Isaiah 55:1-13.  This is the end of the last mini message.  This message has been about our future.  What it will be and how we can get there.  The future will be awesome but only if we have allowed God’s Servant, Jesus, to take us there.  We cannot make our relationship right with God on our own so Jesus took our punishment.  His death  in our place made us acceptable to God and an acceptable place for the Spirit of God to live, and to coach or influence.  Eventually there is a permanent place for us in god’s presence, again only if we have put our complete trust in Jesus to get us there.  Remember that the two main ideas of the book of Isaiah have been that God will deal with pride and that he alone deserves to be honored and worshipped.  He will deal with pride because as long as we try to reach him on our won, as long as we insist on trying to fix our broken relationship with him thorough our own actions, we will continue to be separated from him, spiritually dead.

In today’s reading we see just how much we mean to God.  God is still talking here and it’s very personal.  He shouts out to get our attention and then calls to us to satisfy our deep desire.  The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that we all have “eternity in our hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).  One pastor put it this way, “We have a God shaped hole in our hearts”.  He compares our longing to have that hole filled with being thirsty and hungry.  But what we are thirsty and hungry for is a friendship with God.  That is why most people in the world are religious or look for meaning for their lives.  We know we have been made for something for someone, and we search for answers.  And the greatest part of  the real answer is that what we want is free.  God has paid the price, the Servant has paid the price.  According to verse 2 we need to stop trying to fill our selves up and let God provide for us.  But I suppose that might hurt our pride.

Verse 3 makes it clear that these verses are not about food and drink but about our relationship with God.  The idea of living is the idea of being together.  Just like our bodies are alive when our soul or spirit is in them and dead when our spirit or soul leaves them.  We live spiritually when we have a relationship with God and are spiritually dead when our friendship is broken.

Also in verse 3 we see that God is making a promise, covenant, a contract, and it is an everlasting one.  The first contract (at least with the Israelites) was the Law of Moses.  Paul tells us in Romans 3:19-21; 8:3 that that old contract, the law was weak because we are weak and could only point out that we fail in our relationship with God.  Hebrews 8:6-13 tells us that Jesus set up this new contract of covenant between us and God.  This fits in with the description of him as the Servant of God in Isaiah 53 and how he took care of the price of our broken relationship.  So now there is a permanent path back to God, Jesus is that way (see John 14:6).  The end of verse 3 is really talking about the Servant when it mentions David since David is the ancestor of the Servant that the promise of a forever kingdom was made to.  Verses 4-5 are talking about how God is going to have Jesus be a witness to the world and how the world will come to him and he will be a leader.  A real contrast to the picture of the Servant in Isaiah 53.  Jesus is both the suffering servant and the reigning king.

Verses 6-7 tell us to look for God now.  There is a time when he will no longer be available.  We also need to change.  We need to stop living our prideful lives our way and start doing thing that make God happy.  God is very forgiving and if we turn to him he will accept us.  But it has to be according to “his way”.  We need to allow the servant to take care of our sin problem.  We need to accept the free gift, the one with no cost to us.  We need to listen to the words God has used to tell us all of this, only they have the power to change where we will spend eternity.

Verses 12-13 are poetical in Hebrew and that indicates to us that they are the song that ends this last mini message.  And what is the message of this song?  In Genesis 3:17 when the first man, Adam, disobeyed God (that was the first ever sin) one of the main consequences was that the earth would grow lots of weeds.  It would be hard for Adam and the rest of mankind to grow their crops.  Weeds are a constant reminder to us that we screwed up.  Here in the end of Isaiah 55 we see the weeds being taken away.  And that sign will be a forever reminder that God has made things right between us.

God thank you for taking care of that God shaped hole in my life.  Thank yo for putting it there in the first place.  I mean I know that my actions are what has kept us apart but you could have made it so I (we) was numb to our broken relationship.  But instead you placed a desire deep inside so I wuld look for you.  Thank you for doing that.  Thank you for making eternity with you available.  I know that now my life is supposed to draw people to you.  Help me live that kind of life.  And help people see the reality of how bad eternity will be on the outside.  Someone once said that if you are a believer in Jesus this life is as close as you will get to Hell but that if you have rejected Jesus that this life is as close as you will ever get to Heaven.  Lord help people realize that and turn back to you.