A Community with God

A Community with God

Isaiah 55:6-13

ILL- Back in McAlester- Living in Wewoka

Talking to friend from high school that ran track. Now track coach.

Community- people know us.

A better understanding of how individual actions affect everyone.

Accountability.

Isaiah is addressing everyone, not just Israel (pronouns of chapter 55 compared to 40-54). God is offering something better to the nations of the world.

This community will be known in the N.T. as the church.

Ekklesia= The Greeks- The meeting together of the community in order to accomplish a common purpose.

In the Athenian democracy used by early Rome it was how a local community would take care of important matters.

A herald would summon the citizens of the community in order to come together for a specific purpose.

Christian community- where believers gather together in order to accomplish what Jesus, our herald, has called us to accomplish.

When God's presence is the center, community is different.

The local community where we Gather, Grow, Go

Isaiah 55:6–13 ESV

“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; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 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 but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

4 Characteristics of a Godly Community

1. Relationship (6)

Isaiah 55:6 ESV

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;

Who do we spend our time seeking?

Our community is based on our relationship with God.

“Seek the Lord”- more than just trying to see him.

Deuteronomy 4:29 ESV

But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Psalm 34:10 ESV

The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Seeking= calling, praying, developing a relationship.

2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV

if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

“while”= He can be found and is near- for now. -

Door will shut.

Luke 13:24–25 ESV

“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’

Revelation 3:7 ESV

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.

ILL- Getting to church yesterday and being locked out.

Bret opened from Arizona.

The keys give authority to open and shut.

God is patient- but his patients has its end because of need for justice.

2 Peter 3:9–10 ESV

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

2. Repentance (7)

Isaiah 55:7 ESV

let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

“forsake his way”= surrender his will.

We all have the same Lord/ Boss = The one we surrender to.We replace our will with His will.

Luke 13:5 ESV

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Pardon= not just the normal word for forgiveness

literally- “he will abundantly pardon”

New Testament forgiveness is different than O.T.

This passage is looking to the future Messiah.

Isaiah 53:11–12 ESV

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

O.T. uses idea of Atonement to refer to forgiveness.

Atonement is the covering of sins by blood of sacrifice.

N.T. uses propitiation. - complete removal.

Romans 3:23–25 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

N.T. provided a complete and perfect forgiveness.

Hebrews 9:13–14 ESV

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

3. Change (8-11)

Change comes with repentance because we are no longer serving ourselves but God.

Change of Perspective (8-9)

Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 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.

God’s ways are not our ways.

He sees more than we do. All knowing and eternal.

When God’s ways do not make sense it is a problem with our perspective. It is never a problem with God.

ILL- House not selling. My ways would have been different.

Change of Purpose (10-11)

Isaiah 55:10–11 ESV

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

God is in control- When he speaks it happens exactly as he plans it. There are no mistakes or accidents.

Our Purpose will come from God’s Word.

We change our life to be in the center of his perfect will.

Psalm 119:105 ESV

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

4. Joy (12-13)

Isaiah 55:12–13 ESV

“For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

The promise of those who are in this community is Joy.

Joy is not about present circumstances. It is about future results of the present circumstances.

Wednesday nights.

James 1:2 ESV

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

James 1:12 ESV

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Hebrews 12:2 ESV

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

“The joy set before him”= that which was to come.

These last two verses in Isaiah 55 point to the Millennial Kingdom.

Mountains, hills and tree= figuratively referring to the joy that will fill the earth.

Singing and clapping is the way God has called us to express joy.

Isaiah 42:10–11 ESV

Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants. Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits; let the habitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the top of the mountains.

One day there will be no more troubles.

God will put a complete end to the curse of sin. (13)

Isaiah 55:13 ESV

Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

CONCLUSION

Jesus came to give us a more abundant life.

Sin separates us from him but Jesus took the initiative by coming to earth to pay the price for us.

Surrender to Jesus and enter his amazing community.