On the cover of the bulletin there is a painting of a woman standing outside a large home. With suitcase in hand and purse over her shoulder she pauses amid the snow banks of deep December to look at the house before her.
I imagine that she is returning to her parent’s home for the first time in many years. There had been a falling out between them. A great family fight. Confidences were betrayed. Hateful words said. Deeply hurt and angry she stopped calling, or taking calls. She left the few letters she got from them unopened.
For a long time.
She lived so far away, there was no chance that they might visit unexpectedly. It was easy to distance herself.
But then the card came.
It was years later. A little white envelope, obviously a Christmas card. It was from Dad. It said, “We’ve all been very stupid. Please forgive us, and know that we forgive you. We’re putting up the tree today. Maybe we’ll get it decorated by the time you get home.”
Nestled behind the card was a plane ticket.
Forgiveness was offered to her. Given in fact. A warm Christmas awaited her. A new beginning.
But she could never experience the blessings of that forgiveness if she didn’t return.
So she did.
There she stands on the bulletin cover. Suitcase in hand. Purse on her shoulder. Tears in her eyes. At least, that’s what I imagine.
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Returning can be scary and humbling. But returning can make all the difference in the world.
Today’s sermon is all about “Returning to the LORD”. It is about the wicked returning to God and receiving forgiveness. It is about Christians coming back to hear God’s thoughts expressed in the Bible. It is about the inevitable return that all must make, through the door of death to stand before the judgment throne of our Creator.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, come to us as we read and meditate on this Your perfect Word. Lead us to understanding, to on-going repentance, to faith, and to faithful walking with Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen.
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Isaiah 55:6-11 (NASB)
6Seek the LORD while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
7Let 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.
8"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
9"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
10"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth
And making it bear and sprout,
And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11So will My word be 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.
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Grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Risen and Living Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In this section of Isaiah, Isaiah talks to the people of Israel. By this time in their history, they had rejected the LORD and their lives were displaying the symptoms of unbelief.
Jerusalem was no longer a safe place. It was full of murder and stealing. Bribes were offered and accepted. Orphans and widows were ignored and exploited (Isaiah 1).
In the first chapter of Isaiah God denounces Israel and tells them that He will no longer hear their prayers because their hands are covered with blood. Imagine that picture, the murderer’s bloody hands folded in mock prayer. The LORD was disgusted by their hypocrisy.
They still worshiped at His temple, but they also worshipped under the sacred oak trees of pagan gods. For this reason the sacrifices that they made at God’s temple only made Him weary and sad.
God condemns them saying,
“Rebels and sinners will both be broken and those who forsake the LORD will perish” (Isaiah 1:28 NIV).
“The mighty man will become tinder and his work a spark; both will burn together, with no one to quench the fire” (Isaiah 1:31 NIV).
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But destruction wasn’t the only way. In our text, Isaiah encourages the wicked to seek the LORD while there is still time. Isaiah tells the wicked to return to the LORD.
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Imagine a busy one way street. The wicked are the ones driving down that road the wrong way. They are endangering themselves and others as they drive away from God.
Through Isaiah, God tells them, “You need to turn around. You need to do a complete 180. In your living. In your thinking. From the heart.”
Isaiah says,
“let him return to the LORD,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7b NASB).
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This comes as a surprise to some. That God would forgive them if they would but turn to Him in repentance.
When I was in high school I used to skateboard with a crew of misfits. They were the trouble-makers and the drug users. Once I got into a curbside conversation with one of them about heaven and hell. He told me that he’d done so many evil things that he was going to hell for sure. He meant it. He figured there was no way that He could get out of the hole that he had dug with the shovel called sin.
Remember the prodigal son? He insulted his father, took his inheritance and wasted everything in sinful living. When everything was gone he thought, “Maybe I could go back and be a servant in my father’s estate.”
He thought perhaps there would be enough pity left in his father’s heart to secure him a meager job.
He didn’t expect the father running up the road to meet him. He didn’t expect the bear hug from a tearful Dad. He didn’t expect a party to be thrown in honor of the disgraceful son who had only come back when he had hit rock bottom.
But he was just a son. How could he know how a father thinks? How could He know the depths of love in a father’s heart?
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Many things prevent sinners from turning away from their sin and back to the LORD. The love of sin. Feelings of shame. Fear of others knowing what they have done. Fear over what the LORD will require of them.
God didn’t want any of these things to prevent the wicked of Israel from turning back to Him. So He says in our text,
“…My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
9"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NASB).
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Have you ever had someone tell you, “I know what you’re thinking”, but they’re off the mark by a mile? People tend to think that other people think like they do, when often that’s not true at all.
Sinners do this to God too. He must think like we do right? He must handle things like we would. The sinner thinks, how would I how would I handle a person betrayed me though I had given them everything? What if that person came crawling back to me? What would I do?
I’d take advantage of the situation wouldn’t I? Treat them like dirt for a while so they’d know not to mess with me again. They’d need to earn my forgiveness. Earn my love.
It would take them a lot of time.
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The sinner thinks, “God must be the same”. But God shakes His head and says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.”
God’s way was this. God the Son became human. Was slandered, mocked, spit on, slapped, beaten, scourged, teased, tortured, pierced, abandoned by friends, abandoned by God the Father, and died. All this He suffered to earn our forgiveness. We have nothing to prove. Nothing to earn. We have been placed on the Father’s good list because Jesus took the beating in our place. In Romans 5 it says,
“6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8 NIV)
Thankfully, our ways are not God’s ways.
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Isaiah was speaking his message for the wicked, but God has a lesson for His follower too. God’s ways are not intuitive to human beings. We can’t just think real hard and know what God wants!
For this reason, we Christians MUST return to the word of God continually.
Humans think that they can know God’s thoughts by imaginative thinking. Somehow our pride convinces us that we are qualified to, independently and apart from the Bible, determine what God thinks.
This is nonsense.
To know God, we must know His Word. To follow God’s path for us life, we must continually return to His Word.
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Returning to the LORD’s Word keeps us ready for the return that all of us will experience, when we return to our Maker. In Romans 14 it says,
“…we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’” 12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:11-12 NIV).
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The last part of our text reminds us that the Word of God will be active in the world until that last day comes. And when it does, it will have accomplished God’s will.
“10"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth
And making it bear and sprout,
And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11So will My word be 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” (Isaiah 55:10-11 NASB)
Living in this part of the country, we know what the rain can do. It’s hard to stop things from growing up and going to seed. God’s system of rain works very efficiently.
God’s Word is just as unstoppable. It comes to be spread to others so that faith in Christ may sprout in their hearts, and grow up into eternal life. God’s Word comes to be consumed by God’s people like daily bread, keeping us strong in the faith and ready to step along with God’s plan.
On the last day, there will be two groups of people before God’s throne. The faithful and the wicked. For God’s inviting Word ultimately does two things. It converts people to faith, or it strips away all excuses the wicked have for not returning to God.
On the Last Day, God will say to the faithful, “You were invited. Come and enter your eternal home.”
To the wicked, God will say, “You too were invited. But go, continue the path that you have chosen, forever.”
Thank God eternal hell will not be our path. For by God’s grace we believe that,
“We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6 NIV).
We have been returned to God’s side, by Christ Jesus.
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So now let the wicked return to the LORD, He will pardon them. And let us be the ones to tell them to return to Him.
And let us, and Christians the world over continually return to the LORD’s thoughts, for in them is eternal life and wisdom for this life.
And let us all keep in mind, that we will one day stand before our Creator. And by Christ’s sacrifice in our place, we will be returned to a state of perfection.
This is the desire of the LORD, and it will be accomplished. Amen.
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