Come as you are

The grace of God is free but those who claim it are to live it out in all of its implications.

just because they where the people of God did not mean that they could go on living however they wanted, the grace of God was always for all who call on the name of the Lord.

Intro

I have a secret I want to share with you guys, I sometimes like to watch animated movies when there are no kids around. I know I am not supposed to not like it and put on a macho front but sometimes I just can not help it. I watched a movie called Home a little while ago. Good family movie, albeit fairly derivative. It is the pretty much the same as every other family movie out there but still pretty good. It is a movie about an alien race called the Boov who are running away from another alien race who they think is trying to kill them. The boov say they excel at running away from a fight. Well they come to earth and think they are doing us puny humans a favor and take over our world. There is one boov who is disliked by everyone else and wants to have a house warming arty in his new earth home. He sends out an invite to all boov on earth that they are invited to his party, but he makes the mistake of sending it to the whole universe instead, including the aliens that are trying to destroy them. Oops. Come, you are all invited to the party, every single one of you!

As we anticipate the coming of the messiah this advent season we come to the realization that we to are all invited to something as well. No matter who you are or what you have done you are all invited. In the anticipation of the birth of Jesus and His coming again we learn that we are all sent the same invitation, that there is freedom in Jesus and we are all invited to experience that freedom. It is through Jesus alone that we can have freedom of sin and the joy that comes from Knowing we can go to be with Jesus. Come as you are the Bible says, that is all that we need to do. Come as you are to the feet of Jesus and accept the message of His salvation. But how can we do this?

We anticipate the coming messiah because His message says that we can come as we are for we are all invited to experience the salvation He offers as we then live our lives for Him.

1-2 - Live out righteousness.

There are two questions that are answered in and around this passage. The first is what qualifies people to be among the elect of God, those that are going to be with Him in heaven. This is joined with the necessity of living our lives for the righteousness of God and that no matter how hard we try we make mistakes and we often fail to do this. We anticipate the good news that we can all become part of the family of God, The grace of God is free to all but what we need to know first is that those who receive the free gift of Grace is called to live it out in all that they do.

Isaiah 56:1 (CSB) 1 This is what the Lord says: Preserve justice and do what is right, for my salvation is coming soon, and my righteousness will be revealed.

We go back a bit and realize that this is a hard thing to take when we go back 2 chapters and see all that Isaiah had encouraged them with. We can see this even in the last 2 verse of 55

Isaiah 55:12–13 (CSB) 12 You will indeed go out with joy and be peacefully guided; the mountains and the hills will break into singing before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thornbush, a cypress will come up, and instead of the brier, a myrtle will come up; this will stand as a monument for the Lord, an everlasting sign that will not be destroyed.

That is a good depiction of what was talked about before. All was good, an amazing promise was given to them, great encouragement was given to them. Who wouldn't like to hear those things? This reminds me of a backhanded compliment. like someone saying to you “You are a great singer, but you suck and could do better” or when someone says “no offense but” you know something offensive is going to be said next. This is not quite like that but probably more like a wake up call, or a splash of cold water to the face. Things are going to go good for you, but....

Reveling in the unconditional promises of God in the last two chapters comes the cold water of the truth. They need to first start living their lives for God. God tells us now as well that we need to do what is right in his eyes to do what is right translates to “do righteousness”. The promise is there that the salvation of the Lord will be revealed, which we know is through the messiah

but what we forget sometimes is that in order to be a child of God, we need to “do righteousness. We need to live our lives as if we are a child of God. This is leading out of the previous few chapters but also leading into the call for all people to accept God, it all works together. You want this promise of salvation, you must live your life for me as if you are my children. How is it that we can do righteoussness and live our lives as if we are children of God.

Isaiah 56:2 (CSB) 2 Happy is the person who does this, the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.

This will bring us happiness and joy knowing that we are living our lives in righteousness. We sometimes struggle with this, wondering how we can find joy in our life, well we are told that we can find joy in striving to live a righteous life before our Lord.

3-6 - come as you are

what qualifies us to become part of the family of God? The Grace of God is free to all, we are told to come as we are and this is what we are going to go through next. The people of God we have learned are those that show they have a relationship with Him by living a life for Him. But now we back up a step and ask what qualifies us to be able to live a life of righteousness anyways? Who is it that can come? as we anticipate the coming of the messiah we can come as we are, all are welcome.

Isaiah 56:3–4 (CSB) 3 No foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord should say, “The Lord will exclude me from his people,” and the eunuch should not say, “Look, I am a dried-up tree.” 4 For the Lord says this: “For the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, and choose what pleases me, and hold firmly to my covenant,

The doing of righteousness and justice are so much a part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus that it is not just a thing the Israelite's could do. All where welcome. They where God’s chosen people but the message was not just for them. It is for us as well.

The people whom God brings into His family are not who you would expect. Jesus tells us to come as we are but sometimes we don't really agree with it or believe it some times.

we have the foreigner and the Eunich. Outcasts in society at the time, especially in the people of Israel. In Deuteronomy, they where told that the foreigners and the eunuchs had no place in the assembly of the Lord. So the people took it a step further and likely would have had a hard time accepting them as part of their family at all.

the outcasts. The foreigner is fairly straightforward. After all they where supposed to have cleansed Canaan as a tool of the judgement of God on the sins of the nations but they didn't listen. The foreigners where a reminder of this. Yet even then God said if the foreigner came to Him he would accept them as His own. if you call on the name of the Lord you can be saved.

The Eunuchs where used as servants usually in the harems or somewhere by the king. Sometimes it was done to pacify the people, or stop them from reproducing. Some where born that way the bible says, most where forced to be one. More outcasts that had no worth in society.

yet God says to the outcasts that live for me, who do as I say and give their lives to me...

Isaiah 56:5–6 (CSB) 5 I will give them, in my house and within my walls, a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give each of them an everlasting name that will never be cut off. 6 As for the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to become his servants— all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold firmly to my covenant—

God says come to me all who are weary and laden, come to me all you downtrodden and you outcasts but what about someone like Jeffrey Dahmer? Most people know of Jeffrey Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, pedophile, and cannibal. When word of his crimes spread through our nation after he was arrested in 1991 no one could believe the horrendous acts that he had committed. When it was reported that Jeffrey had become a born-again Christian and been baptized, it was equally hard for some people to believe.

we do not know His heart, yet we do know that even the likes of Him can be forgiven. anyone who comes to the name of the Lord has a place within His family and within his kingdom. what a promise we can anticipate.

we become His children, we become glad to serve the one who gave us so great a promise.

7-8 - the promise

you have to understand that the foreigner and the outcast had no place in the assembly of the Lord but God says here that all who come to Him, no matter who they are or what they have done, could become part of the family. Now this was always the case, all could be part of the people of god but to be part of the assembly was different. But there was going to come a day where that would all change.

Isaiah 56:7–8 (CSB)7 I will bring them to my holy mountain and let them rejoice in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” 8 This is the declaration of the Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel: “I will gather to them still others besides those already gathered.”

We have the promise given to us for those that come to Jesus. This is why we can anticipate the coming messiah. He will bring them to His Holy mountain. He will bring you to where He is. Not only will the Lord permit you to come but He will lead you himself. He will gather us all together under Him.

What a great joy and promise that will be. Never before where the foreigners like us asked to be a part of the sabbath. The significance behind this is astonishing. We are now part of the family of God. we can go from prohibited to welcomes with open arms.

the promise is there for all, this is what we anticipate come as you are, you to can be part of the family of God.

so what?

what we celebrate, what Jesus birth means is that we can come as we are to the throne of God. A great salvation is offered to us, a joy beyond measure, something that there would be no hopes of earning on our own.

There is a righteousness that is offered to us that we didn’t pay for. Imagine committing a crime and earning the death penalty (if we had one). There is no way you are getting out of that death penalty, death is a certain thing it is just a matter of time. Now imagine someone willingly came and offered to take your place on death row at no cost to you, just because of their love for you?

I have a friend who told me once that he did not want to come to church for fear the Lord would strike Him with lightening. He was joking but hidden in that statement was a sliver of truth. The fear of not being accepted. You see He is an alcoholic, addicted to drugs, unfaithful to His wife sometimes. to be faced with that by God is not fun. But God says to him and to us all come as you are and be forgiven. There is no sin to great that the love of God is not greater still. This is our source of Joy.

as you come to him we are told to keep justice and do righteousness.

As we have been learning in 1 Peter, it doesn't end with giving your life to Jesus, you must live for Him as well.

in anticipation of the coming of the messiah, come as you are, come to Jesus with your brokeness and give your life to Him. Then one day we will celebrate together at the biggest best party there is when Jesus comes again.