I'm a pretty capable person and I've got some money and I've got some ambition, yet you find yourself restless and you live in constant frustration. Then this person is you.
Joel Brooks:If you were always chasing that elusive dream, always searching, always working, always trying different things, thinking perhaps that maybe a different job or a different house or a different spouse or a different look, or maybe a new diet or a new clothes or some new electronic gadget that that's something that's finally going to close the gap between you and being satisfied. If that's you, that's who Isaiah is talking about. If you spend your life constantly laboring for a new way to entertain yourself, tiring yourself in pursuit of this next expendable pleasure, then this is you. If you think that maybe if you labor a little bit more and do one more good work, perhaps walk one more lay old lady across the street, do something. Then finally you will earn God's love.
Joel Brooks:Then this is for you. God is asking you to quit spending on what will not satisfy. He's asking you the question, why are you doing this? I mean, have you stopped to actually ask yourself why you're doing this? Why are you constantly exhausting yourself on things that will not satisfy?
Joel Brooks:I mean, what, you know, God's asking you, what's, what's your end game here? You know, Lauren and I, we can get all worked up on different things like, Oh gosh, what are we going to do? Where are we gonna, you know, send our kids to school? You know, we get all worked up about that. And then, well, if you find an answer, then it's going to be, well, who are our kids going to date?
Joel Brooks:We gotta, we gotta really be thinking about all of that. Where are they going to go to college? Are they ever going to find anybody to marry? Are they ever going to get a right job? And you could keep thinking and thinking and trying to provide and trying to provide, but ask yourself, what's your end game?
Joel Brooks:Well, they need to do really well in school so they could get a good job. Why? If the end game is, as the Westminster Catechism would say, to glorify God and enjoy him forever, you could pretty much do that with anything. If your end game is to come and to be with Jesus, you could pretty much do that with anything. So I have to ask myself, why am I exhausting myself over so many things?
Joel Brooks:And I want you to think right now, I want you to think back over this past year and I want you to ask yourself, what did I labor over? Really think, think back. What did I labor over? What exhausted my energy? What consumed my thoughts?
Joel Brooks:What was the same conversation I had over and over and over, whether in my head or to somebody else? And I want you to think back to all of those labors, and I want you to ask yourself this question, were you satisfied? I've seen over the years, tragedy hit a number of my friends, perhaps it's a loss of a loved one or a loss of their health. And let me tell you, when when that happens, it's like a a lens has been lifted and people can see clearly just how ridiculous many of their labors have been. It's like they they can finally see it.
Joel Brooks:If you suffer the loss of a loved one, you no longer care about what house you live in, what kind of car you drive, what type of phone you have. You don't care about your new diet or whatever it is because you realize those things never satisfied you and they never will. And you're, and you're given clarity. And so you don't go to those things. And so in the past, you might've run from pleasure to pleasure, to pleasure, but now you realize that never once ever have those things sustained you.
Joel Brooks:You're working for things that gave you no sustenance. At best, those things were just a momentary distraction. But in times of deep loss, you realize what is food. Where can I go to quench my thirst? So accept God's invitation to come to him.
Joel Brooks:That's really what this is about. It isn't an invitation to come get food or come ask him for good things. It's an invitation to come to him. Look at verse 3. Incline your ear and come to me.
Joel Brooks:Come to me. Verse 6, seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. We, we don't go looking for God and hope that he is near. God is near. He is nearest and he's assuring, come, seek me.
Joel Brooks:You will find me, and what you need is me. Jesus offers the same invitation in Matthew chapter 11 when he says, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Now when I read those words, it's like a breath of fresh air.
Joel Brooks:I've read those words so many times today. I mean, who, who here doesn't want rest? Who here doesn't want to be eased of a burden? I mean, Lauren and I are exhausted from celebrating Christ's birth. Okay?
Joel Brooks:Yesterday, if you were to come to our house, we had created a a pile of things to throw away, a pile of things to go to goodwill, a pile of things that we're gonna give to the church, a pile of things that we were uncertain about, we'd possibly keep. Then we had a pile of things that we were planning on returning, and then a pile of things that we wanted to return but we didn't have a receipt, so we didn't know where they went, who we were to return them to. And then we had a pile of things that we were going to keep but we had no room for. I know first world problems. Okay.
Joel Brooks:You know, just, just all these piles of things and we're exhausted from it. But it doesn't matter if you're first world, if you're 3rd world, everybody has a burden. Everybody feel feels this weariness. Everybody's exhausted. And Jesus says, you could come to him and you will find rest.
Joel Brooks:Saint Augustine famously said these words about Jesus's words here. He said, I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are both wise and very beautiful, but I have never read in either of them. Come to me all who are weary and heavy Laden. Jesus doesn't offer a new philosophy, some new moral teaching. He doesn't offer you a class on how to improve your life or maybe some self help book.
Joel Brooks:What he offers you is himself. Come to me because rest is only to be found in his presence. And I want you to notice here that when Jesus offers us rest, he's not offering you a vacation. He's not saying that if you come to me, you're no longer will labor, you know. Come to me and there will never be laundry.
Joel Brooks:You know, come to me, you'll never change another diaper. Come to me, you won't have to mow the lawn. You know, he's he's he's not saying that. You will work. No.
Joel Brooks:God put Adam and Eve in this world, and he put them to work in a garden. Work is a gift from God. You'll, you'll find that all through scripture. When we're in heaven, we'll actually be working sermon for another day, but, but work is a gift from him. Jesus says that we're still going to have to put on a yoke.
Joel Brooks:So, so make no mistake. There's work. Discipleship is work. When you read through Isaiah 55 you still have to come. You have to listen.
Joel Brooks:It says, listen to me, incline your ear to me, which means you have to be listening to God's word means you have to read God's word. Do you have to pray to God reading and praying and listening, take time. They take effort, their work, Obeying God's word takes even more effort. It's work. But it's not work that's under the law.
Joel Brooks:It's work that's under grace. This isn't a performance based work. It's work that stems from a new heart that's been fueled and energized by the spirit of God himself. Now find the context of this passage here really striking all of chapter 11, Matthew chapter 11 is somewhat of an unusual chapter. It's almost entirely about John the Baptist, and I've never once heard anybody preach, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest in its context.
Joel Brooks:But let me give you the context. Earlier in chapter 11, John the Baptist, the greatest man ever born of woman, finds himself rotting in prison. He's about to be executed And in, in this moment of doubt and frustration, which is what's happening here, cause he's been faithfully preaching and teaching and I mean living off locusts and out in the desert for so long and he's been so faithful, but now he finds himself in prison and he's doubting. So in this moment, he he sends a message to Jesus and he says, are you really the one that we've been waiting for? Are we supposed to be looking for someone else?
Joel Brooks:And just so you know, John the Baptist knows that Jesus is the one. He knows it. He knew it before he was even born. Remember when he was in Elizabeth, his mother's womb, and he comes near Mary and Jesus is in Mary's womb. He literally leaps in the womb for joy.
Joel Brooks:He knows he was there at Jesus's baptism. He saw the spirit of God to send like a dove. He heard the voice from heaven. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. John the Baptist knows that Jesus is the one.
Joel Brooks:However, when your life doesn't turn out like you thought it was going to turn out, when things really aren't, you know, playing out the way I I thought, you know, it was supposed to go this way and it's actually going the exact opposite. Now I find myself in prison, and I'm about to have my head chopped off just because Herod wants to be amused. Because of that, he he doubts. So John sends Jesus this message, and Jesus responds by talking at length about the greatness of John the Baptist and how it was a shame that people did not accept him and really believe his message. And then he thinks his father that his disciples did listen to him.
Joel Brooks:Their hearts were open to that. And then finally he says this here, come to me all who labor and are heavy Laden and I will give you rest. And what Jesus is doing is he's reminding John of something. He's reminding us of something and it's a gentle reminder, but it's a reminder. Nevertheless, saying, John, I know you, you've labored hard.
Joel Brooks:I know you've worked so hard and I know your life isn't turning out the way that you want, but even in prison you can have rest. You can have rest. Come to me. Paul was the epitome of this. Paul was the most restful man alive.
Joel Brooks:I mean, the authorities would want to arrest Paul, you know, or they wanna kill him. He'd be like, great. I get to be with Jesus, you know, and he's just happy. Well, alright. We're not gonna kill you.
Joel Brooks:We're just gonna beat you. Great. I get to suffer for the Lord, which infuriates them. So they, you know, well, fine. We're gonna throw you in prison.
Joel Brooks:Fantastic. I'm just gonna, you know, share my faith to the guards and he's singing in jail. Like, fine. We'll release you. Fantastic.
Joel Brooks:I get to tell everybody about Jesus. He was untouchable. I mean, really, he was on there was nothing you could do to Paul. He was perfectly at rest because he went to Jesus. There was no performance based righteousness.
Joel Brooks:He knew God loved him. God took care of him. God was in complete and total control of his life. And so his load was not heavy no matter the circumstance. Now, for those of you who are longing to have that kind of rest, know that only 2 things are necessary.
Joel Brooks:Just 2 things. It's not like, you know, bring me the broom of the witch. It's no great task. It's pretty easy. Isaiah says that you were to come thirsty.
Joel Brooks:All who thirst, you come thirsty, meaning you have to realize you have a need. As Augustine would say, you have a God shaped hole in your heart. Then Jesus says, you have to come weary, meaning real that you come to a point where you realize you cannot do the work. You just can't do it anymore. You come to him thirsty.
Joel Brooks:You come to him weary, But you come over and over again. You hear the words in Isaiah, come. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Come thirsty, come weary, but certainly and surely come.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Lord, I'm not sure anything new was heard by by probably many in this room, but that doesn't really mean anything. We want the reality of what we have heard to hit our hearts. God, I pray that this year would be defined by us coming to you, Jesus, that you would give us a thirst for you, Lord, that we will seek you with everything and I pray that we would lay our weary bones down and quit trying to perform Lord, and that we would live under grace. So God, may we come to you in this moment and we pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
