Our scripture reading comes from Isaiah 55 this evening. Isaiah 55, let us open together. Isaiah 55. This is the word of the living God. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. 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 yourself in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness for the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, You shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you because of the Lord your God and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. 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, to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 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 sower and bread to 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 send 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 briar shall come up the myrtle. And it shall make a name for the Lord. and everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. Amen. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. This morning, we have heard the call of the office bearers. And this evening, we are going to look at the call of every believer. The call, so to speak, the call of the office of believer. People of God, only a couple days before, we celebrated the birthday of our Savior, Christ Jesus. And let me ask you a simple question. Why do we celebrate his birthday after 2,000 years, but not the birthday of other people who lived in the past? We still celebrate the birthday, our beloved Savior, because he is still alive. He didn't remain dead, but he defeated the death and all the power of the darkness. Remember what angels spoke to the woman when they went to see Jesus and his tomb. Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. No one could have found him in the tomb in there because Jesus Christ has risen. Jesus Christ still lives and Christ Jesus still speaking to us today through his holy word. At this very moment, he is speaking to you. We celebrate and we will continue to celebrate his birthday as long as this world continues to last because he has risen. The birth of our savior is not just a pinnacle moment for the people who live after his birth, but it was a long awaited moment and event for the Israelites who lived before his birth. The coming of the Savior was a long expected event in the Old Testament, which God had begun to announce the Savior who's going to come and save his people from the Garden of Eden all the way to the last prophet, John the Baptist. Every minor and major event in the Old Testament points to the one who's coming to save his people. So both the Old Testament and the New Testament are witnesses of the same Savior, Christ Jesus. And the birth of this Savior fuses the Old Testament and the New Testament into one holy testimony of the triune God. As it is written in the Canons of Dort, God sends the gospel to the world out of his good pleasure. And the Old Testament manifests exactly the same gospel as the New Testament does. The Lord calls his people in Isaiah 55 as he calls them in the New Testament. There is only one call of the gospel and it never changes throughout the scripture. The book of Isaiah was written around 700 years before the birth of Jesus, and it has some, one of the most explicit prophecies about the Savior who will restore the broken relationship with God and His people. That's why some theologians call Isaiah the fifth gospel. providentially wrote his books in three section. These are not three different books, but in each of the section, Isaiah focuses on one main theme. So we are going to look at Isaiah 55 today, which is the last chapter of the second section. The second section starts from chapter 40 and ends at chapter 55. So chapter 55 is the climax of the second section. And Christ Jesus, the servant of the Lord, is the one who is speaking in this chapter to us. And today, I want to draw your attention to this main idea that I will repeat several times and expand it as we go through today. You must accept and repent You must accept the gospel and repent while God has made it possible. You must accept the gospel and repent while God has made it possible. We are going to look at our passage with these two points, the celestial invitation and the earthly response. First of all, the celestial invitation is an urgent invitation. God commands us to come four times only in verse one. Four times. God is not asking or pleading. He is commanding Israelite to come to him. And the Lord invites whoever Here's his call, because this is an urgent call. How do we know that? Let us read, let us look at the verse six again. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. So there will be times, it won't matter how much you look, how much you try to find God, you won't be able to find him. So God commands Israel to come right away. Otherwise they will be left outside alone. So this is an urgent call for Israelites. Because the call will last long forever. And apart from urgency of the call, we are also invited a feast that we are not expected to pay anything. The Lord calls the one who is thirst and who has no money. He doesn't call the full or the rich. God calls his people, yet he only expect them to repent and obey his call. Because someone has paid the price. Someone made the way. And only two chapters before, we read who was this person. Isaiah says in chapter 53, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was a chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. God invites his people on the merit of Jesus Christ, the faithful servant of the Lord. Without the work of the Christ, Jesus Christ, there would not be even an invitation. And we would have left out in this world, in this darkness, without any hope. Jesus Christ also repeats this invitation. Several times in the New Testament as well, exactly the same invitation. For example, he says in John, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. And the Spirit exactly repeats the same invitation in the Revelation. Come! And let the one who hears say, come! And let the one who is thirsty, come! Let the one who desires take the water of life without price. So God has been calling his people with the exact same call on the exact same foundation in all times. In Jesus Christ, we are called. In Jesus Christ, we live. In Jesus Christ, we will be glorified. God doesn't give as the world gives, brothers and sisters. You will be never full of what you get from this world. It will only make you more hungry and thirsty. The more you have from this world, you become more unsatisfied. There is no real satisfaction in this world. The world fills your life with so many things that only makes you happy for a short time. And you have to keep paying the price if you want to stay happy. And this becomes a vicious cycle. You cannot get away from it once you enter. But God gives free because He knows that you have nothing to pay for it. And God knows what you need. God knows that you struggle. God knows that you suffer. God knows that you feel lost and even sometimes hopeless. He understands you perfectly because He experienced everything you have had. Even so much more that you won't have to experience. because of his earthly ministry. Yet he says, come, come to the water, eat, drink, delight in rich food. God has done everything for our salvation. There is absolutely nothing we can do because he has done it perfectly. And secondly, the celestial invitation is also a firm invitation because of the inviter. If you ask me which word would describe God for me in the Old Testament, I would right away say His faithfulness. God's faithfulness to His people and to His covenant is the sole reason we are here today and we are talking about the gospel. God gave a promise to Abraham thousands and thousands years before Isaiah, but he has never forgotten his promise. Just think about that for a moment. We sometimes forget our promises only an hour later, but God is faithful to his promises for thousands and thousands of years. God is not like us. God would never disappoint us as we disappoint each other. God never forgets his covenant promises. And God gives the same assurance here in verse three. He says, I will make you an everlasting covenant. My steadfast, sure love for David. And he calls his people not just to be part of an ordinary feast, but He calls them to His covenant. And He makes an everlasting covenant which came to fruitation in Christ Jesus' life and His ministry. And He calls all the nation as He promised to Abraham. And the biggest benefit of this covenant As we read in Isaiah 55, what we read is the steadfast love and sure love of God. The Hebrew word that is used here in this verse is a very special word, and it reflects God's loyal love, faithful love, and it's only used for His covenant people. So when you read the word love here, it's specifically used to show you God's loyal love to His people. So how do we know that God loves us? How can we know it? because God has proven his love with his actions. God just doesn't speak about it, but he gave his only begotten son to save sinners that he loves. The son of God, despised and rejected, so God would welcome us. He was wounded, so we can be healed. The innocent died for the guilty. He died and he did all of these things willingly. Can it be a better expression of love than Christ's love for his people? Can someone love anyone as Christ loves his people? How many times we have disappointed him? Yet how many times we have been shown grace and mercy. God's covenant people can echo these verses in Romans 8 in confidence. What Paul says, for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. So, incline your ears to this firm invitation because you must accept the gospel invitation and repent while God has made it possible. Celestial invitation is also a universal invitation as we read in verse 5. To explain the extent of this invitation, God uses some extreme example around the chapter 55. When you look chapter 54, chapter 56, or chapters around 55, you see whom is called. For example, God calls barren women, wives that were cast off in their youth, the poor, the wicked, The unrighteous, foreigners, and eunuchs are invited by the Lord to be part of his covenant. In Isaiah 56-7, we read this, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. God creates himself a nation that reflects his mercy and grace As Jesus says this in Mark, you're all familiar with this verse, those who are well have no need of physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. God calls the hungry. God calls the thirsty, the poor, and God hates the self-righteous. God hates the proud. If you're a member of this house today, you are called to declare this wonderful work of his hand. You are not here to be proud of yourself because we don't have anything to proud of ourself apart from Christ Jesus. And as his household, brothers and sisters, What are you telling to the world today? What does the world see when it looks into your life? Are you reflecting God's wonderful plan of salvation or are you reflecting your self-righteousness? If you think that you are here today because you are somewhat better than other people that are outside of this building, if you think that you are saved because you are not like those sinners who live in the darkness, you are not trusting God. But you are trusting to yourself. But if you are here today because you're hungry, because you're thirsty, because you're poor, and know that you can be saved through Christ alone and faith alone, it means that you are trusting God. So, again, you must accept the gospel invitation and repent. while God has made it possible. And our second point, the earthly response, first of all, needs to be an urgent response as well. Let us read verses six to nine one more time. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous men 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. In Hebrew, the first sentence of the verse six, if you translate literally, it means, while he allows himself to be found. While he allows himself to be found. So gospel is an urgent call, as we discussed in verse one, because God says that there will be time, you will not find me, even you look so hard. We can only find God if God makes himself possible for us to be found. We can only find God because he makes himself possible for us. Just think about that for a moment. We didn't climb up to heaven to find him. He came down to this earth to be found. And do you realize in this verse why the gospel is such a wonderful news? Because God shows himself to the sinner even before the sinner repents. God shows his mercy and grace even before we realize our own rebellion and acknowledge our sins. Paul speaks about this explicitly in Romans 5. Paul says, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. This is the good news. This is the wonderful news. And God only expects repentance from the sinner because He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. And God expects us not just to repent from our sin, but he expects us to change our direction, as we read in these verses, and to walk on a new path, the path of the righteousness. So this is not just saying, I am sorry, Lord, I have sinned. But this is a life-changing repentance. If you are gods, you must show this with your life. You must forsake your sins and begin to walk on the path of righteousness. You need to show your faith with your actions. Because faith without work is dead. And I would like to realize the heart of God in verse 7 especially. Being full of grace and mercy, God is more than ready to accept anyone who repents and returns to him. God has never rejected anyone, but he accepted them because God made himself possible for us. because God has prepared the way for us. So we repeat again, return to him now, return him and find mercy, find forgiveness of your sins and everlasting life because you will find them in the shadow of his wings. But you might be thinking that my sins cannot be forgiven because I have done terrible things. How God can forgive such a person like me? Or you might be looking outside of yourself and saying, how does this person can be here? How could this person be accepted to the body of the saints? Doesn't anybody know how terrible he was before? These kinds of people have no place in the church. So what does God say to you? He says in this verses, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my way, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. So God's mercy and grace goes beyond of our comprehension. So we need to be thankful to the Lord because of that. Because if God was thinking like us, just imagine, who could be saved? Remember, God is calling the poor, the thirsty, the hungry, the barren, the unique, the outsiders, the foreigners. So the work of the servant is more than sufficient to wash away all the sins of his people. So you must accept the gospel invitation and repent while God has made it possible. Our earthly response is also a firm response, a definite response, because it emerges from the work of the servant, Christ Jesus. Let us remember verses 10 and 11. 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 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 things for which I sent it. The zeal of the Lord will surely produce the fruit of righteousness in his people's life, because this is the work of his Son, This will happen without any question because the one who speaks is the Lord himself who created the heavens and earth as we declared every Sunday. God says and it happens. God says and things come to being and God says things come to an end. Therefore, God's word here that we read is the guarantor for the repented sinner because Christ Jesus gives the same assurance in John 10, what he says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father are one. Aren't we all in search of security? We look for a secure house for our family. We look for a secure job to pay our expenses. We look for a good secure treatment when we get sick. One of our top priorities of this life is to find security, secure life, which is quite possible in the USA compared to other countries in the world. But how about your soul? How often do you think about eternity? Or do you only worry about the short life that you will have in this world? If you have repented and confessed that Christ Jesus is your Lord and Savior, you have already received the best assurance, best guarantee that you could ever receive. But if you haven't repented, you must accept the gospel invitation and repent while God has made it possible. And lastly, the result of our earth response, our response takes us back to garden of Eden, to paradise. That's what Isaiah talks about in verse 12 and 13. God will reverse the curse. God will restore the whole creation. And the whole creation will be looked like its formal glory. God will renew everything. You all shall go out in joy because there will be no wars, no hunger, no killings. The whole creation will rejoice with God's people. And you will see God face to face. God who truly loves you. And all of this will take place because zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. People of God, the same urgency still exists today. The Lord says in Revelation, the very last book of the Bible, and behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. Jesus is coming quickly. Remember his very first words when he began his earthly ministry. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. If you haven't come to him, you don't have a single day to lose. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians, now is the acceptable time, and behold, now is the day of salvation. You must accept the gospel invitation and repent while God had made possible because now it is the time. Christ Jesus is our cornerstone. He is our assurance. He is our high priest who still lives and advocates us before the Father so we can join the feast and live with him forever. The call of the gospel is a wonderful news, a perfect news. we could ever receive in our lives, and it's all because Christ Jesus, the servant of the Lord. And don't forget these words, brothers and sisters, from 2 Peter. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation, a people for his own possessions, that you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light. So in this new year, hold on the promises that you can find in Isaiah 55, and proclaim excellent savior of this world. May your minds and hearts continue to root in the gospel in this new year, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Almighty God, graciously grant that your word which we have heard may be inscribed inwardly on our hearts. As we receive your word meekly with pure affection, may our hearts be filled with love and reverence for you. All this we pray for the honor and praise of your name.